Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

This is summed up by the Treasurer’s comment on 25 July—I invite the minister, who is making comments across the dispatch box, to listen to this—when he said, ‘I am focused on the election and not much else.’ This government sniffed the electorate mood and decided to dress itself in a climate change makeover. But the cracks constantly appear in the makeover. The most recent breakout is a report from the members for Solomon, Tangney, Hughes and Lindsay who said, amongst other things:

Another problem with the view that it is anthropogenic greenhouse gases that have caused warming is that warming has also been observed on Mars, Jupiter, Triton, Pluto, Neptune and others.

This report from these government members, in an age when climate change is a recognised significant issue, will go down as one of the most incredible and remarkable pieces of fanciful reporting in this parliament. Climate change is about other generations; it is not about other planets. Back here on planet Earth we see a government that literally wants to blame everyone for its lack of action on climate change, and whose constant refrain, and the refrain from the minister, is that developing countries need to get on board when we ourselves refuse to take the climate change express. It is the coalition script, and it is becoming very familiar to us. Listen to the routine:

Climate change is a serious issue. It is a global problem and the solution will also have to be global. The cost of adjustment must be distributed fairly evenly among developing economies as well as developed ones. We have a comprehensive national response to limit our greenhouse gas emissions.

That was the Prime Minister speaking on 28 August 1996. Eleven years later the language is still the same but the challenge of climate change, such as the ongoing melting of the west Antarctic iceshelf, is even more pressing. From a public forum on global warming organised by the Australian Financial Review comes this quote:

... the growing international recognition of Australia’s efforts to combat global warming and an acknowledgement that we quickly become a world leader in developing the innovative domestic actions needed to deliver a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

Sound familiar? The Minister for the Environment and Water Resources opposite is prone to using the expressions ‘leader’ and ‘world leader’ when he talks about the Howard government and climate change. In fact, in the House during a recent matter of public importance he managed to use the term ‘world leader’ 10 times. I will come back to that in a minute. The speaker in question here is actually the former environment minister once removed, Senator Hill, speaking some seven years ago.

With the Howard government the song remains the same. These are junk words; they are not worth the paper that they are written on. Speaking on 24 May 2007, Minister Turnbull produced 10 ‘leading the world’ quotes in one MPI. For example, he said:

The Australian government is leading the world in climate change policies.

I remind the minister that Australia is actually ranked 14th in the latest Ernst & Young renewable energy country attractiveness index. That is based on a score for our national renewable energy market and it puts us behind countries that include Canada, Greece and Ireland. As Australians would know, we are the sunniest continent on earth. There is nowhere better suited for solar power, yet we are ranked 14th in the world on renewables, behind the United Kingdom—not the sunniest place on earth—which is in fifth place.

See this speech in context