Peter McGauran (Gippsland, National Party, Deputy Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

not to come and debate the issues with me at a time and place of the member for Kingsford Smith’s choosing. I want him to explain directly, looking into the eyes of coal workers, his claim that the automatic expansion of the coal industry is a thing of the past.

The problem for the Labor Party when they do attempt to gain political mileage on this issue and link future economic prosperity with climate change, which are the terms of today’s matter of public importance, is that their policy of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent by the year 2050 will cripple our export industries and domestically will increase the cost of gas and electricity for every Australian family and business.

It is not just people directly involved in the coal and resource sectors that are at risk from the Labor Party’s policy; it is also, of course, our general standard of living and our economic prosperity. We know this for a fact because ABARE, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, a highly credentialled and well-regarded entity which is independent of mind, produced a report last July entitled Economic impact of climate change policy. It was released on 17 July, to be exact. What ABARE does is model a decrease in emissions of 50 per cent of 1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions in Australia by 2050. It is very similar to the commitment that the Labor Party has given. Let me remind the House and those who are listening—it is essential that we get this point exactly clear—that Labor has announced that it will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent by the year 2050. We have to hand a report by ABARE which models a 50 per cent cut by the year 2050. It is very close to or similar to the Labor Party’s own announced policy.

What does ABARE find? It concludes that, relative to business as usual, petrol prices would increase by around 100 per cent, the GDP growth of Australia would be 10.7 per cent lower, real wages would be 21 per cent lower, oil and gas production would fall by 60 per cent, coal production would be down by 32 per cent, electricity output would fall by 23 per cent and agricultural production would decline by 44 per cent. If Australia were to adopt a 60 per cent cut by the year 2050—and I do not believe that a Labor Party in government would proceed with its electorally structured and ambitious target—Australia’s economy would largely collapse.

When the member for Lilley as shadow Treasurer suggests that Australia’s future economic prosperity is linked to a government’s attitude to climate change, he has got that much right. But what he has got wrong is the Labor Party policy. The amazing thing about the Labor Party’s announcement of a 60 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 is that they did not take into account any of these economic studies or commission any of their own. How responsible is it for an alternative government to arbitrarily announce an economic target without modelling, examining or calculating its economic effect? Regardless of the impact on Australian industry or on Australian jobs, the Labor Party announced this target, believing of course that it is in their political and electoral interests to do so. In reality, the Labor Party’s policy would shut down Australian industries, with thousands of employees being laid off. But it would not reduce emissions by one tonne of carbon, because the industries and the jobs would simply be exported to other countries, especially developing countries, where they have less onerous climate change policies.

As the Prime Minister said earlier, setting a national emissions target is one of the most important economic decisions any government in the history of this nation could take. Here we have the Labor Party recklessly and negligently setting a target without any preparatory work, without any supporting evidence. I will be fascinated to hear other Labor Party contributors to this debate try to explain how the target was set and what its ramifications will be, particularly in light of the ABARE report. The ABARE report, which modelled close to the Labor Party’s economic and climate change policy, found that that target would be devastating for the economy. It is not just some academic exercise; it means that people’s jobs and ways of life would be severely limited, even destroyed.

The second problem for the Labor Party is its policy to ratify the Kyoto protocol. This lays the burden of global greenhouse gas emissions entirely on developed countries such as Australia. That is why the government will not ratify Kyoto. It is the lowest common denominator. Australia and the world can do better than Kyoto because Kyoto does not take the developing countries—especially India and China, which make up a significant proportion of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions—to task. Ratifying Kyoto is a meaningless, symbolic and deceptive policy stance by an alternative Australian government which we will not embrace simply for fraudulent political reasons, bearing in mind especially that Australia contributes 1.4 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. We have a heavy responsibility, particularly with our high standard of living and our general prosperity, to contribute to the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but ratifying Kyoto is just a token gesture.

Unlike many countries that have ratified Kyoto, Australia will achieve its targets under that international agreement in any event. Our record in controlling our emissions is an admirable one. The increase over 1990 emissions is just 2.2 per cent, while Australia’s GDP has increased 61 per cent since then. Intensity, which is emissions per dollar of GDP since 1990, is down 36.7 per cent, while per capita emissions since 1990 are down 14.4 per cent. After all, we are tackling this problem with a range of solutions—with heavy investment in research and development, with the funding of pilot plants especially for clean coal and with our extensive funding in renewable energy. Across the board, we have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in renewable energy. We are supporting geothermal energy. Our investment in clean coal runs to $1.4 billion. All of these are leading to a significant reduction in Australia’s emissions. If all of Australia’s industries that make up that 1.4 per cent of the world’s share of greenhouse gases were to shut down overnight, China would make up the difference within nine months. So it is an utterly meaningless gesture, even in its most radical and admittedly unthinkable form, to shut down all greenhouse gas emitting industries in Australia, if you have proper, rational and objective regard for the health of the planet.

So let us be realistic about that. That is what Australia always embraces under a coalition government. We are interested in tangible action—practical and meaningful reductions in our greenhouse gas emissions. We have announced $3 billion worth of projects that will cut the amount of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere. That includes $750 million for a clean coal power station in the La Trobe Valley, in my own electorate, an $841 million carbon-burying project in Western Australia, the world’s largest solar power station near Mildura and a $45 million methane power plant in Queensland. They are all measurable, practical investments. They have no negative impact on jobs, industries, exports or our economy. You cannot commit to targets without considering and knowing the consequences.

It is the most grossly irresponsible act by the Australian Labor Party to commit to a target of a 60 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions for Australia by 2050 without doing any of the assessments as to the impact. Well, we have the assessments, and now I invite, even urge, the Labor Party—and many of my constituents in the La Trobe Valley would plead with them—to revisit that policy. Otherwise the Labor Party are selling out hundreds of thousands of workers in the mining and power-generating industries, and all the consequential and associated industries as well, by agreeing to proposals that we all know will cost jobs. The Labor Party policy on climate change will cost jobs.

The government will always put economic prosperity and jobs ahead of ideology and targets that do not take the consequences into account. The government recognise, as does the Australian community, that there are real challenges posed by climate change. Unlike the opposition, we take our responsibility to balance environmental and economic priorities very seriously. We have not and will not commit to arbitrary targets chosen for political reasons. We will respond with policies which reflect Australia’s needs, and we are not going to peddle nonsense about the difficult choices before the world.

The choice is obvious: reduce significantly, in a measured way, greenhouse gas emissions but recognise that there is no one, silver bullet solution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. You need a portfolio of measures and technologies across all sectors of the economy. The solution must be a global one, at the same time, not the empty rhetoric of Kyoto.

Instead, the government are playing a leading role in forming the Asia-Pacific 6 group of countries which together account for 50 per cent of global emissions. We support that group of large nations knowing that, if we make that work, it will of course have enormous ramifications for the world’s greenhouse gas emissions task. Rather than put aside our enormous natural advantage in fossil fuel resources, Australia has to work on ways to reduce the greenhouse gas consequences of using them, so we support the development of renewable technologies as part of that portfolio approach. We have committed $2.8 billion to initiatives that directly address climate change and over one-quarter of a billion dollars more for indirect measures. At the same time, we are doing the responsible thing in considering the full range of possible technologies to reduce emissions, including nuclear energy, which is something the Labor Party will not even consider for ideological reasons, knowing that they have a left-wing component to their Labor Party that is implacably opposed to even considering the issue. The government’s policies are forward looking—(Time expired)

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