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

The clowns opposite speak about $75 million. It is a $420 million project which is only viable because you have those market based mechanisms. Unless you have economic incentives and market based mechanisms, you do not get progress; you do not get application and multiplication of clean technology. And history tells us that. Indeed, the Howard government took credit back in 1997 for the fact that, under Kyoto, it had these economic market based mechanisms. The United States and Australia, under the previous government—and it continued under Robert Hill—pushed for emissions trading to be at the core of Kyoto because they understood that you need those market based mechanisms to drive that change through. They understood that opposition to that was a triumph of hope over experience. They understood that you do not just cross your fingers and hope that the companies do the right thing; you actually need those economic incentives.

So we have a situation whereby the government, instead of having a comprehensive plan to tackle climate change, announced this project in June 2004. That was when they announced the fund as part of the energy white paper. Then nothing happened for more than two years: for almost 2½ years not a single announcement—not one project worthy of support. Why is that? Why is this before us now? Because we are now into an election year. In the last 12 months before an election you can be certain that the money will be rolled out. What that exposes is that it is all about politics, not about good policy. This Prime Minister is only concerned about his future, not the future of this nation and of the future generations to come on this planet, because we are so far behind the rest of the world on climate change that it is an embarrassment. I put a simple proposition if the amendments that I have moved in this House are defeated: mention ‘climate change’ in the national environmental legislation; mention a neutral definition of climate change as an objective. How can that possibly be opposed by the Howard government? I am sure we may well hear some creative reasons for why. I urge the parliamentary secretary to show a bit of ticker, vote for these amendments and acknowledge that climate change is real.

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