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

It is an inconvenient truth that the Howard government is increasingly isolated on climate change. It is an inconvenient truth that between 1990 and 2004 emissions rose in Australia by 25.1 per cent, once you exclude the decisions of the New South Wales and Queensland governments on land clearing. And it is an inconvenient truth for this government that, over coming weeks, hundreds of thousands of Australians will be become more aware about climate change due to Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.

I have had the privilege of watching that documentary on a number of occasions, and it is extremely powerful. The former Vice President of the United States puts a great case for why this is the moral cause of our generation, in the interests of future generations—and that is because climate change threatens the very conditions that allow human civilisation to live on this planet. However, this important documentary has been dismissed by the Prime Minister’s Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, Ian Macfarlane, who stated, ‘It’s just entertainment, and really that’s all it is.’

That reminded me of one of my favourite songs, That’s Entertainment, written by Paul Weller of The Jam. But Weller used ‘That’s entertainment’ in the ironic sense. It was a devastating critique of social dislocation in Thatcher’s Britain, but from this mob over here there is no irony at all in saying that Al Gore’s movie, which documents the threat to our water supply, the increase in extreme weather events, the potential for over 100 million environmental refugees and the catastrophic future that we face unless we act is just about entertainment as far as this government is concerned. But we should not be surprised, because on the date that the Kyoto protocol came into effect the minister said:

Whether or not those emissions are causing climate change, I don’t know ... If you go back across history, millions of years, carbon-dioxide levels go up and down and global warming comes and goes.

That is an extraordinary statement from a senior minister in the Howard government. Last week, the Prime Minister said he was sceptical about gloomy climate change predictions. Al Gore was asked on The 7.30 Report about the Prime Minister’s scepticism, and he said:

He’s increasingly alone in that view among people who’ve really looked at the science. ... The so-called “gloomy predictions” are predictions of what would happen if we did not act. It’s not a question of mood. It’s a question of reality. And, you know, there’s no longer debate over whether the earth is round or flat, though there are some few people who still think it’s flat, we generally ignore that view because the evidence has mounted to the point where we understand that it shouldn’t be taken seriously.

And that is why we should not take the Howard government’s flat-earth view of climate change seriously.

Today, I want to take the opportunity to go through the five arguments that the government advanced against ratifying the Kyoto protocol and against taking action to avoid dangerous climate change. The first is pretty simple. They say that it will ruin the economy—but in the next breath they say that Australia will meet the target. The contradiction between the two statements is so obvious. You cannot on the one hand say that it will cause enormous economic damage but on the other hand say, ‘We actually don’t have to make any changes to meet the 108 per cent target, thanks to the decisions of the New South Wales and Queensland Labor governments.’

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