Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There is an elephant in the chamber and it is called climate change. We might be discussing the most important piece of environmental legislation in this country, but let us not mention climate change. This elephant is not in the corner any more; it has wandered into the centre of the room and it is three storeys high. But far be it from this government to pay it any attention at all. In fact, nobody look at the elephant—we are just discussing the environment today.

We are comprehensively amending, on very short notice, the most important piece of environmental legislation—and they are the government’s own words—and one would assume that the government’s amendments would update the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006 to reflect current realities. So what is the most important issue facing the environment here in Australia and around the globe today? And what is not mentioned on a single one of the 409 pages of this bill? The answer to both questions is the same: it is climate change. Oops!

I can just imagine a week ago the minister saying, over in the ministerial wing: ‘Oops! We forgot to put in climate change! Let’s push it through in a week. It’s our only chance. Maybe no-one will notice.’ And, if that were true, we might actually have a chance of having this bill amended. But the unfortunate truth is that the government, in spite of all of the evidence to the contrary, still does not recognise climate change for the significant issue that it is.

We as a nation, along with many other nations around the world, are living beyond our environmental means. For decades, we have been sucking more out of this little bit of our planet than we return, and all those decades of living as if water and clean air were limitless have finally impacted on our little part of the planet. If we do not change the way we do things, our very way of life, our health and our future is in very real jeopardy. I am not overstating the seriousness of this issue. This reality is understood around the world, and it is understood around my community. One of the issues that is raised perhaps more often than any other now in our community is water. Yet in this chamber it is not taken seriously. In this bill, the most significant piece of environmental legislation that we have seen, it is not taken seriously.

Whatever the solutions are, we have not found them all yet. This is an extremely complex problem at a level that we have not encountered before, and we are still finding the answers. We will continue to find the answers probably for years to come. How much time do we have? We are running late already. Climate change is here already. It is a reality already, and we as a nation—at all levels of government, in every community and each of us individually—have to deal with this and change this nation’s course. All you have to do to send this government into an apoplexy of indecision is whisper the words ‘climate change’. I say to this government: you cannot afford to carry on as if it will never happen to us; it is happening to us. You cannot afford to just follow the Prime Minister and his view that ‘the government is not really interested in what might happen to Australia and the planet in 50 years time’, and I am quoting the Prime Minister there—that is a statement he made just a month ago on 27 September.

Even the Prime Minister a month ago must have been aware of the growing chorus of concern around the globe, and yet he says that in his view the government is not really interested in what might happen to Australia and the planet in 50 years time. Why is he the Prime Minister? Why do we have as Prime Minister of this nation a man who is not concerned or even interested in what might happen to Australia and the planet in 50 years time? A lot of the voters will still be alive in 50 years time, and certainly their children will be. This is amazing. If for no other reason, he has passed his use-by date. It is time to go, John. There are 409 pages of amendments here and not one mention of climate change. How is that even possible from a supposedly functioning government? Climate change is the elephant in the centre of the room, and the government is carefully turning its head away. Every member of the government, even those who know better, is carefully making sure that they do not look at the elephant. It is the one issue that we as a nation must address and then, beyond that, if we are able to, convince others on as well.

Drought is destroying this land from beneath us. The salt is rising. Arable land in the traditional farm belts is shrinking. The year 2005 was the hottest year in Australia since records began in 1861. Around the globe the 10 hottest years ever have all occurred within the last 14 years. Sea levels have risen 20 centimetres over the past 100 years and will continue to rise. The devastating effects of climate change will be seen not just in the environmental degradation of our natural world but also in local, national and global economies. These impacts will be just as devastating. To give just a small example, you need look no further than the Great Barrier Reef. It is already under threat not only from global warming but also from the government’s continued commitment to allow mining around the reef. Destroy the reef and you lose the 200,000 jobs of the people who rely on the tourism industry and the reef for their livelihood. You would take $4.3 billion out of the Queensland economy, and that is before you consider the flow-on effects of the increased jobless who have lost their livelihood from the reef.

In the next 25 years the populations of Sydney and Melbourne are expected to rise by around 30 per cent. The water supply is expected to fall by 25 per cent. It does not take a genius to see that the water restrictions we are on now will not be enough. It is perfectly obvious to anyone that if your population rises by 30 per cent and your water supply falls by 25 per cent then you have a big problem. For the Prime Minister I will say this once again, because he does not seem to get it: if your population rises by 30 per cent and your water supply falls by 25 per cent then you have a problem, Prime Minister—you will have a problem very soon. You will have an even bigger problem in 50 years time, but I know you do not care about that. You will have a problem very soon and you might like to care about that, Prime Minister. And then there are the businesses that rely on water—mechanics who flush radiators, nurseries, pool builders and so on. They will struggle to stay in business and are already struggling. Then there are the consequential knock-on effects of business closures on the rest of our community.

How much is the drought costing the country even now? Farms are failing, livestock is being devastated and crops are withering in the field. The government just allocated $2 billion in drought relief, but how long will that last and how much will we need in a couple of years time? The cost of protecting our coastline from erosion and inundation due to rises in sea level is unimaginable. It does not take another study to figure out what is going on and what must be done; it obviously does require a change of government, but not another study. We have to address climate change. It will scar our very soul as a nation to see the extent of our folly if we watch much of the land that we occupy become lost to salt and rising oceans and watch our great rivers die. That is part of our soul. It is about the way we see ourselves in this great land of ours. It will damage us irreparably if we see this great nation damaged in that way.

The impact will be catastrophic both environmentally and economically. I know this government does not particularly care about the former, or does not understand the former, but we know it cares about the latter. I have heard on the radio and on TV in the last couple of weeks that climate change has become a trendy issue for Liberal Party members to jump on board. At least they have learnt how to say it in public now, but it is time they learned how to do something about it. This bill does nothing. The recent conversion of some is too little, too late to save this bill. This bill was irrelevant before it was drafted, and pushing it through this House with disgraceful haste will not hide its flaws.

There are 409 pages of amendments to the government’s most important piece of environmental protection legislation and they do not mention the greatest threat to the world environment and to our environment: climate change. The government is rushing this bill through the parliament with incredible haste. The parliamentary secretary introduced it only five sitting days ago. The government expects to have it through the Senate by the end of the month. There are 409 pages of amendments to the most important piece of environmental legislation, in the government’s own words, and almost no time for proper scrutiny.

Even on the surface, without looking at all the fine print where the devil really is, you can see that this is a bad bill. When the parliamentary secretary, the member for Flinders, introduced this bill he said some very interesting things about it. He spent some time outlining the successes of the current act, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. He explained how many extra fisheries have been assessed and accredited, the number of threatened species recovery plans organised, the record penalties imposed for illegal clear-felling and so on. These are all achievements for which the government should be congratulated. The EPBC Act is one that this government has been very proud of. Then the member for Flinders let the cat out of the bag, though, and told us what this legislation is really all about. In some of the finest Sir Humphrey Appleby speak, he said:

Operational improvements can be achieved by reducing processing time and decision points affecting the environmental assessment and approval of proposed development …

Or, to put it in plain English, it can be improved through less oversight, fewer checks and balances and more destruction of both the environment and heritage. How are the government going to achieve this? The parliamentary secretary tells us how: by ‘using strategic approaches and providing greater incentive for development interests’. It is an environment and heritage bill that will ‘provide greater incentive for development interests’! They do not even try to hide it under their usual Orwellian doublespeak. When I saw ‘providing greater incentive for development interests,’ I flicked back to the title, thinking it was probably called the ‘Saving Trees from Loggers Bill’. That would be the normal way the government would name a bill that had this underbelly to it. They do not even try to hide it. They just say it right out in the open: ‘This bill will provide greater incentive for development interests.’ It is absolutely astonishing.

It seems that the original act, even watered down as it was, was just a little bit too effective. This legislation encourages development at the expense of the environment and our nation’s heritage and allows it to happen with less scrutiny and oversight from others who may have an interest. The ability for interested and even affected third parties to be involved in the process will be seriously curtailed under this legislation. This is supposed to be a bill to protect our environment and heritage. It does not even mention climate change and it sets about ‘providing greater incentive for developer interests’. No wonder the government is rushing this legislation through. You would not want anyone to notice this one, would you?

The government is right not to want anyone to notice, because it is lagging so far behind the community on this that it is out of sight. This is the issue that people are all talking about, when they walk through their dusty backyards to their barbecue. This is the issue that everyone now talks about—this is the real barbecue stopper. When I am out and about in my electorate, this issue comes up more than any other issue. I was out and about at two mobile offices on Saturday. Out of about two dozen people whom I spoke to for about an hour on Saturday morning, four of them raised this matter as a major concern—an extraordinarily high number of people who, without any soliciting on my part, walked up to me in the street and expressed their concern about the environment. They are getting incredibly aggressive, and also incredibly informed, about their expectations of government.

They expect real strategy. This is a complex and multilayered problem and they expect complex and multilayered solutions—not one-off projects designed to give an impression of activity but genuine long-term commitment, complex and multilayered strategy. In short, they expect some work. They expect a government that recognises a problem, that recognises the community’s concern about this problem and that sets about doing some real hard work trying to find some real solutions. It is not a short-term problem. There is not a short-term solution and there is not a political solution to this. The problem is simply too huge. You cannot come up with something just before the election on this one and make the problem go away. You cannot make it appear to go away. This problem is here until this government starts to find answers to this problem. The public expects hard work from this government. They expect commitment and action and this bill is nowhere near the mark. This bill should go back to the garbage bin and this government needs to start again, with some real community consultation and some real hard work.

As a community we have to learn to be smarter with water. We have to learn to adapt to our climate. It is not so long ago that some local councils forbade residents from having backyard water tanks on aesthetic grounds. Can you imagine a council surviving if they had that policy today? Addressing climate change, given the damage that has already been done, is going to take us decades. This is not an election cycle issue that can be fixed in an instant or that is going to go away. It will be years before we see tangible results, but it cannot be years before we start the work. The work is late already. Today is too late; tomorrow is later; the day after that is later still. For a government that does not care what happens to this country in 50 years time, I guess it does not have to act but, for the rest of us in this country who do care, we beg you to get off your bottoms and get to work. This is the biggest issue that the environment has faced and it is probably the biggest issue that this country has faced, and denying it will not make it go away. Denying it might make you go away at the next election, but it will not make this problem go away. Quite frankly, we cannot wait another year for you guys to lose the election to act on this. We have to act on this now.

There is no point saying that we will meet the Kyoto protocol levels if we do not ratify the document and therefore gain the benefits that it brings. Labor will sign Kyoto and engage in the carbon trading scheme that will bring economic benefits to smart companies. That is the key, of course: a smart company will make money; smart companies will stay ahead of the curve. Around the world, emission standards and carbon trading certificates are becoming fundamental to normal, everyday business operations.

If we do not set up a national carbon trading system then there are many Australian companies which will no longer be able to trade internationally because they will not be able to supply the necessary documentation regarding their environmental credentials. We have to cut emissions. It is as simple as that. Everyone knows it except, it seems, the most senior personnel in this government. Labor believe that we need to cut emissions by 60 per cent by 2050. That is our target. We on this side of the House have a target.

Due to the Howard government’s complete lack of leadership on this issue, the state premiers have agreed to set up a cooperative emissions trading scheme of their own. They are going around the government. With the federal government not prepared to act in this area, the state governments are finding a way around it—just as the community is—to find a solution to this very real problem.

Labor in government will take the lead on this issue and coordinate a national effort, which is what is desperately required in this country. We will take the lead in the region. On 5 January this year, Labor released a policy discussion paper on climate change in the Pacific outlining the seven key elements to Labor’s plan. These included: a Pacific climate centre to ensure proper measurement and monitoring of the effects of climate change; assistance for mitigation, adaptation and emergency response efforts, such as protecting freshwater sources from saltwater contamination; dealing with infrastructure decay caused by coastal erosion; assistance with intracountry evacuations when citizens have to be moved from low-lying areas to higher ground; training to help the citizens of countries that have to be fully evacuated; establishing an international coalition to accept climate change refugees when a country becomes uninhabitable because of rising sea levels; assistance to preserve the cultural heritage of those who are evacuated; and establishing a Pacific climate change alliance to add greater momentum to global efforts to deal with climate change.

But for Australia to credibly be part of such an alliance, it must ratify the Kyoto protocol and commit to cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Labor is taking the lead on this issue and we are looking as far as we can into the future. This government cannot see past the next opinion poll, let alone the kind of vision that this issue requires. This bill is proof of that. You do not have to go any further than this bill to see this government’s pathetic credentials when it comes to the environment.

We know what this government thinks about refugees; it likes to put them on an island in the Pacific Ocean—they call it the Pacific solution. One wonders what they will do when we are the Pacific solution—when rising sea levels in the Pacific bring thousands of refugees to this country. We will become the Pacific solution if we do not work, not just in our own country but with our neighbours, to protect them from this great threat.

You cannot address climate change with just one initiative. It has to be a multifaceted attack. Reducing emissions is one such element and renewable energy must be another—not the odd one-off project but a real, sustainable strategy to improve this country’s development of renewable energy and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. Labor will increase the mandatory renewable energy target.

The fossil fuels we use are eventually going to run out. We all know that. We have known it for some time. Why, then, is this government doing so little on renewable energies? Why has it done so little for 10 years? For 10 years we have known about this; why has it done so little? In fact, with this legislation before us today the government is moving in the opposite direction, making it easier for development interests to continue to operate without checks and balances and without any regard to the environmental impact of their operations.

Labor is willing to step up and take the lead on these vital issues that will affect generations to come. We have to, because this government will not. I urge members of this House to reject this bill and support the amendment moved by my colleague the member for Grayndler.

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