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

If you look at the real figures on our emissions, you will see that they are increasing by 21.5 per cent. Under the Howard government they have exploded. The parliamentary secretary talks about meeting targets. Two weeks ago the Minister for the Environment and Heritage said in the Senate that we might not even meet our target—in spite of the concessions which have been given by the government. The truth is that the record is appalling. We have an abrogation—an attempt to undermine the protocol. This is something that environment ministers such as Senator Hill, when they had some integrity on the other side, said was foolish. Senator Hill said that only a fool would think that Australia has an interest in undermining the Kyoto protocol. Yet we have this argument that China, Japan, India and all these other countries—we heard it again today—are not part of it.

It is just extraordinary to blame the developing world—in particular China, which is identified by the Stern review, along with California and the European Union, as taking the most action to avoid climate change. We know the hypocrisy is there because, when the environment minister went to China two weeks ago, the Roaring 40s project that he opened was, of course, totally funded by the clean development mechanism of Kyoto. It was 51 per cent owned by a Chinese company and 49 per cent Australian. (Extension of time granted) Were it not for the clean development mechanism, if it had been a totally Australian based company and if it were not for the fact that it was a 51 per cent Chinese company, that project would not have proceeded. That project was, of course, by the Roaring 40s company, from Tasmania, which has not proceeded with projects worth $550 million in Tasmania and South Australia.

So here we have a situation whereby renewable energy projects in Australia are not being proceeded with. We know that the Vestas nacelle factory in Tasmania, a renewable energy manufacturing plant, shut down in August. Australia is the only country on the planet where renewable energy projects are actually being closed. In addition to that, the government says that one-off projects have been announced under the low emissions technology fund. Labor supports such projects, but one-off announcements will not go anywhere near the action we need if we are going to avoid dangerous climate change. Of the projects that have been announced, the Victorian project is only viable because of the Victorian renewable energy target and the Queensland project is only viable due to the Queensland government system—

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