Turning an economy around is hard. Everyone who benefits from the way it is now fights the change. I know there are serious headwinds when it comes to shifting away from coal and gas to the energy sources and industries of the future. With coal, the writing is on the wall. It's on the way out. With gas, it's more complicated. Unfortunately, we still need some of it during transition.

But there are four facts that it's hard to argue with. Firstly, climate change is happening fast. Burning fossil fuels increases global temperatures. We're seeing it now, and most forecasts are being exceeded. Secondly, the world is trying to get off the stuff that we're selling. Most countries have committed to a net zero timeline at some stage. The best minds in the world are working out how to get off fossil fuels. We can argue about when exactly the tipping point is, but energy economics and public attitudes are changing, and at some stage we will end up with stranded fossil fuel assets. Thirdly, it's likely there will be some gas in the energy mix until 2050, but as little as possible. Gas is currently a useful peaking fuel until something better comes along. There are other solutions, like biogas and various storage methods. This shouldn't be a licence to approve 50-year gas project expansions or new exploration sites that won't be developed for 10 years. And, fourthly, Australia—WA specifically—has a lot to gain if we're bold about this transition. The scale of both the risk and the opportunity is hard to contemplate. In WA, we built a pipeline to Kalgoorlie that unleashed the gold rush in 1903, and the vast North West Shelf infrastructure got the go-ahead in the 1960s. We need to be thinking on that scale now about what's next. In a decarbonising world, WA has many new-energy advantages: sun, wind, land and critical minerals. We're a trusted ally. We have stable politics, a skilled workforce and a track record in big projects.

Given these four facts, how do we set up now for prosperity and employment for generations to come? Instead of coal and gas, I want to talk about a huge opportunity for Australia and WA: green metals. Processing metals is very energy and carbon intensive. The production of steel alone generates seven to nine per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and up to 10 or 11 per cent of CO2. Half the world's iron ore is from Australia. Staggeringly, using zero-emissions energy to process our ore into iron would cut three per cent of overall carbon emissions. If we can do this, we can punch above our weight and make ourselves invaluable to the rest of the world. Our trading partners are looking to decarbonise metal production. The most obvious way to do this is to buy iron from us that's been processed using zero-emissions energy.

This is a huge opportunity for Australia, adding value to our raw materials exports, which adds economic complexity. Unlike creating entire battery supply chains, this is much simpler and more achievable. We're well positioned to become the world's green forge, but it requires some boldness. We need investments to bridge the green premium for first movers, such as the production incentives which are being debated in the House today, and capital investment in transformational infrastructure, technology and R D. We need a rapid increase in research and development for green metals, specifically targeting Australian ore and the magnetite found in WA. Numerous companies are working on this, and the government should provide support to accelerate it.

We need to revitalise and focus our partnerships with our major trading partners on what we can offer in the future, not locking in our old economy. If our trading partners find other lower emissions ways of producing steel, they will take them. We need to make Australia essential in a decarbonising world. We need efficient approval processes to achieve the necessary timelines for projects without compromising environmental outcomes. Current approval timeframes are shifting investment to other countries.

While we do have comparative advantages, the race is on and we are seeing so many other countries investing heavily to position themselves for the new economy. We need to act decisively. We'll be wasting public money if we don't firmly establish a globally competitive position. This will also send a clear signal to the world that, instead of doubling down on the coal projects of the past or the gas projects with a limited shelf life, we're ambitiously committing to a liveable future and securing our place in it.

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