Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Grayndler on behalf of the opposition raised six points which require a response. The member for Grayndler said that it was unusual or inappropriate that in some way the Commonwealth should acknowledge that land clearing is part of the total package of emissions reductions for Australia. He said that land clearing is a responsibility of the states and that it is a state decision.

There has been an increase in industrial emissions for precisely the same reason as there has been a reduction in emissions from land clearing—that is, the activities of the states. There are matters which we regulate and control, and there are matters which we do not regulate and do not control. I remind the member for Grayndler that the generation of power is an activity of the states and, whilst in many states it has been deregulated either fully or partially, when you look at Victoria you find that arguably one of the world’s most greenhouse inefficient power stations is Hazelwood. It was the Victorian government which recently issued a new 30-year approval for Hazelwood.

Around Victoria and many other states, state licensed power stations are the principal source of greenhouse emissions within Australia. Static electricity is the cause of about 50 per cent of Australia’s 560 million tonnes of CO emissions every year. The principal contributor to that is state licensed power stations, the vast majority of which have received long-term renewals of their licences over recent years from the state governments. If they do make a contribution through prohibitions on land clearance, I welcome that, but it is absolutely critical that we acknowledge that the principal cause of the emissions is the activities of the states themselves in licensing precisely the largest cause of greenhouse emissions in Australia.

The second point that was made to which I have to respond is that Australia is a pariah because of our position on Kyoto. With great respect, I profoundly, absolutely and utterly reject that proposition, and I do so because Australia, along with South Africa, has been chosen as one of the two countries in the world to lead the international post-Kyoto discussions. If we were a pariah, there would have been precisely the opposite effect to what has been indicated by this decision to nominate Australia as one of the two global-leading countries in brokering a system to bring together the Kyoto and the non-Kyoto world, which comprises 70 per cent of the world’s countries. That, I think, is a very clear position, and it is a tribute both to the minister, Senator Ian Campbell, and to Howard Bamsey, the head of the Australian Greenhouse Office, that Australia and Howard Bamsey in particular have been chosen to co-lead those discussions.

The third point made was that we have a lost opportunity in relation to renewables. In fact, what we found is that the MRET target has led to a very dramatic increase in wind energy production in Australia. Almost a gigawatt of static energy capacity through wind generation has been planned or agreed to, and almost 500 million watts or 500 megawatts of installed capacity is already in place directly as a result of the mandatory renewable energy targets. So we set a target and we are achieving it.

The fourth point is that the question remains in relation to a pricing signal. It is a matter of record that the government has talked about ‘no in principle opposition’ to a pricing signal, as long as it is inclusive internationally and it does not disadvantage Australia—and we make no apology for taking that position. In addition, we are leading the post-2012 discussions. Let us see how they pan out. I think that is extremely important. On that front—and this relates to the fifth and sixth points in relation to 2050 and the Asia-Pacific partnership—we have taken forward the most significant global initiative on climate change in the last five years. We think that nothing other than the Asia-Pacific partnership will help meet the 2050 targets. We will do our part and we urge others to do theirs.

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