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

This morning the member for Kingsford Smith was interviewed on the Today show. Karl Stefanovic said to him, ‘If we do everything that Labor is suggesting with regard to the environment and climate change, will that definitively stop global warming?’ The member for Kingsford Smith replied, ‘Karl, it won’t.’ It will not!

The Labor Party’s policy on climate change is to impose a 60 per cent cut in emissions by 2050. That is the core part of their policy, other than ratifying the Kyoto protocol, which we all understand will not reduce Australian emissions to any extent because we are committed to and will meet our Kyoto target. The substance of their climate change policy is a 60 per cent cut in emissions by 2050.

Three times yesterday the member for Kingsford Smith was asked what it would cost. Three times he could not say. At one point he said he did not know what ‘pay more’ meant. The consumers of Australia, the industries of Australia—look at my friend the member for Throsby—and the workers of Australia know what ‘pay more’ means: it means making industries uncompetitive and it means losing jobs. If Labor want to impose a 60 per cent cut in emissions by 2050 then they should at least do the Australian people the courtesy of telling them what it will cost. How can you responsibly embark on any measure of this scale without knowing what the cost is? You cannot.

This demonstrates once again how unfit the Labor Party is for government, how reckless it is; how ideologically driven it is; and how obsessed it is with symbols, slogans and saying things. It is as easy to proclaim your commitment to the environment as it is to proclaim your piety. We judge people’s actions and their beliefs not by what they claim to say or what they plead but by what they do. How can we judge what they will do if they will not tell us what the consequences are?

The Howard government has recognised for more than a decade the consequences of climate change and the risk it poses to Australia. I believe every single one of the reports—with the exception of the fourth assessment report, which, as the member for Kingsford Smith said, was contributed to by Australians—was actually published by the Australian government. They were published because of initiatives by the Australian government to create greater awareness and to engage the community, business and citizens in dealing with climate change.

If they think that is not an important agenda, I would refer the honourable member for Kingsford Smith and those interested in these issues to the Stern report, which recommends as one of the key objectives the removal of barriers to behavioural change, stressing that it is important to foster a shared understanding of the nature of climate change. What has the Greenhouse Office done but that? What has all the work of the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology done but that?

Again and again the facts have been put on the table, and they have been matched with action. Over $2 billion has been invested to tackle climate change, and that is just to tackle mitigation—not adaptation; I will come to that—and to ensure that we are on track to meet our 108 per cent emissions target under the Kyoto protocol. Five projects have been approved under the $500 million Low Emissions Technology Demonstration Fund, including a large solar concentrator in regional Victoria, a $420 million project to which the fund is providing $75 million. There is a whole series of projects which, as I said in question time, are designed to promote and advance clean coal technology—technology without which the world will never be able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The member for Kingsford Smith reminds me of a person who thinks that they do their bit for the environment by putting a bumper sticker on their car or exercising some personal saving or recycling activity in their own home: ‘Don’t worry; I’ve done my bit for the water challenge. I’ve got a water tank.’ Many of us have water tanks. It is all very commendable, and I commend everyone who has a water tank, but it is not going to fix the problem by itself. The member for Kingsford Smith’s solution is to say Australia should impose on itself a massive reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, which will have an enormous effect on the Australian economy, the extent of which he either does not know or will not tell. He knows, as we all do, that that self-inflicted restraint will have no effect at all on global warming unless it is matched by a similar reduction around the world.

What will the member for Kingsford Smith do if massive reductions in emissions are imposed on Australia way beyond those of our competitors? What will he do when there are thousands of Australians out of work, when instead of adding two million jobs—as the Howard government has done—two million jobs are swept away and when the cost of energy intensive industries goes through the roof? What will he say when nothing changes, when nothing happens to climate, when it is still getting warmer and still getting drier? Will he say: ‘I console you, you poor, unemployed people. I console you from my pillar of virtue. I console you because you have done the right thing. We have sacrificed you in the interests of our ideology. You, your jobs and your livelihoods have been sacrificed, and, by the way, nothing has been achieved.’ That is the Labor Party philosophy.

Our approach is to mitigate greenhouse gases, to meet our international commitments and to work constructively internationally to ensure that we can achieve what we all know is the only answer to an effective reduction in greenhouse gases: a global agreement. That is the reality. It has to involve China, India and the United States. If we go it alone and clean up our own backyard, as I think the member for Kingsford Smith said the other day, that may be commendable and admirable, but it will have no impact unless it is matched by global action.

We could pay a very heavy price and make a very heavy sacrifice indeed—a sacrifice on the altar of an ideology that has no interest in the livelihoods of Australian workers or in the Australian economy and is prepared to sacrifice the interests of Australia, the competitiveness of Australia and the jobs of Australians for nothing more than an ideological slogan. So intensely do the Labor Party hold this slogan dear that they are not prepared to accept any questions, any doubt; hence we have, as I said yesterday, the new heresy of scepticism. You cannot have a doubt; you cannot question anything; you cannot doubt anything; you have to be a total believer. It is as though we are returning to the Spanish Inquisition. I read that at one point the member for Kingsford Smith said the Prime Minister ‘had been’ a sceptic for many years. Apparently, even if you change your mind that is not good enough; you will still be punished.

Let us consider what some other leaders around the world are saying. I am not just quoting the Prime Minister here. Mr Tony Blair has said that it is:

a completely unrealistic debate to say that you could have a climate change agreement that doesn’t involve China and then America obviously, and of course India which is also a country of over a billion people ...

He pointed to the limitations of the Kyoto protocol and said we have to build towards ‘a more realistic framework—

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