Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Reconciliation and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Flinders has made a great deal out of very little. It is too little too late. Interestingly, not one word has been said to defend the principle of scientific inquiry that was raised in last night’s Four Corners program—not one single word. How can the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage come into the House when the national broadcaster has produced a 45-minute documentary detailing charges against the government of which he is a member—significant and important charges, including whistleblower comments from someone who was a previous speechwriter to the environment minister—and not mention it at all. That defies the politics of this place, I tell you—not one word about Four Corners, not one word of defence of scientific inquiry. There is a recognition that finally the minister for the environment accepts that there needs to be targets. Hallelujah! I hope the Deputy Prime Minister realises it too.

Climate change policy in this country is in crisis due to the Howard government’s persistent refusal to seriously address the issue. Many voices are raised—constantly. The National Farmers Federation group in Western Australia, the Australian Medical Association, Engineers Australia and, of course, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—the largest collection of scientists addressing this single issue—all speak to the need for us to have robust, targeted reductions in our greenhouse emissions, with time lines.

Alone amongst developed countries, with the exception of the US, we fail to ratify the Kyoto treaty. Although the Prime Minister thought it was a good idea at the time, we now denigrate Kyoto under Minister Campbell and Foreign Minister Downer. At first the absolute refusal of the government to look at climate change was based on climate scepticism. That is fading away. Then it was based on the lack of effectiveness of Kyoto, despite the fact that the government claims to have met the target. That argument is fading away. Then it was on the fact that there was a better option—the Asia-Pacific climate pact that the member opposite refers to. It has no targets and no time lines. That has faded away as well. All we are really left with is the big lie: ‘We are doing more than anyone else to address this issue and you should believe us when we tell you what we are doing about climate change.’

But no matter how big the effort to push a propaganda line might be, climate change is bigger. This, undoubtedly and regrettably, is the biggest immediate long-term environmental challenge we face. A failure to concretely come to some policy outcome on climate change has not only a negative environmental impact but also social and economic consequences for us. Climate change is so big that people who study it—and many do—need to speak to it. They must present scientific papers, they must appear in public, they must speak to the media and we must hear their voices. In order to get policy right, policymakers—governments—need to make decisions based on sound science. In order to have an informed, open debate, the public needs to know what scientists think and, of course, in the spirit of the Enlightenment—the Prime Minister spoke favourably to that spirit—to hear what they have to say.

But that spirit has been broken. Following last night’s Four Corners program, we have compelling testimony from senior CSIRO scientists; present and former leading climate change scientists have been directly pressured into modifying or submerging their views on climate change and how best it should be addressed in policy terms. The loss of their expertise and critical insights in this debate is a great loss. But the more serious allegation is that climate change policy has been perverted, we might say polluted, at the highest levels by special interest lobbyists with access to and involvement in the preparation of cabinet submissions, documents and costings.

This is genuinely a very serious issue. Not one single word spoken by the member for Flinders points to this. The self-named greenhouse mafia have, if the research by ex-Liberal Party ministerial speechwriter Guy Pearse is accurate—and there is no reason to think that it isn’t—perverted the greenhouse policy processes of the government. They have rendered Australia more vulnerable to climate change, they have exposed our Pacific neighbours to a greater risk of becoming environmental refugees through an absence of robust policy and they have clearly tarnished Australia’s reputation as a country which values and respects the spirit of scientific inquiry. The perversion of policy ends up, from last night’s Four Corners, with what I would describe as ‘tortured pollie speak’. That is Senator Campbell’s assertion that:

Australia is doing more than most countries in the greenhouse policy area. We’re respected for our policy efforts, for our investments and our practical policy outcomes.

‘More than most countries’? We need to do a great deal more than we are doing. To remind Australians, as a nation we are more vulnerable than most to climate change. We are a land of drought and flooding rains, and, with our thin soil profile, we are more vulnerable than most to climate change. We are also the nation with the highest—or second-highest, depending on how you count them—per capita levels of greenhouse gas emissions in the developed world. That is the situation that Australia is in. We have no targets, we have no time lines and we will blow out our greenhouse gas emissions by 23 per cent in 2020. So when the government says that we are still on track, the train wreck is coming just around the corner and we will be off the rails.

The minister says we are ‘respected for our policy efforts’. It is common knowledge that in international fora the participation by Australia in the environment debate, just as with our participation in debates about the International Court of Justice or UNESCO’s convention on cultural diversity, is seen as a spoiling contribution. That is something that is well known and well discussed in international fora.

‘Respected for our investments’? Hardly. In fact, by failing to sign on to Kyoto we have reduced the opportunities for Australian businesses to export energy efficiency and renewables. Without a national greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme we cannot even begin to trade in carbon reduction offsets. We have reduced the stimulus for local business at the same time as failing to sign our way into an international trading arrangement. The current situation with mandatory renewable energy targets sitting only at two per cent—and now I think we know why they are only at two per cent—means that renewable industries, wind et cetera, have hit the wall in their inability to grow and in so doing provide some of the clean and green energy that is needed as demand for energy rises.

There is job growth in renewables, there is job growth in energy efficiency and there is job growth in developing innovative industries and technologies to successfully meet the challenge of climate change. But the Howard government, fiddling while we burn, is now without a shred of credibility or authority as we learn that the greenhouse mafia have moved through the halls of power in Canberra.

Last night’s revelations were just another example of how this government has intimidated senior government officials and government agency management. A serious pattern is emerging. We have seen some evidence of it this week and in the week previous in the AWB debate. Now we have CSIRO management effectively either putting pressure on senior CSIRO scientists or the scientists themselves exercising self-censorship, knowing that, if they speak out, their programs or funding have the capacity or the likelihood of being cut. There were very clear allegations and evidence to that effect on Four Corners last night.

The government claims that it has done a great deal about climate change, but something completely different is happening. It is actually penalising and punishing those great Australian scientific minds that want to speak to the issue and deliver policy suggestions to the government that could see us seriously address the issue.

The science has been overwhelmingly conclusive for years. The situation is serious. The expertise is being muzzled by government, and the truth of the Four Corners program shows that now the government panders to self-interest. It has been manipulated by industry forces. As they say, always back the horse called self-interest, because you know it is always trying.

Regrettably, there is no such thing as ministerial responsibility now—none whatsoever. The minister has not been called to account for the allegations that were aired on Four Corners, and it is ridiculous that even ministers such as the minister for immigration still get off scot-free. She is in charge of immigration and she has presided over of a litany of horrible mistakes and they are ongoing; they still continue. The former minister for science was also named in the paper today with a charge that he too has presided over pressuring and bringing influence to bear on scientists working for the CSIRO.

The future is unfolding before our eyes. Canada’s Inuits see it in disappearing Arctic ice and permafrost. Australians see it in fatal heatwaves and extended droughts. Scientists see it in tree rings, ancient coral and bubbles trapped in icicles. All of these things reveal that the world has not been as warm as it is now for a millennium or more, and that the last years have been the hottest on record. But in Australia the government is numb and blind to what is going on in our world, and in this building and in the building that surrounds it the government stands accused of allowing a fatally compromised policy to inform Australia’s response to climate change and of muzzling those scientists whose informed views would assist us in addressing this most serious issue. (Time expired)

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