Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

One of the things that has come out of the debate today while I have been sitting here listening to those who have gone before me is that some do not have the ability to recognise the amount of work that the national government has done. Not actually recognising that, over the past 11 years, this government has worked assiduously to enhance and protect our environment and heritage. More than $20 billion has been spent on environment protection—and I know this probably more than some in the House, because I have been away from the House and I have come back. I left this House in 1998 and I have since seen the work that has been done. The programs that are out there, the investment in landcare. As was outlined by the minister today, there has been investment internationally in reforestation. It does not take a genius to work out what you can do when you only need a shovel, a seed and some money.

Two billion dollars of that $20 billion has been invested in climate change activities. Australia, as you heard from the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, leads the world in many areas of technology, including sequestration, and in sending out the message that deforestation is a problem for the world, not just a problem for Australia. The whole debate today has been taken in the context of the Australian experience. When the member for Oxley talked about clean coal he did not even mention that the other day we put $50 million into clean coal. The opposition did not even talk about how much damage they are going to do to jobs in the Latrobe Valley, in the Collie mines in Western Australia and in the Hunter. The Howard government is the government that is investing in technology that could change our future when it comes to clean coal.

When we spend $200 million on global forests we are doing something about global climate change that has an effect on greenhouse gas emissions now through sustainable forest practices. If we can stop those forests being taken away, that is an instantaneous reduction, an instantaneous result and an instantaneous example of Australia leading the way. It is through deforestation that problems creep through the world, affecting so many areas of our lives. If we only halved the rate of global deforestation it would lead to global emission reductions five times greater than Australia’s total annual emissions. I will repeat that: if we only halved the rate of global deforestation it would lead to global emission reductions five times greater than Australia’s total annual emissions and almost 10 times greater than those to be achieved under the existing Kyoto protocol, which will only reduce growth in annual emissions by one per cent. This initiative offers the world its best near-term chance for a breathing space as we develop technologies that will ultimately change the world. The Australian government is investing in a range of projects, including renewables, but above all we are focused on clean coal. Why is that? Because coal is the world’s most abundant energy source. The single fact is that today you cannot run baseload power on renewables. And I know the member for Mallee is about to speak on renewable energies and our approach to what is going on.

I would like to move on to what the minister said in question time today. He used the word ‘crisis’ with regard to water. Every member of this House has heard the word ‘crisis’ overused for every situation that comes before every member or minister or shadow minister. There will be a group somewhere that says, ‘We have a crisis, we have a crisis, we have a crisis.’ I will tell you what a crisis is. When south-east Queensland is running out of water, that is a crisis; when Sydney’s water supply is under threat, that is a crisis; when the Thomson Dam in my electorate is only 29 per cent full, that is a crisis; and when Melbourne’s water supply is so depleted and there is so little rain falling in the catchments that the city could be laid waste, that is a crisis.

I cannot understand why the Bracks government in Victoria is saying: ‘It is going to rain. It will have to rain.’ The Victorian state government’s position is the most amazing abrogation of responsibility of any state government that has been in power as long as it has. It sits on its backside and watches this real crisis unfolding, but everybody who gets up and says, ‘We have a real problem with Melbourne’s water supply,’ is called Chicken Little. The facts speak for themselves. The water that we have in storage is going down and the catchments are not been refilled. With average rainfall in the Thomson Dam catchment, I think it would take 50 years to fill. With the rainfall that we have been getting in the Thomson Dam catchment, it will not fill in a lifetime.

I know there are people praying for rain. Even the Bracks government said it has been on its knees. All it has done is attack the federal government to shift the blame away from its consideration of what it is going to do. In their arguments they say: ‘We have tapped into the Tarago Dam to service Melbourne. But hang on, that project won’t be ready till 2010.’ The problem is now. I do not know what part of Australia the members in the chamber come from, but they should take a decent look at what is happening in South Gippsland in my electorate. We rang a farmer today whom I visited two months ago regarding exceptional circumstances assistance.  I said, ‘How is it going?’ He said: ‘Yes, we’ve had a bit of rain. We had a few of those showers that came through. But we still haven’t got run-off water.’ They are still carting water every day for their dairy farm. There is a crisis that the state government is not facing up to. They have put millions of dollars aside for capital works for water, but no-one can make a decision as to what to do. Yes, the blessed rain we have had has been fantastic in Victoria because it has dampened everything down and given the gardens a bit of a go and there is a bit of greenery around, but at the same time there is no run-off and it is not filling our dams. I know this from my dam at home and from what is happening in the Thomson and in the rest of the catchments around the state.

And when Victoria is in trouble the rest of the nation is in trouble, because it is about to affect our power supply and our industries. It means massive job losses if you cannot supply that water. Is that understood? It is not just the water that you will get to your drinking tap; it is the fact that power stations are now actually having to look for other avenues to get the water to produce the power. Think about it. We are sitting here in this parliament with baseload electricity running this place. If we were on solar or wind power we would be standing in darkness. That is what people have to come to grips with. The brown coal in Victoria is a treasured resource, and the jobs that surround that brown coal in Victoria, and our clean coal program, are very important—unless you want to sit here in the dark. Actually, I think I look better in the dark.

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