Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

When you look at the Hansard and see what you had to say on that, Minister, I think you will be soberly surprised. I draw the environment minister’s attention to this document by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It is called Summary for policymakers. It came out last Friday. I would encourage all those who read the Hansard and all those participating in this debate today to read this 22-page document carefully.

On the question of the connection, I draw the minister’s attention—and I would like him to respond to this when we get to his response to the MPI—to a clear statement on page 3, which says:

The understanding of anthropogenic warming and cooling influences on climate has improved since the Third Assessment Report—

that was about five or six years ago—

leading to very high confidence7 that the globally averaged net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming ...

Going to the footnote, what is ‘very high confidence’ defined as? ‘Very high confidence’ means:

... at least a 9 out of 10 chance of being correct ...

This is the document from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This is the one in which how many Australian scientists participated, Minister? We were briefed the other day that, I think, some 40 to 42 Australian scientists participated. This is the document in which the international community is seeking to frame a consensus for responding to this global challenge of climate change, yet we have the three responsible ministers of this government today saying to the nation through the parliament, ‘We are still climate change sceptics.’ Minister, I would ask you sincerely on behalf of the nation to reconsider that position.

When you look at the rest of what the minister had to say most recently—that we can easily cope with a metre sea rise; it is an interesting proposition—to the shadow minister’s question as to whether he would increase the mandatory renewable energy target, it was duck and weave from central casting. On the question that we put earlier to the Prime Minister about the submission that cabinet considered on a national carbon trading scheme back in August 2003, suddenly the Prime Minister—he whose memory never slips—had a memory lapse. That was in the vicinity of 3½ years ago. A cabinet submission was put to the cabinet of the government of this country to do something then on carbon emissions and what did they do? They did nothing.

Why then do we have this sudden flurry of activity—at least at an apparent and public political level—on the part of this government on climate change? One thing has happened and it is simply this: the opinion polls have shifted. The surest barometer of this Prime Minister’s engagement with the serious political questions which face this country and the policy challenges which we face in the future is that, when the opinion polls turn, John Howard runs big-time after them. The science has been in for a long time. The only thing that has changed is the opinion polls—hence a flurry of apparent political activity. My challenge again is this: how can a government full of climate change sceptics be part of this nation’s climate change solution? Water cannot be dealt with effectively in the long term unless we are dealing with climate change.

When we raised the matter of the blame game last year by reference to the report on the blame game between the Commonwealth and the states on the future of health funding, we received ridicule from the other side of the table in the House of Representatives. Since then, the opinion polls have turned and, once again, there is a flurry of apparent activity on the government’s part on the question of the blame game. But it still, as evidenced today in the environment minister’s response, adds up to a continuing attempt to evade responsibility on the key question of water as well.

In the year ahead, we intend to put forward, as we have begun to on education, a positive plan for the nation’s future dealing with the education revolution, dealing with the decline in productivity growth, dealing with the needs of human capital investment and dealing with the real challenge of climate change and the associated challenge of water—dealing with ending the blame game. These are all about investing in our future. That is our positive message to the Australian people for this year ahead.

I said before, however, that there is another part to the message. It is this: you can still build long-term prosperity without throwing the fair go out the back door. This government has said that, when it comes to prosperity, the only way you can do it is to ratchet back the working conditions and wages of Australia’s working families. What we have with their workplace laws is a clear-cut statement of what is demonstrably unfair in the minds and hearts of working Australians right across this country. Our message to the Australian people is that we intend to restore the balance when it comes to fairness. We intend to be in the business of investing in this country’s future and we look forward to advancing this debate in this election year. We will join this battle. We intend to put ideas forward in this battle because we intend to provide a plan for the future against a government still anchored in the past. We intend, in the events of this year, to prevail and to provide victory for the Labor Party at the upcoming election.

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