Bill Shorten: 'We've got to end the climate change war'

Bill Shorten has signalled Labor will keep the national energy guarantee and maintain subsidies for households and businesses to install small-scale renewable energy until 2030, as the shadow cabinet prepares to deliberate on energy policy.

 Bill Shorten says he is doing the things he entered politics to
achieve by ‘trying to improve the things that need improving’.

In a wide-ranging interview marking five years as opposition leader, Shorten also revealed Labor was in talks with the Australian Medical Association about conditions on Nauru, and indicated announcements were coming imminently on what he termed “progressive trade policy”. Some leftwing unions are in open revolt about the party’s decision to support the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact.

Shorten all but confirmed Labor would keep the Neg, telling Guardian Australia “we would like to keep that and make it work”. The Coalition has abandoned the energy policy for the electricity sector it championed for months, rendering the prospect of bipartisan agreement highly unlikely, but Shorten said if Labor was blocked in trying to revive the Neg, “we’ll look at other solutions”.

Read Katharine Murphy’s story from The Guardian - “Bill Shorten: 'We've got to end the climate change war’.”