Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to support the amendment to the Ministers of State Amendment Bill 2005 moved by my colleague the member for Wills. It is appropriate that we in this House should be scrutinising the matters contained in this amendment at this particular time in history—the 10th anniversary of the election of the Howard government on 2 March 1996, the same day I was elected to this House—because, after 10 long years of the Howard government, there is arrogance and incompetence right across the show. We have the ongoing AWB saga. We have now had more than 21 documents raised by the opposition in question time. Day after day, ministers are being questioned about how they could sit by and allow $300 million to be paid in kickbacks from the AWB to the Saddam Hussein regime at the same time as Australia was preparing to go to war against that regime. An Australian government can make no more serious decision than to send our men and women to war. We made that decision based upon the lie that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. We now know that we not only made that commitment on the basis of a lie but at the very same time were funding the regime to the tune of $300 million.

Four new cables were today raised in parliament and the Minister for Foreign Affairs conceded not only that he had been briefed on the documents but that he had read them himself. Those documents outlined very clearly, way back in January 2000, some three years before the war began, the clear concerns that existed about allegations of kickbacks to the Iraqi regime in contravention of UN sanctions against that regime. What was the government’s response? It was to ask the AWB, ‘Are you doing anything wrong?’ When the AWB said, ‘Oh, no,’ that was essentially it; that was the investigation of the government. That was symptomatic of this government’s approach to public policy.

When it comes to the Prime Minister’s code of conduct, we saw at the beginning of the process a number of ministers—John Herron, Jim Short, Brian Gibson, Geoff Prosser and others—having to fall on their swords and resign. Peter McGauran also had to resign, but he made a comeback. He is still a member of the National Party—for the time being. Over a period of time, the Prime Minister’s standards have disappeared. We have had scandals involving Michael Wooldridge, Wilson Tuckey and Richard Alston. We had travel rorts and we had balaclavas on the waterfront. We had Stan Howard and National Textiles. We had the telecard affair concerning Peter Reith and of course the children overboard affair.

I would ask all Australians to read David Marr and Marian Wilkinson’s book Dark Victory because that clearly outlines the symptomatic way in which the government was prepared not only to vilify and abuse asylum seekers but also to misuse the Department of Defence in a way which completely abrogated the independent way in which Defence should operate. Even as late as this week the Prime Minister was still attempting to say maybe they scuttled the boat. Of course that was not true. That was not found. It is quite clear that the whole basis of the children overboard affair was that once again this government was prepared to put its political interest above the national interest. That comes through the Department of the Environment and Heritage, which I have responsibility for as shadow minister, and that comes through on the subject of the management of water issues, which I also have responsibility for. This government is so drunk with power that it silences dissent and stifles debate. It controls both houses of parliament so it thinks that we have a one-party state—accountability goes out the window.

A recent Four Corners program raised some very serious allegations that senior CSIRO scientists are being silenced on climate change issues. Australia’s top scientists are being gagged from saying we need greenhouse gas emission targets. They cannot even say that environmental refugees will be an issue when Pacific island nations flood because of climate change. That is contrary to specific advice given to the government by the department. On 5 January this year, when Labor released its policy on a Pacific climate change strategy, the response of the government was: ‘Let’s just hope it never happens’—quite contrary to the specific advice that it had been given. It is a tragedy that CSIRO scientists are operating in a climate of fear where anything that indicates that they disagree with current government policy is censored. Leading CSIRO scientist Dr Barrie Pittock was expressly told he could not talk about climate change mitigation in dealing with rising sea levels in the Pacific. One of the world’s leading climate change scientists, Dr Graeme Pearman, was gagged because he said we need greenhouse gas emission targets and we need carbon trading to help avoid dangerous climate change.

The Age reported last week, on 20 February, that the government had suppressed a key chapter of its landmark Climate change: risk and vulnerability report. The report has a number of chapters outlining the threats to Australia—the threat of a decrease in rainfall, the threat of increased extreme weather events and the threat to our iconic areas such as the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu. Yet a chapter that was never published by the government was the chapter outlining the recommendations. So you had the problems revealed in the Climate change: risk and vulnerability report but you also had the suppression of the key chapter outlining priorities for action. This is an absolute scandal. The government and its ministers consistently fail to be accountable to the Australian people.

In terms of other environmental issues, it is quite clear that this government is prepared to have completely inconsistent positions when it comes to the independent advice that it has been given. If you want to see how ministerial standards and accountability have declined over the past decade, look at the contradictions that litter the government’s climate change policy. Take emissions trading, for example. On 14 February 2006 in Senate estimates, the Minister for the Environment and Heritage said this:

I think carbon trading schemes are part of the policy answer ... There is nothing radical about supporting trading schemes.

Yet today in question time in the Senate, when he got a dorothy dixer, he criticised emissions trading schemes. On 14 April 2005, he said:

... we don’t think it’s an effective way to reduce greenhouse gases. The costs imposed particularly on, let’s say, domestic power bills far outweigh the benefits of the emissions reduced.

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