During Question time on Tuesday 15 March 2022, I asked the Premier about the climate crisis and the recent flooding disaster.
You can read the full question and her answer below, or in the official Queensland Parliament Record of Proceedings (Hansard).
Mr BERKMAN: My question this morning is to the Premier. After the tragic floods that hit so many of our constituents, the Premier has quite rightly said, ‘Let’s face it. It is climate change.’ Does the Premier accept that unless we urgently phase out coal and gas in an orderly way by 2030 we are making the next floods even more deadly and destructive?
Ms PALASZCZUK: I thank the member for the question. I know there are people impacted in his local community as well. He also would share the views of members of parliament who have been out and about that people have been severely impacted and their lives have been absolutely and completely turned upside down. From having to deal with a pandemic, the COVID pandemic, to then deal with these life-threatening floods of natural disasters is not something I think anyone would like to deal with one after the other.
Can I say to the member for Maiwar that I have publicly said that during my time as Premier I have seen far too many natural disasters in this state. Of course, climate change is real and climate change is happening. These are challenges for all governments. The time for governments to acknowledge that and to step up is absolutely now.
That is why we have a 50 per cent renewable energy target by 2030. I say to the House that it is something that every single one of this team of my government is absolutely focused on. We know that our 50 per cent renewable energy target is achievable if we put all of our efforts into that, and we are seeing huge amounts of investment. When it comes to renewable energy, we have our $2 billion renewable energy fund. We are still yet to see any matching contributions from the federal government.