Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is with pleasure that I rise tonight to speak on the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006, particularly about what it does not address, and to endorse the second reading amendment moved by my colleague Anthony Albanese, the shadow minister for the environment and member for Grayndler.

Ten years of the Howard government have seen enormous pressure come to bear on our environment. Climate change is cutting our water supply, starving our towns and cities of this essential resource. It is unfortunately a time when we can say the mighty Murray River has been at its lowest levels for 100 years and in some places a trickle represents this truly national icon. Seventeen million hectares of productive land is facing complete obliteration by 2050 due to salinity problems. Yet this bill that should be addressing this issue of tremendous importance has been rushed through. Labor is moving to amend it on a number of fronts, and the opposition’s second reading amendment highlights those.

There are 409 pages of amendments in this bill that will ultimately change the way the environment is being protected, but the government—as is its wont these days, after gaining control of the Senate—would not allow a proper examination of the consequences of this bill. Under the government’s agenda, due to be decided and resolved by the end of November, something as serious as a major piece of environmental law that governs the operations of the nation is being rushed through with unseemly haste. The bill has been referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, which is due to report in mid-November, but debate on the bill has commenced before we have had the opportunity of looking at public submissions and, most importantly, hearing public commentary.

In our view it is an appalling abuse of process and just shows the arrogance of this government. The government has to be condemned for pushing this bill through both houses without a proper time frame for consideration or without proper public consultation processes.

A quick glance at the detail shows that the amendments will curtail third-party appeal rights and will undermine public consultation processes, and the amendments will allow the further politicisation of decision-making processes on very important matters relating to the protection of our heritage and our environment.

Amazingly, the most serious global issue, that of global warming and climate change, is not even dealt with in this bill. The Howard government have left us unprepared for the dramatic challenges that lie ahead. In my view, they have no cohesive national plan to prepare for climate change. They have no cohesive national plan to cut Australia’s soaring greenhouse emissions. I can see the need for these. We need a plan for the future—a national climate change strategy.

The consequences of climate change are very real. Ask anyone; ask anyone in my electorate. As I have said, I can see the need for change. So can many others in my electorate. For example, east of my electorate, Gippsland was ablaze. With temperatures in the mid-thirties, well above the average for early October, and wind speeds reaching 100 kilometres an hour, fire fighters had an unenviable task of taming some of Victoria’s 40 fires. And three other states have declared themselves to be in extreme fire danger some six weeks earlier than the same time last year.

Other extreme weather events that many people in my electorate—and the member for Flinders—would have noticed include: two category 4 cyclones; one of the worst snow seasons on record; water stresses in our cities; unseasonable snap frosts devastating stone fruit crops; a relentless El Nino, lowering most grain yields; and now, according to the Treasurer, we are officially in the worst drought ever.

In looking at other third-party endorsements of the seriousness of the difficulties we face, read no further than Paul Sheehan in an article that he wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald. Talking about what Australia will become if we do not fix our environment, he said:

The Roman emperor Nero is best remembered for having his mother and wife assassinated, murdering his second wife, indulging in orgies, concerts and sporting spectacles while persecuting Christians, and blaming them for the great fire of Rome during which, most infamously, he supposedly played the lyre from the balcony of his palace. Nero playing while Rome burned is myth. The rest is not.

I wonder what history will say about us when we are gone, off to that great absolute water frontage in the sky?

That we fiddled while Rome burned? That we were the wealthiest society in our history, worth more than $350,000 for every man, woman and child, with the biggest homes, the most cars, the highest debt, the lowest savings, the highest rates of obesity and excess weight, and the greatest amount of consumerism, gambling and drug consumption, while the landscape, the lifeblood of the nation, died around us—

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