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

I have a number of inconvenient truths to share with the House. The first one relates to the Labor Party’s allegedly new solar rebate announced today, which was described as involving a doubling of the rebate. It was clear in question time that the member for Kingsford Smith did not know what the policy was, but I have since found a transcript of the policy, which I had obviously read earlier. I am reading from Mr Rudd’s transcript. It says:

... we’ll be providing $50 million to provide [subsidies] rebates of up to $4,000 for homes right across Australia ...

Well, the rebate maximum now is $4,000. So the rebate proposed is exactly the same. In fact, since the photovoltaic rebate program was put in place by the government it has provided $52 million to help householders, schools and community groups install solar systems on their roofs. The program expires on 30 June this year and the Prime Minister has publicly committed to extend it. So neither in the amount of money proposed nor in the rebate is there any doubling at all. What is so mystifying is that the member for Kingsford Smith asked the Australian people to trust him with the conduct of the campaign against climate change and he does not know what his own policies are. When taxed with that question, when challenged in question time, he sat there mute, clutching a piece of paper the contents of which he obviously did not know or understand. He did not utter a word.

The other inconvenient truth that the honourable member for Kingsford Smith has to recognise is that this global warming problem is a global problem. That is why it is called global warming. It is a problem that every country in the world and every citizen of the world faces. Whether a tonne of carbon dioxide goes into the atmosphere in Canberra, Shanghai or Novosibirsk it has the same effect. So we have to have a global agreement. And therein lies the fatal flaw for Kyoto, and the reason why everybody—from Sir Nicholas Stern and Tony Blair to everybody around the world, be they passionate proponents of an aggressive response to climate change or not—recognises that Kyoto cannot do the trick. Why? Because we know that without Kyoto we would have had a 41 per cent increase in global emissions; with it we get a 40 per cent increase—a one per cent decline.

The reality is that when you look at the Kyoto agreement you see that it is filled with a number of very serious flaws. I have mentioned the biggest one, which is that it does not involve the major emitters. It only involves 30 per cent of the world’s emitters. The United States is not a party; India is not a party; China is not a party. All the countries of the world—in particular, the big emitters—have got to be in it to make it work. So much is obvious, and that is why Australia is working creatively and actively with the major emitters, particularly through the AP6 program, to ensure that we have the programs, technologies and policies that enable us to meet the challenge and that enable us to ensure that countries like China and India, that deserve economic growth and that need development, will be able to get the energy they need without adding to the carbon in the atmosphere—to get the energy they need and slow the increase of carbon in the atmosphere from their emissions.

Let me go to a very important point. This is one of the most inconvenient truths for the opposition on this issue. They keep on saying that Australia has a very high level of carbon emissions per head of population, and relative to many other countries we do. Let me put this to the member for Kingsford Smith: I would say that the residents of Wentworth, my electorate, have a much lower level of carbon emissions per head of population than do the residents of Kingsford Smith. Why is that? Because Sydney airport is in the electorate of Kingsford Smith, where there are enormous amounts of emissions from jets landing and taking off. Or we could point to the member for Hunter and we could say that the constituents of the Hunter electorate have an even higher set of emissions per head of population because of all their power stations. If I were to make those points the member for Hunter would say, ‘Hang on, the citizens of Wentworth are using that electricity we generate in the Hunter Valley,’ and the member for Kingsford Smith would say: ‘Hang on, the citizens of Wentworth are getting on planes at Sydney airport and taking off overseas and coming back. You can’t just look at it constituency by constituency.’

That is exactly the same point with these narrow, country by country analyses. We are a large exporter of alumina and aluminium. It is a very, very energy intensive product. If we were to shut down our aluminium industry we would reduce our emissions dramatically and our emissions per head of population would be reduced. But would the world’s demand for aluminium be reduced? Not at all. In fact, arguably aluminium has a positive benefit in terms of energy efficiency because obviously anything built of aluminium is light and once you have created the aluminium it can be, in effect, perpetually recycled.

So this is the problem with these cheap, shallow points. The member for Kingsford Smith did not know, half an hour ago, what his own policy was. He could not answer the question. He was mute; struck dumb! He could only clutch the paper. The fact is that if we were to eliminate our aluminium industry we would reduce our CO emissions. But the aluminium would simply be made somewhere else. People would not stop wanting to use aluminium. People would not stop wanting to make vehicles and planes and containers out of aluminium. That would continue. All that would do is export the emissions.

The same is true with energy. A considerable amount of COis emitted as a consequence of our LNG industry—our gas industry. When we export gas, we are providing relatively low carbon fuels to other countries in the world. But quite a lot of CO is emitted here in Australia. Let us say we shut down that industry. Do we imagine that the nations of the world will suddenly stop using gas? They will just get it from somewhere else. Worse still, they would burn a great deal more coal—which, in most parts of the world, is a great deal dirtier in respect of its CO emissions than Australia’s coal.

Looking at Australia in this narrow way, in isolation, is as narrow-minded and ignorant as looking at one suburb, one electorate or one city in a country. It is a global problem and it needs global answers. How are we in Australia responding to the global challenge? Firstly, we will meet our Kyoto protocol target through our own efforts. We will not be buying bogus credits from eastern Europe.

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