Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006 is an important bill, at least in title, although I am not so sure about the implementation of it. If it was as important as the government might think it is, they might not have introduced it so quickly. They might not have created a situation where debate in this House, the House of Representatives—the house in which governments are made and unmade—should occur with an explanatory memorandum, yes, and with some amendments from the opposition, yes, but with no background information from the library at all, because this has been introduced in haste. It has also been introduced prior to the Senate committee which is to deal with this matter examining the bill.

Thus are we treated here by a government that is very proud of its environment, heritage and biodiversity legislation. It is proud of the fact that it has been in operation for six years, and the explanatory memorandum actually gives us a checklist of all the wonderful things the government thinks it has done. Then it says in the EM: ‘As for what this bill is doing, we found a whole series of areas needing change. Having put the legislation on a set of trainers for six years and having seen how it works, we have identified these things. So now we’re going to make a series of procedural changes but we don’t really want anyone to look at them too closely before we make them, so we’ll put the bill through the parliament in such a way that there won’t be enough scrutiny of it.’

This bill is really just a bean counter’s exercise. It is about this: how do you make adjustments across a range of different areas in terms of the impacts of environmental change, and how do you do it in such a way that it is cleaner and easier? Part of that is explicable in terms of what the thrust of the original bill was—the fact that this is an attempt to clean it up and that it is a way to get the federal government more directly involved, in conjunction with the states and territories, in the matter of environmental management. But this being a conservative government, we know that it is going to be all about auditing and benchmarking—not actually doing much that is very practical—because they laid that out when they first came to government.

The practical things are done by state governments. We know that, for most of what is important in the environmental and heritage area, most of the implementation is at the state administrative level—that is, whether it goes to the question of uranium mines and their implementation, which is covered by this bill, or of Ramsar wetlands or of national parks and the way in which they operate: all the vast range of environmental matters and most of the practical considerations. The Commonwealth has some particular areas of significance, particularly those that relate to environmental conditions in our fisheries, in particular those fisheries that are outside state control in Commonwealth controlled waters.

The explanatory memorandum goes to extraordinary lengths, in a Dr Kemp-like fashion, to boost this bill over and above what is being done—as Dr Kemp did when he was in education and talked a great deal about literacy and numeracy but did not actually do much other than propagandise in relation to it. When he was the minister for the environment we got this bill, and we got a lot of talk about what was proposed to be done and how important it was to look after the environment—a lot of heat but not all that much action.

Have a look at the specifics of the 490 pages of this bill. It is not late-night reading—although maybe it might be: it could be good bedside reading if you want to nod off fairly quickly. But if you actually want to take a novelistic approach to this and look at a story of a country, the story of an environment, the story of biodiversity in Australia—the actual story of the impacts of the changes that are affecting Australia right now—historically and contextually, along with what is happening now and how the primary actors, the protagonists in this story, might have their part to play, you have to look elsewhere. You would have to look outside this bill. You would have to look at what is really happening on the ground and you would have to look at a much broader picture, very much in the way that Al Gore, the former Vice-President of the United States, recently did. We saw the film here: it was displayed in Parliament House, and a book has been produced with it, looking at the whole broad issue of climate change.

Climate change? That is actually not mentioned in this bill, is it? Where can I find climate change in here? Let me look. Is it in the explanatory memorandum? Is it in the 490 pages of the bill? Is it in any of the addenda to the bill? Try as I might—I am sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker—but as I riffle through this at great speed I simply cannot find it. Where will I find it? Guess what: I will find it in the amendments put up by the shadow minister for the environment. I will find it not only in the general amendments that he has put in this second reading debate but I will also find it, as mentioned by the member for Windsor, under 3B in fact—not 4, in the definition of climate change. The shadow minister has the audacity to say this in the consideration in detail amendments that he will put:

‘3B  Climate change

The Parliament acknowledges that climate change

(a)

is the greatest threat to Australia’s natural environment;

(b)

will have far-reaching impacts globally, in Australia’s region and in Australia, including:

(i)

possible higher temperatures and lower-rainfall in southern Australia;

(ii)

possible more frequent extreme weather events such as storms, heatwaves and drought,                       impacts to which Australia’s natural, rural and urban environments, and many industries, are potentially vulnerable.’

It is germane to the whole question of dealing with Australia’s environment and our biodiversity that we actually take this into consideration. This is not faddishness, as it was not faddishness for all of those Australian farmers and everyone who put their money into particular ventures from 1860 until the end of the 1880s to put in wheat farms in the Mallee, the Wimmera area and Western Australia. They had wonderful seasons. For three decades Australia’s agricultural production dramatically expanded—and, as is the nature of things, people tend to think that current circumstances will last forever.

That was the expectation of those people who took those good years—three decades full—which came after a period at the end of the 1840s when Australia, particularly in New South Wales and Victoria, was under tremendous difficulty. There had been periods of drought in the 1840s, the price of land had fallen significantly and there was a great shortage of workers. Then, in the 1850s, we had the goldrushes, which took people from out of their normal occupations. It was a bit like Australia now in its effects. There was a great skills crisis across the land because people left their normal jobs and went to where the gold could be found. It is happening now, with people leaving their normal jobs and going to the mining areas to take up jobs which will bring the ‘gold’ back to them. I think the modern gold hunters will do better than their predecessors. It was the provisioners who made money in the 1850s.

The great story of Australia’s agricultural development in the 1860s to 1880s was based on a weather pattern that has not been replicated in modern Australian history. They were the very best years you can imagine. If you extrapolated any of the years in those three decades and said that they were what we were going to have, you would have continued to invest in lands in the Wimmera, in the Mallee and in Western Australia—and people have tended to do that because hope springs eternal—but the reality right now, and most of the discussion Australia-wide, although it is not here in this bill which has been brought before the House, is about the depth and effect of this current drought and whether or not this is more normal. There is the hope that it will not be so. It is a bit like the situation, but maybe worse, of the great poem Said Hanrahan by Father O’Brien where people’s current conditions were projected into the future. Whether it was drought or flood, Hanrahan always saw things on the pessimistic side. It is possible to do that for Australia, but governments and farmers and people generally need to take a very practical approach to this.

We live in dynamic climatic systems. For the whole history of this planet, people living in the biosphere have been directly affected by the way in which it is constituted. Creatures on the planet—indeed, creatures only just discovered and reported through work done by Princeton University—include microbes that have been living three kilometres down in the earth, in still waters beneath a mine in South Africa.  These microbes are at least 30 million years old and untouched by the biosphere. They are not dependent at all on the sun, either directly or indirectly, for the provision of energy, but in fact live on the result of decayed uranium and the sulphur compounds that they ingest. Those colonies may in fact be the dominant life form on this planet. They could be the dominant life form on other planets. We have seen related life forms around smoker holes at the bottom of the ocean where, otherwise very deep and under very great pressure, volcanic activity allows certain niches in which life can exist and develop.

But these, even if they are the majority, are the exception, not the rule, for us. What happens on the surface of the planet is critical, and government action is critical. When it was first argued that the control of chlorofluorocarbons was possible, that the changes needed to ensure modern refrigerants would exclude chlorofluorocarbons be mandated by governments and that we could in fact improve the atmosphere and deal with the problems, there were a lot of people who said that it could not be done—there would be too much cost and it would destroy economies. Decades later we know that it is possible to get rid of CFCs. We have effectively done it and we have fixed the problem.

Likewise with the whole question of climate change. Historically and geologically, there will always be climate change. In 100 million or 200 million years from now, the likelihood of us existing as a species is almost negligible. The likelihood is that there will be massive climatic changes and climatic effects from the tectonic movement of the continents, that in 200 million years time there will be a new Pangaea, because the continents will smash together again. It is entirely predictable. Australia will smash into North America and will have mountains far higher than those of the Himalayas. Those mountains will in fact see Australia a vast, endless desert. But this is geological time. It is interesting to know about it, but we actually live in our current situation.

What is our task? To ensure that our biosphere is dealt with in such a way that we have a liveable ecosystem not only for ourselves as human beings but also for all the creatures that inhabit this planet. We know with certainty that a bill that deals with Australia’s environment, our environmental heritage and our biodiversity should not just be talking about nuts and bolts and it should not just be talking about how to weigh up how people will adjust to those changes; it should be talking about the fundamental changes themselves. This is clear and apparent. We know already and the punters out there know—not just the scientists but every normal, sensible human being in their Australian backyard, whether it be in Sydney or Melbourne or regional Australia—that the rainfall patterns have changed and have changed dramatically. You cannot gainsay it. We know when they measure how much water is in Warragamba Dam—that is if they tell us; they now tend not to—that the normal rainfall patterns have changed. And I have seen a similar situation in Melbourne and its major dams.

The argument of those who pursue the climate change argument is this. We have seen partial greater heating of the oceans, and it will be greater in the future. The heating of particular areas, those partial changes that we have seen, go to the question of what is involved in the definition of climate change. They also go to not only the greater climatic effects—more turbulent events like hurricanes, cyclones and so on—but also to the question of where the moisture actually falls. If you look at the fundamental patterns that are agreed upon, moisture is falling further to the south and away from the normal catchment areas. That is why the proper way to react to this is to say: ‘For people who live in Sydney or Melbourne, what you do in your backyard and your home is going to be critical in terms of not only conserving but also utilising the rain that does fall in coastal areas, because we know how much pressure is on the other areas.’

If you listen to what the farmers are saying in a number of different areas thoughout Australia, you will hear some of them say that things are survivable. There is just enough there, even though there is variation within particular areas, that they can still produce their crops. They can make it through this particular period. But they know that the severity of this is great.

Just yesterday there was a report in the media of a major survey that is done each year on Australia’s wetlands, and this report was different to all of the others. This report found virtually no migratory birds in the wetlands, because the wetlands have dried. The Darling is not flowing. This is a severe, significant and fundamental change. Now, you can gainsay it and say, ‘It is part of the normal pattern, and it is not really part of the whole climate change scenario.’ But if it is—and so far not only the likelihood but the meteorological certainty is that those observable changes are part of a broader long-term pattern—then the impact of that change on the environment and our biodiversity is that it will entirely devastate our fauna and, indeed, potentially, our flora.

The key issue is how much time those populations have got to adapt to those changed circumstances. It is the rapidity of the change that has really taken everyone and grabbed them almost by the throats. And people are somewhat aghast at it because—whatever the projections were, whatever people might argue about what level of percentage of increase in average annual temperature there would be, and whether or not it is that—it has all come home very quickly.

We know that frog populations worldwide have dramatically decreased. We know that is an indicator not only of biological diversity but of environmental health. They are the litmus test of that environmental health. We also know that, as the amount of rain and snow deposited in mountain areas changes and as glaciers retreat, it is having absolute effects on the biodiversity in those areas. There are populations that are being completely wiped out. Why? And why will that continue? Because we live on a planet of variability, where particular species have adapted to particular circumstances and biological niches where they are comfortable. They have invested a great deal in doing that. Rapid change wipes them out.

We could have another great devastation. It is possible that the cumulative effects of what we are seeing now could lead to the kinds of great wipings-out that we have seen before. We know, just from the normal operation over historical time, in the past 10,000 years—in particular as we have industrialised, but even before that, during the agricultural revolution—that the action of man’s operations on his environment are to the detriment of particular species. It encourages some; it wipes others out. The degree of the knocking-out of species has grown dramatically greater over the last number of years.

The only saving grace that you could think of in this regard—and I think climate change now has to be taken as very real—is this: the past 10,000 years have been a warm period; what we should be expecting is that the next 100,000 years will be a cold or glacial period, and this may provide some buffer. But it also may be that the irregularities of these changes are so great and so fast that our biodiversity will be smashed completely.

This bill speaks to the nuts and bolts of arrangements. It should really speak to the fundamental problems. (Time expired)

See this speech in context