Television interview with Minister Butler, Sunrise – 19 September 2025

NATALIE BARR, HOST: Taxpayers remain in the dark this morning over how much the government will have to spend to achieve its new emissions reduction target. Treasury forecasts the 62 to 70 per cent reduction by 2035 could boost our economy by more than $2 trillion by 2050, and Jim Chalmers, the Treasurer, has said the investment required would largely come from the private sector. But the ambitious plan requires a major overhaul of Australia's reliance on renewables. For more, we're joined by Health Minister Mark Butler and Liberal Senator Jane Hume. Good morning. Mark, how are you going to cut our electricity bills, which you're apparently promising, by $1000 a year?
 
MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: By putting in a plan. What energy industry investors have been telling us for years now is they want a clear plan about how we're going to make this transition to clean energy that is happening right around the world. And I'm sure that yesterday's plan is the right plan for Australia. It's the right plan for our climate, consistent with the scientific advice. But importantly, it's the right plan for the economy and for jobs. And Treasury modelling that we released yesterday bears that out. It's by far the most beneficial plan for our economy over the next few decades, particularly compared to what would happen if we do nothing. The worst situation will be if there's no plan. And frankly, that's what Jane is having to fight in her party room right now. The idea we just stick our head in the sand and not see any investment to take advantage of the huge opportunities as the world transitions to clean energy.
 
BARR: So, Mark, before the ‘22 election, only three years ago, you guys stood there and, according to Hansard, which is the thing that, you know, tracks what you pollies say, Anthony Albanese said 97 times that you would bring our electricity bills down by $275. Now, you've got all these stats and you're going to bring them down by $1000. Why should Australians believe you?
 
BUTLER: Because investors have said this is the plan that they want. We know that clean energy is the cheapest and the cleanest, obviously, form of energy.
 
BARR: Wait, so we should believe the investors?
 
BUTLER: The investors have said they have to rebuild 24 of the 28 coal-fired power stations that during the last Coalition government announced they would close, because, frankly, they're getting old. They're just well beyond their life. Investors need a plan to invest in new energy, and they've told us the cheapest form of new energy is clean energy. That is the right plan for Australia going forward, for our climate, but importantly for our economy and for our jobs as well.
 
BARR: Jane, I don't feel like we have an opposition at the moment. You guys can't even believe whether climate change is real, can you?
 
SENATOR JANE HUME: Well, that's not at all true. Of course, we believe that climate change is real.
 
BARR: Really? Your whole party?
 
HUME: Absolutely. And of course, we believe that you should bring down emissions. But the real question is, at what cost? What Mark and his team have announced yesterday is an additional $8 billion in spending to roll out twice as many renewables as they have in the last three years. And yet at the same time, they've failed to bring emissions down at all. In fact, under the Coalition government, emissions came down by 28 per cent. Under Labor, they've come down zero, donuts, nothing, nada. You have not moved the dial one little bit. And yet you've spent so much taxpayer money, and now you want to spend even more. Double that renewables rollout. We don't believe that the target that the Labor government announced yesterday is not only going to not achieve those emissions reductions, but it's going to do so at the cost of taxpayers. What the government should be focusing on right now is bringing energy prices down.
 
You released a report on Monday that was the most alarmist, Armageddon, we're all going to die from climate change report, and it had such precise details in it. But at no point have you ever been able to say exactly when energy prices will come down.
 
BARR: Well, they're saying in 10 years by the sound of it. Mark, first of all, can you promise in 10 years that more than 90 per cent of electricity will be generated by renewables? Does that sound like pie in the sky?
 
BUTLER: No, we're very confident about that. Every time this country has set a renewable energy target, people have said, we'll never get there. Not only do we always get there, we usually surpass it as well. As I said, 24 of the 28 coal-fired power stations, most of which were built way back in the 1970s or at the latest, the late 1980s, said they had to close because they were too old. It didn't really have anything to do with climate change policy. It just had to do with their age. We have to replace all of that energy infrastructure. The energy industry knows that. The Business Council knows that. And they will replace it with renewable energy.
 
BARR: Okay. We’ve got to leave it there, we’ve got to go to other things, but thank you very much both for joining us.