Renewable Energy Target

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:33): A supplementary, sir: despite all of the evidence, is the government now considering an even higher state-based renewable energy target for South Australia, following the Premier's statements on Lateline last week that stated, 'We are not going to slow down'?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Minister for the Arts) (14:33): Well, we are not going to slow down. We're not going to be dragged backwards by the knuckle-draggers in the federal parliament. We're simply not going there. We are not going to have the federal Coalition, which is utterly in the thrall of the coal industry, dictate to South Australia about what its policies should be. This is the means by which we are going to establish an international reputation for cutting-edge technology.

Everybody understands that we are going to have to transition to a low carbon future. Intelligent people understand that there are advantages associated for first movers when they move then. First movers that decide to adopt those technologies first will attract the businesses that will decide to locate here.

Do you think that there is a reason why, on page 3 of the Australian Financial Review this week, Mike Cannon-Brookes, probably one of the most important young industrialists in this nation, a billionaire by the age of about 30, decided to attack the commonwealth government's go-slow on renewable energy? These are the people you are associating yourself with. You are associating yourself with the knuckle-draggers in the federal parliament, the people who actually want to go slow on renewable energy. That is the future you want to confine this country and this nation to.

The young people of this nation also understand that they have to live on this planet. They have to live on a planet which is choking through carbon pollution, and they are simply not going to tolerate a backward-looking party that consigns them and their children to a lower standard of living, a lower quality of life, than the one they have come to expect. They will look back on these debates and they will label the Liberal Party as the guilty party.

The SPEAKER: When the minister debates the question and the opposition responds with a wall of interjections, the only ruling can be, 'Play on.' At first drop, unusually, the member for Flinders.