Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources) Share this | Hansard source

The balance I seek to restore immediately is the balance of accuracy. The Leader of the Opposition has misrepresented my remarks on AM not once, but twice. This is what I said:

... you have to bear in mind that most of our coastal population lives on the east coast of Australia and because of the geology or the [topography] of the east coast, you know, much of that is adequately elevated to deal with a one-metre sea rise.

I went on to say:

It’s a big factor. It’s something that we are working on, we’re working on with the CSIRO ... working with the Greenhouse Office ... it essentially requires a change in planning standards over the next few decades so that as new properties are developed they are either set back or adequately protected to ensure that they’re not impacted by storm surges.

That transcript was available to the Leader of the Opposition. I was incorrect a moment ago; he misrepresented those remarks three times—twice to the Prime Minister and just here a moment ago. As far as climate change is concerned, the questions that really need to be answered are for the opposition and, in particular, for my neighbour, the member for Kingsford Smith. The Labor Party’s climate change policy, as they have stated, involves essentially two propositions. The first is to ratify the Kyoto protocol. We all recognise that ratifying the Kyoto protocol by itself will not result in Australia emitting any less greenhouse gases because we are already on track to meet our Kyoto target. It will not have, in and of itself, any effect on the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

But the second part of their proposition is to have a mandatory cut in emissions of 60 per cent by 2050. This is a very substantial cut and it would obviously have a very large cost. It is a reasonable inquiry to ask what the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow environment minister believe that cost would be. That gentleman journalist David Speers endeavoured to interrogate the member for Kingsford Smith yesterday, many times. He asked, ‘Are these industries, coal and the like, going to have to pay something?’ The member for Kingsford Smith said, ‘I don’t think anyone can skirt the issue,’ and then proceeded to skirt it. He said, ‘I don’t expect to start answering hypotheticals about where or where burdens may or may not fall.’ Mr Speers returned to the fray and asked, ‘Should we all expect to be paying more as part of the solution?’ He got no joy from the member for Kingsford Smith, who said: ‘I don’t think we need to get into a sort of scare game of saying to people that prices will go up by X tomorrow.’

Undaunted, Mr Speers went back and asked, ‘Shouldn’t there also be some raw information for people to look at when we’re talking about carbon trading and what it’s going to cost us?’ The member for Kingsford Smith replied, ‘Yes, there should be, and we’ll certainly continue to develop and build policy as we go forward.’ One last time this indefatigable journalist asked the question again, ‘Do you think people are prepared to pay more?’ The member for Kingsford Smith responded, ‘We don’t really know what pay more means.’

There it is. That is all we have been able to find out about the economic basis, the costs, the consequences of the key part of their climate change policy. Either they do not know what it will cost or what the consequences are, or if they do they are not prepared to share them with the people they are asking to elect them into government.

There is also their rationale given for ratifying the Kyoto protocol. The member for Kingsford Smith said, ‘Our policy is to ratify the Kyoto protocol so we get into that international game.’ In an article in the Sun Herald on 4 February he said:

... it would draw Australia back into the international fold, it would create jobs, it would give us the entry price into the greatest debate of our time and it would give the nation some much-needed moral authority.

What the member for Kingsford Smith overlooks is that the Australian government is actively engaged in the international debate on climate change—actively and constructively. The head of the Australian Greenhouse Office in fact is co-chairing the new international talks on post-Kyoto approaches for a long-term cooperative action on climate change on the global basis that all of us know is the only way greenhouse gases can effectively be reduced. We have set up the AP6, a coalition of the largest emitters—the United States, Japan, China, India and others—to work together to build the technologies for all countries, but in particular those big developing countries who need more energy. It is fine to say to the Chinese, ‘You should clean up your act.’ But they are entitled to say: ‘Our emissions per capita are a fraction of yours. Most of the carbon that is up there, you in the developed world put there.’ So there is an issue of equity. But the fact is that, unless they are part of the solution, and unless the United States is part of the solution, everything that we do—and we have done much and we will do more—will be in vain in terms of slowing global warming.

But think of the complete absurdity of the opposition’s position on this: the proposition that we need to ratify Kyoto in order to have a place in the international debate. The United States has not ratified the Kyoto protocol. Does anyone imagine that there can be any international debate, any international agreement on emissions or climate change, without the participation, the active involvement, of the United States?

The reality is that this is a solution that must be global. Our policy, our commitment, is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Australia—and we have done so. By 2010 we will have eliminated from our emissions 87 million tonnes of greenhouse gases, the equivalent of the emissions of the entire transport sector. That is a direct result of the whole suite of programs—$2 billion worth over a decade—that the Australian government has committed to practical measures to reduce greenhouse gases.

But most important is the need to deal with the consequences of climate change in our own country. While we have to mitigate climate change—we must do that and we are doing that—we recognise, from the fourth assessment report and many other reports, as I said in question time, that the consequences of global warming, the reality of global warming, is going to continue for many decades. That is why, with respect, this indictment of anyone who expresses a degree of scepticism is absurd. I should say that in every speech I have given I have said that climate change is a fact, global warming is a fact, and it is contributed to or largely caused by human activities. I do not know whether that makes me a sceptic or not, but I would hate anybody to say that I unquestionably accepted or refused to question accepted opinions. The key thing always, particularly in scientific matters, is to have an open and questioning mind. The point of view that the opposition presents as the right posture is that of some uncritical acceptance of a dogma. That is the worst way to deal with Australia’s challenges. We have to have all of the options on the table—and indeed we do.

Consider the so-called climate summit that Labor is proposing to have. The Leader of the Opposition said, ‘We want to have all the ideas on the table,’ and immediately a journalist said, ‘What about nuclear power?’ ‘Oh, no, we won’t accept that; that’s not on the table.’ So you can only have an idea if it is one that fits in with the rigid dogma of the opposition. The water challenge in Australia is the gravest challenge we face. The biggest consequence and the clearest manifestation of climate change—which means, for most of Australia, hotter and drier times—will be water scarcity. Not only is there likely to be less precipitation because of changes in the frontal systems that traditionally deliver the bulk of the spring and water rains in southern Australia but greater heat means more evaporation and transpiration and hence less run-off. We are all familiar, and have been for a very long time, with the sorts of figures which we have seen from Perth, where over a decade or so we have had a 21 per cent decline in rainfall and a 64 per cent decline in stream flow. It is that stream flow which is important. Relatively small declines in rainfall can result in enormous declines in water availability.

Recognising that, the Howard government has committed to water reform and to tackling Australia’s water challenges in a way that no federal government in our history ever has before. The National Water Initiative was a first, bringing all the governments of Australia together to agree on a framework for sustainable water management and water reform. Previously, historically and constitutionally, water management has been entirely in the hands of the states. It was not something that Commonwealth governments became involved in—at least, not in any systematic way. That has now changed completely. John Howard is and has been, as Paul Kelly described him in the Australian, prescient on water; farsighted on water. He set the measures in place to restore our rivers to sustainable levels and set the agreement in place. Then, only 10 days ago, he announced the most important policy on water management in our nation’s history.

If you go back more than 100 years, you will find that even before we became a nation Australians said that the Murray and the other interstate rivers should be under Commonwealth jurisdiction. It made sense. As Sir Josiah Symon said at the 1898 Constitutional Convention, ‘In the name of all that is federal, surely this should be a federal matter.’ It was not; that was not what they agreed. But it was common sense. Plainly, as the Prime Minister said, if you have four states with different interests then they are in the position of competitors and they cannot effectively manage the Murray-Darling Basin. The Prime Minister has sought a reference and we have already seen the New South Wales Premier saying he will refer his powers. We have seen very positive remarks from the premiers of Victoria and Queensland, and I believe that the Premier of South Australia, after further discussion, will join with the other states and refer those powers to the Commonwealth. What we will then have will be a governance and management structure for the Murray-Darling Basin which enables it to be run as one whole.

This is the bread basket, the food basket, of Australia. This is where 80 per cent of our irrigated agriculture can be found. This is where, depending on whose statistics you accept, somewhere between 40 per cent and 50 per cent of all our agricultural output can be found. And it is under enormous stress as a consequence of drought and as a consequence of overallocation and water mismanagement over many years. And this will not be an easy problem to deal with. But John Howard, the Prime Minister, has taken that on and committed $10 billion over a decade to deal with these problems of overallocation.

Around Australia, both sides of politics—including the member for Kingsford Smith, including his leader, including premiers, including scientists, including business leaders—have welcomed this far-sighted move. That is planning for the future; that is a commitment to the future. And it stands in stark contrast to the lack of detail and the knee-jerk slogans that we hear from the Labor Party. They talk about policies but have no idea what they will cost; they talk about signing the Kyoto protocol and have no justification for it beyond saying that it will get us into an international debate—or an international game, depending on the style of the reference—in which we are already playing, and have done for many years, a leading part. We are dealing with climate change through practical measures. We are dealing with water problems through practical measures. We are leading to ensure that Australia’s water future is a sustainable and a secure one. (Time expired)

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