Today I’m delighted to be here. 100 conversations on climate change presents a hundred visionary Australians who are taking positive action to respond to the most critical issue of our time, climate change.

We’re broadcasting today in the Boiler Room of the Powerhouse Museum. Before it was home to the museum, it was the Ultimo Power Station. Unique industrial features remain including the imposing chimneys you entered between and the coal cart tracks that run underneath this stage. In the context of this architectural artefact, we’re shifting our focus forward to the innovations of the net zero revolution.

I’d like to acknowledge that we are meeting today on the traditional lands of the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation, and I pay my respects to their Elders past present and future.

My name is Marian Wilkinson. Let me introduce today’s guest Zali Steggall, the Independent Federal MP for Warringah in New South Wales. She won her seat in Canberra by taking on a former Prime Minister, Tony Abbott in the 2019 election. And since then, she’s tried to push a private Member’s bill on climate change through the Federal Parliament. Her bill would put into law a national target on net zero emissions by 2050, and establish an independent climate change commission to advise the government on how to get there. Welcome Zali Steggall. I want to start this conversation – because of what’s happened this week with the devastating floods that we’re seeing in New South Wales and also southeast Queensland. Scientists have been warning us for decades that these extreme weather events will get more frequent and more destructive. What were your thoughts when you saw the scale of this disaster unfolding?

I was incredibly sad, worried for the communities, but incredibly frustrated that here we are again at yet another natural disaster of a scale and a scope that we haven’t really seen before. So soon after the bushfires of 2019, and these are all the kind of events that we have been warned about by scientists around the world, as our climate warms, as global warming takes effect, increased humidity in the air will mean greater deluge, rain bombs, and that will increase the likelihood of these events.

And my frustration was that hearing government talk about these events as one in a hundred or one in a thousand year events, that is simply not true. These are now regular events within 10 years or less and the warning we are having from scientists is that they are going to have compounding impacts – these disasters will keep happening and get worse and worse.

Well, you are just one independent MP representing your community. Did what you saw this week, make you feel more daunted by the challenge of acting on climate change or more determined to act, or maybe a bit of both?

No more determined than ever because I think with every community, every additional person that comes to realise the impact of global warming on their safety, on their way of life, the more we move forward. We need to have that collective consciousness of the challenge we face and it’s only by gradually having everyone on board that we will get there. So I think with these events, communities are coming on board. The question though is for communities, is what are the solutions? What are the alternatives they can get behind to ensure change happens?

I want to take a big step back because I want to know what drove Zali Steggall to become the Warringah warrior. You were four years old when your parents actually took you away from Warringah and Manly and the beach to go and live in the French Alps, and you ended up spending a good deal of your childhood there. I wondered whether looking back this huge change in your early life may have sharpened your sense of the environment around you?

I was incredibly lucky to have the kind of childhood I had, with parents so keen for adventure and for a new experience, but I was also supported in pursuing all my dreams. So I was a very competitive kid, very pesky for my older brother. So those years in France, they were years in the outdoors, skiing most days, wind surfing and swimming in summer. It was really nature and the environment was sort of all around us, and I probably didn’t appreciate it the way I should have, but I took it for granted that that was such an intrinsic part of my life.

So that childhood did obviously have a lasting impact on you, but it also set you on the road to become a champion Olympic skier. I’m wondering now, for Zali Steggall today, what experiences do you draw on, particularly when you decided to throw yourself into really difficult political situations like taking on Tony Abbott?

Yes. I’ve never been one to be daunted by a challenge. So I never think about the what ifs or what could go wrong, I tend to think of the glass as half full and the world is my oyster. So as a kid, I never let myself be talked out of or daunted by a goal. I remember being about nine when I remember being called in by my ski coach and the coach at the time said, look, you’re really determined, you’re working really hard, the others might be a bit more talented than you, so you have to accept that you may not make it to the top. Of course you can imagine that was like a red rag to a bull and made me all the more determined that I will show you.

So for me, once I set that goal of wanting to be Olympic or world champion, it was about how do you make it happen? So you break it down in the manageable steps, and it is a long journey, there are many ups and downs, there are many times where you fall over, but you learn so much from each setback. Each setback teaches you more resilience, more determination, and you have to go back to the drawing board and work it out. So I think it’s through those experiences as a professional athlete that I have developed that resilience and determination to stay focused on the goal. So taking on Tony Abbott, sure, daunting, formidable opponent, experienced politician, very wily, has seen off a fair few challenges, especially as Prime Minister. But for me, I felt strongly about my strategy, what I was standing for, which I firmly believe is so important, that I really didn’t – it wasn’t really that daunting in the end.

What made you want to take on Tony Abbott in your electorate?

I think it’s an evolving journey. Obviously my career as an athlete taught me to believe in myself and go after a dream or a goal. So I did feel strongly of a professional mature woman, as I was getting on with my career, the frustration of not having more women in Parliament, not having a more gender diverse voice around the decision making table. And I did feel that Tony having been the member of Warringah for my entire voting life.

Simply, it was not a choice I identified with. I didn’t feel I was represented, and I felt that others must feel the same and would be looking for a choice. So it was important for me to step up, and give people in Warringah a choice, but also, as a professional woman you can’t just be on the sidelines, you can’t be an observer of life and sort of be frustrated and annoyed at the status quo not moving faster around climate, around gender, around respect. So many issues are not progressing as they should I think for our modern society. And I found I simply can’t be an armchair critic.

Until that time though, climate change had not been a big part of your career professionally as a barrister, and probably not even hugely personally, a big part of your thinking. When you decided to stand in Warringah, how did you immerse yourself in the climate issue, in the climate science and the climate policy, and who do you think gave you useful advice on that?

I think I’m, typifying probably many Australians, in that I was getting on with my life, I was a professional career, working mom, juggling kids in school, but also conscious of the evidence conscious of the challenges that their generation is going to face. And also as a barrister, I very much respect expert opinion.

And so it was that growing frustration that despite so much expert opinion of where the sensible pathway is in relation to our decarbonisation, we have this political football game between the major parties in Australia, where it’s not the common good that prevails, it’s the short-term win. And so that was really frustrating me and motivating me and so talking to people, talking to experts about what were the scientific solutions, what are the policy solutions to transition Australia to a net zero world? The more I talked to people, the more I found that there is a clear pathway, it doesn’t have to be so hard. Of course you need political will to do it.

Well, you went to Canberra, of course, with a big mandate to do something about climate change. One of the things that really interested me, in your maiden speech to Parliament, you said, I refuse to be part of a generation that had all the facts on climate change, but failed to take meaningful action. When did you first feel that real sense of personal responsibility that you had to act?

The minute I nominated to stand for Warringah, that I was putting myself on the line to come forward with solutions, to come forward with being a voice, to cut through the noise that we have from the major parties on climate change and on policy, to actually put forward some sensible solutions. As soon as my team was formed, we set about searching and looking at other jurisdictions.

So if you go back to 2007, when the UK passed their climate change bill, they took that path of bipartisan. Let’s agree on the, where do we hope to get to, why do we need to get there? To be safe, to have a more prosperous economy, to prosper in a decarbonised world? And then the, how gets worked out and when the how becomes difficult because ideology and different sides have different ideas, you can work through those differences. But if you’ve agreed to the overarching aspect, you have a framework to hold things together.

Now I’d like you to take us a little bit behind the scenes on this. Who was involved in that, it seemed like a big effort to get that bill into shape and into the Parliament.

We did talk to the UK, to people on the Climate Change Commission in the UK to talk with them, and people that were instrumental in how they developed the legislation and developed the climate change commission. I talked to a lot of universities, I got a lot of scientists to assist as well in terms of understanding what were the key features we need in that legislation, because what was really important for me was it’s not just the mitigation piece of needing to reduce emissions as quickly as we can, it is also accepting that we’ve baked in a lot of warming already.

To stay under two degrees, we are on, it’s going to be a difficult trajectory, and that does mean increasing natural disasters and major impacts. So we have to have that risk assessment piece. So the climate bill is structured so that we have overarching guiding principles, but then a major section is the risk assessment across all our communities, our sectors, our employment, are our health infrastructure built to be resilient to climate impacts of increased demand. We just don’t have that at the moment. And then if you’re going to assess risk, you have to develop adaptation plans to meet those risks.

Many blue-collar workers, of course, in the coal gas regions of Australia, especially like the Hunter Valley and Queensland’s coal fields will say that this will kill their jobs and their communities and the money that goes into all their local sporting clubs and fishing clubs, and support in community support groups in their towns. You have accused the National Party of selling fantasies to these communities by saying the fossil fuel industry will continue forever, or at least for a long time into the future. But has anyone really come up with a plan for these workers and their families?

Ironically, my family comes from the Hunter Valley. My dad was from Cessnock and my mum was from Maitland. And in fact, my dad’s father worked in Cessnock until the mine’s closed, and as a lawyer and had to move out. So I absolutely am concerned about those communities. It’s actually concern for those communities that drives me, that they have no plan, there is no insurance policy for those communities. The world is moving away from fossil fuels, whether you like it or not, whether you accept the risks of global warming and climate change and the impact of fossil fuels.

The question is, what is the plan for what’s next? What will those communities thrive on next? And at the moment, there is no plan, there’s this handbrake to hold onto the past for as long as possible. When what needs to happen is, a fair transition agency to be implemented, to identify those communities that are at risk, identify the job needs, what are the training needs? What do we need to put in place to ensure that in three years, five years, eight years, when those jobs are finished, those new industries are there and ready to take on.

We know we have the opportunity, especially around the treatment and production and manufacturing around some of our rare earth minerals. We send everything off untreated, we should be treating things domestically, that creates a huge amount of jobs. When we look at green steel, green aluminium, there are green hydrogen, there are lots of manufacturing opportunities, and we need to bring manufacturing back onshore. But that doesn’t happen overnight. You need a plan to implement it.

And we can’t just be in a situation for those communities where they get told that in two years time, that mine is closing by the owners and nothing has been done to prepare for that moment. That is criminal. I don’t blame the communities, they are focused on their day-to-day life. They need the jobs, they need the money coming into their towns to ensure their health, their services and everything’s happening. But they are also worried. They know what’s happening and they need to know a plan is in place.

Well, your bill of course, was stymied by committee basically by political manoeuvring before the Glasgow conference. Well, of course the Government bought its own roadmap out, in time for Glasgow, the Australia plan. Do you think the plan will get us to net zero?

If I could take a step back, I have hammered the Prime Minister on needing to commit to net zero by 2050 for three years, for the first two and a half years, I got silly answers in question time around how it would destroy the economy, destroy jobs. All of a sudden fast forward to just before COP26, it is politically unpalatable not to commit to net zero by 2050, and we have this big announcement of net zero by 2050. But when the plan is unveiled, what we actually have is a business as usual plan. So no real intention to move away from fossil fuels, no closing down, no commitment to no new oil, coal or gas. In fact, the opposite, we have new coal mines being approved, new gas basins being approved. So we have this disconnect of a plan for net zero.

The plan itself only actually achieves 85 per cent emissions reduction, so it has 15per cent left over as a ‘we hope some new technology will come and take care of this part of the problem’. But it has a business as usual approach of continuing and expanding gas, for example, and we know gas, methane is a massive problem for global warming. So it’s not a real commitment to change, it’s a business as usual, and we hope millions of dollars into carbon capture and storage will somehow be the magic pill that will make it all be okay.

It’s not a real plan, I think the international community sees straight through it. So, we still are a long way from a commitment to real decarbonisation and COP26, we saw that the Government was not willing to formally change its 2030 target. So despite all the promises and the allegations of our goal is slightly higher now for 2030, our locked in commitment, legally, is still 26 to 28 per cent emission reduction by 2030. Now it is so woefully inadequate, it’s just so sad.

Well, despite the setbacks that you’ve had, I do want to talk to you about one very positive win you had with a few other people in something called the PEP11 campaign. Can you tell us briefly about PEP11 and why it’s fired up so many people in your community?

Absolutely. This is such a great example of community engagement and willpower making such a difference. So PEP11 is an exploration license for oil and gas off the coast between Newcastle to all the way down to Manly, a huge area, in some areas as close to five kilometres from the coast and up to 30 kilometres away. It is a license that had been in existence for some time, but it was being reactivated by the license holder and wanted an extension.

The Minister for Resources, Keith Pitt, a National from Queensland, not overly concerned about our waters off the east coast, is very pro expanding gas. So very important to our communities, to absolutely block this project and despite assurances by local members and by even the Prime Minister, this was lingering, and while State Government stepped up and said no, and said they wouldn’t extend that license, Federal Government dragged it on for a long time. Ultimately to call it to a head, I presented a private Members’ bill that would reject the license and make it impossible to have any future licenses.

And shortly after we have now seen the project, the extension declined and there will be no oil or gas exploration off our coast, which is a great win for the community. I think, what it showed though is as a community we’re incredibly lucky, we have such a beautiful local environment, we have the benefit of. And especially through COVID, we’ve seen how that has been an intrinsic part of keeping us healthy, and for people to stop taking their natural environment for granted and actually step up and fight for it, stand up and say, no, we won’t allow you to just traipse all over this, put it at risk with oil and gas exploration.

But we need to remember you can’t just take a stand for what’s in your backyard, we need to think of the whole picture of Australia and all those other environments that are at risk if we continue exploration, especially gas exploration.

Well, you have now put forward a five-step plan for net zero having been stymied on your climate bill. The IPCC report that you referred to that just came out this week, the week of our conversation, has presented, I guess, the world and Australia with a pretty bleak outlook. And it warns all governments, that they need to seriously cut emissions and step up their adaptation efforts, otherwise that we will miss, what the report calls ‘a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable future for all of us’. Now, your plan wants Australia to be powered 80 per cent by renewable energy by 2030. What gives you the confidence that this country can do such a massive shift in eight years?

We already are seeing it happen. So if the Federal Government got out of the way and allowed the market to actually do the transition, it is happening, there are trillions of dollars being invested worldwide in that transition. We are seeing announcements of the early closure of coal-fired power stations. We’re seeing the private sector wanting to step up and take care of our big emitters, like the proposed takeover of AGL by Mike Cannon-Brookes. We are seeing the private sector want to do it. We’re also seeing the State Government want to do it.

We have the capacity to get to 80 per cent by 2030, but it does mean encouraging investing. It does mean having a transmission infrastructure investment strategy, and we just don’t have that from the Federal Government. That five-step plan can get us to 60 per cent emission reduction by 2030. Now that is a trajectory we need to be on, to minimise the compounding impact we’ve got of too much carbon being released. Step one of the five step plan is pass the climate change bill because the climate change bill gives that overarching infrastructure and planning.

It allows for five-year emission reduction budgets, but it allows for each sector to be analysed and the risks and the opportunities to be assessed. So the five-step plan does break that out. There’s the energy sector, there’s transport, there’s industry, there’s agriculture, there’s carbon sequestration through deforestation. We need to be focusing on all those sectors in parallel to get to that 60 per cent by 2030.

Looking back on your first term as a MP, in your maiden speech, you also quoted a famous American writer, Edward Everett Hale, on the power of the individual. And you said ‘I am only one, but I’m still one. I cannot do everything, but I can still do something’. Do you still believe this? Or do you think your experience in the Parliament has actually changed your view on the power of one?

No. I am more convinced than ever the power of one is ultimately what will bring change about. I saw votes in the house in parliament that hinged on one vote, come and go, to get change, to put amendments, to legislation. I have seen what we achieved in Warringah by going independent, motivate and inspire so many other communities to think about what alternative options they have. So I know around climate and global warming people feel a huge amount of anxiety. The problem is so big. It is so large.

How can we break it down into something we can influence? This is how I believe we can do it, understand where you can make a difference. Your number one most powerful tool is your vote. Who represents you in the decision making tables is how we will make the ultimate difference. So I think the power of one is the ultimate because it’s ultimately the strongest force of all.

Well, Zali Steggall, it’s been a pleasure talking to you, and I’d just like to thank you and thank our audience for today.

Thank you.

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This is a significant new project for the museum and records of these conversations will form a new climate change archive preserved for future generations in the Powerhouse collection of over 500,000 objects, that tell the stories of our time.