Shorten turns up heat on climate warming

The Opposition Leader has read the wind and decided climate change is a vote winner.

Bill Shorten and Sanjeev Gupta in Whyalla. Picture: AAP

Bill Shorten’s flying visit to a solar farm in Whyalla, the industrial town Tony Abbott warned would be “wiped off the map” under Julia Gillard’s carbon tax, wasn’t chosen by Labor strategists by accident.

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Under pressure over his inability to provide detail on the economic impact of his 45 per cent emissions reduction target, Mr Shorten doubled down on his climate policy and headed to South Australia, a state crippled by blackouts in former Labor premier Jay Weatherill’s rush to renewables.

The Opposition Leader later posed alongside British billionaire Sanjeev Gupta at the Whyalla Steelworks spruiking his electric cars policy at the same business Mr Abbott claimed would close under the carbon tax.

Speaking before his tour of the solar farm, Mr Shorten labelled global warming as among the key “four or five” issues of the campaign. It wasn’t quite Kevin Rudd calling it the “greatest moral challenge of our time” but it was clear the Labor leader considers there is political capital in talking up greenhouse emissions cuts.

“I want to put the government on notice that the people of Australia are over excuses and delay and distraction on taking real ­action on climate change. Elections … should be about the future and that means this is all about climate change,” Mr Shorten said.

“The politicians of Australia ­really need to do more to protect the future of our kids. There is no clearer test about the future than climate change.

“We regard climate change and a real plan for it as one of the key four or five issues in this election.”

Labor will today launch a $75 million Renewables Training Package that will include funding for 10,000 apprentices in the renewables sector.

Mr Shorten’s move to put climate change action at the core of his campaign — in a state that has already exceeded a 50 per cent renewables target — showed the Labor leader wants to shift the conversation away from the economic cost of his emissions policies.

Opposition climate change spokesman Mark Butler yesterday admitted he did not have an estimate on how much businesses would spend on international carbon credits and details would be negotiated if Labor were elected.

Mr Shorten and Mr Butler visit­ed the SSE Solar Farm in Whyalla, nearly 400km from Ade­laide, which provides enough energy to power 3000 homes through a five-megawatt system.

Wilson Burns, of Bilson Electrical and Renewables, told the Labor leader on his tour of the facility that renewable energy was a vote winner for young people.

“It’s the only way forward, ­really,” he told Mr Shorten.

It was just the state in which to spruik renewables, given the former Weatherill Labor government’s controversial fast-tracking of the energy source, which has been blamed for soaring electricity prices and a 2016 blackout that left 1.7 million people without power.

Mr Weatherill committed Labor to a 75 per cent renewable energy target by 2025 during last year’s state election campaign, after a 50 per cent target had been achieved. South Australian Premier Steven Marshall, who ended 16 years of Labor rule, has since scrapped the target because it was a “recipe for higher (electricity) ­prices in this state”.