Wednesday, 19 November 2025

 Sarah CONNOLLY (Laverton) (17:16): I am so glad to stand here and join this grievance debate. I am going to talk about something pretty important. It is funny, because this morning I was at a school with our Premier, and I was thinking about the grievance debate. It is just so relevant for this debate this afternoon. I stand here and I grieve for the wonderful people of Victoria should those opposite ever, ever find themselves in charge of our energy transition – God help us.

Just this morning down at Sunshine College I was with the Premier, the Deputy Premier, the Attorney-General and the Minister for Youth. We were there of course to announce that we are putting in early intervention officers, highly specialised social workers, as part of our violence reduction unit. This is an early intervention and prevention strategy that we are working hard on. There at Sunshine College we had an opportunity before the press conference to go ahead and ask students in year 7, year 9 and I think year 10 and 11 questions at a little bit of a roundtable. It was a bit strange, surrounded by all the cameras. It must have been really intimidating for these wonderful schoolkids. But the Premier asked them if they had any questions for her, and one bright, fabulous young woman, only 13 years old – I was shocked; she seemed a lot more mature than 13 – piped up and said, ‘I have a question.’ We all turned and we all leaned in, and guess what that question was? It was about climate change. It was about the environment. It was about the importance of protecting this planet and tackling climate change and having strategies in place, like every responsible government should have, to go ahead and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. She said this was something of real importance to her. It really meant a lot. This is a 13-year-old. Everyone around the table agreed.

The Premier said, ‘What a great question. I’m so glad you asked.’ The Premier went on to talk about what our government is doing to tackle climate change. She started off with, ‘Great question. It is a really complex issue, but there are a lot of things our government is doing.’ She started to list some of them off, talking about the need to invest in renewable energy, reduce our emissions and ensure Victoria can transition away from coal-fired power stations. Our Premier brought up the SEC. I know she loves the SEC, with the history of her dad. And the Deputy Premier, he jumped in there too. It was about what we are doing to help individual households switch to solar and energy-efficient appliances. It was a great conversation. This young girl really conveyed passionately how she felt about the planet and climate change and the importance of preserving our planet, not just for her generation but for generations to come. If you have children – and I know that the new Leader of the Opposition and member for Kew likes to point out that, yes, she is a mum now – this is a conversation that happens when you talk to kids, including your own kids, and when you are at schools. Regardless of whatever grade you are talking to students from, they always ask about climate change and the environment, and they convey to you how important this is. You are a politician, you are in government and you represent the community; you are also there as a mum. And you need to do something to save the planet.

It was great to be sitting next to the Premier as she talked about what this Labor government has been doing for the past – I am counting up now – 10, 11 years in government to tackle climate change, and the students were really happy to hear that. I was sitting there. The cameras were around. We had to leave, and then we got roped into this press conference. But I could not help but sit there and think: what would the member for Kew say to that question? How would the new Leader of the Opposition respond to that question? In fact the member for Kew has come here on quite a few occasions over the past three years to talk about her visits to schools, talking to schoolkids, and I really do have to wonder what she tells young people about the views and policy of the Liberal Party, the party that she is now heading up here in Victoria, and what they would do to tackle climate change, to protect the environment, not just for this generation but for generations to come.

This is a really interesting question, because I think that the member for Kew may consider herself a more moderate leader than her predecessor – I am not sure about that – but we have seen at the federal level moderate leaders, or those claiming to be moderate leaders, just like the member for Kew, totally beholden to absolute fossils in their party who continue to undermine Victoria and this country’s strategy for lowering emissions and reaching net zero. You probably know where I am going to go with this. It is a very uncomfortable narrative for those opposite that consider themselves to hold a more moderate position than some of those who have totally extremist views about climate change. The Leader of the Opposition just yesterday, fresh in her role, appeared to echo the same kind of commentary as her federal counterparts in Canberra. It was very interesting to watch.

In fact the new Leader of the Opposition in the Council, God love her, Mrs McArthur has been one of the leading climate sceptics in the Liberal Party for many, many years now. It is something she is entirely proud of. She voted to scrap net zero at the Victorian Liberal Party state council. That was just two months ago. This was not years ago; this was two months ago, in September. According to Mrs McArthur, climate has always been subject to natural variations and we should not blame coal and gas for every extreme weather event, and she has even called for nuclear power in Victoria. Can you imagine that narrative coming out of the mouth of the member for Kew, the new Leader of the Opposition, and her speaking openly about that kind of view – likely the view that she is going to be forced to hold with the likes of Mrs McArthur standing very closely at her back? Imagine having that narrative, taking that view, having chats to kids all around this state about nuclear energy and nuclear power plants and saying that we should not be blaming coal and gas for every extreme weather event and that the climate has always been subject to natural variations. I have to say, Victorian students are smart, kids are smart, and the member for Kew will soon realise that as her children continue to grow up. Children are smart, and they are learning about the environment; they are learning about climate change and the importance of tackling this challenge, this issue, for generations to come. They want us to do something. They want action to be taken. The first action that they want is an actual belief that it exists and that it is not some furphy that has been made up by leftie scientists.

But Mrs McArthur is not alone in this kind of scepticism. Earlier this year we had Mr Davis, also in the other place – himself a former opposition leader there – actually move a motion endorsing Chris Uhlmann’s Sky after dark documentary The Real Cost of Net Zero. That really does sound like a program on Sky after dark, doesn’t it?

You can imagine what that documentary actually was. It was an ideology-riddled, erroneous, ignorant piece that basically calls for governments to abandon climate action. Can you imagine going and speaking with 13-year-olds, 14-year-olds, 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds about abandoning action on climate change because it does not exist? Imagine having that conversation with a classroom of kids. Those kids may not be eligible to vote right now, but should the Leader of the Opposition ever find herself in the seat of Premier here in this state, it would be very interesting to see what kinds of conversations she has been having if that is indeed the policy of the new reformed Liberal Party that she now claims to lead with a line having been drawn in the sand.

I do not know if anyone here can – I know certainly on this side of the house we could not; I do not know about that side of the house – but I do not think I can actually name, after being here for the last seven years in this place, a single policy that those opposite have championed or taken to an election that would ever deliver real climate action and reduce electricity prices.

Paul Edbrooke interjected.

Sarah CONNOLLY: Oh, I am sorry. I knew there would be one on this side of the house: nuclear. Let us go nuclear in Victoria. Let us build nuclear power plants. We saw what that was like here in this chamber. We were actually trying to determine where in Victoria they would be built. What an outrageous proposition that you can be a complete denier of climate change and then say that the one thing that will fix it all will be to put nuclear power plants here in Victoria. Well, we know Victorians do not want that, and we, Allan Labor government, have been so clear here on this side of the house, continuously clear, that we will never stand for, we will never support, we will never invest in and we will never back nuclear power plants here in Victoria. We do not need to, because the science and the facts are clear. We are investing in renewable energy, and it is working.

Years ago – it feels like a long time ago after being here in this place for nearly eight years – I worked for 13 years across the country in the energy sector. I remember a time up in Queensland before we started rolling out solar panels on every rooftop in homes across the south-east. I was in Brisbane at the time, and we were talking about solar-powered energy, we were talking about batteries and we were talking about electric vehicles before really they were even on the road and how we would charge them. Rolling out charging stations across the country: would it be possible? We know it is possible; it is happening. Where there is a will, there is a way. I can tell you from my experience in this industry for over a decade that the claims in that documentary on Sky after dark were absolute rubbish. It is absolutely ridiculous that Mr Davis’s motion in the other place called on the minister here in this place to consider these claims. It just gets more and more ridiculous.

There are the elder statesmen – I was going to say statesmen; there are so many elder statesmen in the Victorian Liberal Party, but let us call them statespeople, to be fair – in the Victorian Liberal party room who are calling the shots quite clearly on climate policy, just as they do in Canberra, and we know how that has played out in the past couple of weeks in Canberra. It is appalling to watch. It is actually quite sad watching the now federal leader of the coalition, who quite clearly believes in climate change and taking action, now having to try and endorse a policy where they are not allowed to mention net zero because they have got so many climate change deniers who have taken over the party. Her days, quite frankly, are numbered. So one has to ask oneself: what position will the member for Kew be taking? What position will she be taking on climate change to the election? I do not know if folks in her electorate would accept that she is a climate change denier and that she thinks we should do absolutely nothing on climate change here in this state, let alone this country, because it does not exist. But one has to wonder: will the member for Kew be able to make those policies up on her own?

Because here in this chamber, I have no doubt, and definitely in the other place, they have people who have quite extreme views on climate change. I have just talked about Mr Davis and Mrs McArthur. Mrs McArthur would be quite open to talking to folks about it. She thinks climate change does not exist but is more than happy to roll out nuclear power plants here in Victoria.

It will be interesting if the member for Kew makes it. You could take a bet either way after there being – what did we say – six or seven Liberal Party leaders over the past couple of years. Is it six or seven or is it 10? Who knows what it will be next November. But it will be really interesting to see the member for Kew stand up and try to talk strongly about climate change and her position on climate change and the party’s position on climate change. I suspect that if she takes a moderate approach she will not be leading that party to the election in November.

So I do grieve for Victorians. I grieve for Victorian kids, the kids that I met today. You can sit around and have a sensible, rational, realistic, science-driven conversation with young people – as young as 13 – at school about the importance of preserving the environment and tackling climate change. I grieve for Victorians if those opposite ever get into power.