Steve Gibbons (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this debate on the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Bill 2007. I indicate that I will be supporting the amendment moved by the member for Kingsford Smith. All the Howard government have had to offer this country on climate change is 11 years of delay, denial and inaction. They have refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol despite their then Minister for the Environment negotiating more favourable terms than any other country. They have failed to provide the certainty demanded by business, by not setting emission targets or a price on carbon. They have emasculated the mandatory renewable energy target. They have refused to model the economic impact on Australia of a failure to expediently reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And they have denied our manufacturing industry the opportunity to fully participate in the new global market for low-emission technologies.

The need for immediate action could not be any clearer. But it is hardly surprising that there has been none when this government is riddled with climate change sceptics and deniers. How can they possibly be a part of a solution that they do not really believe in? The Prime Minister himself is still a sceptic, despite some of his more recent election driven rhetoric. So are the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, the Minister for Finance and Administration and the Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation. Indeed, the backbenchers opposite are full of climate change deniers. Despite 1,200 of the world’s leading climate scientists agreeing that temperatures will continue rising at an even faster rate in the 21st century, there are those opposite who think they know better. I remind the House that a majority of the government members of the recent Standing Committee on Science and Innovation geosequestration inquiry said that those who believe humans are contributing to climate change are fanatics. Of course one of those fanatics is their fellow Liberal, the chairman of the inquiry and member for Kooyong, who said:

The evidence is compelling and the link between greenhouse gas emissions and human activity and high temperatures is convincing.

The Prime Minister and the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources like to portray their government as leading the world in climate change—but just who do they think they are kidding? We are the second highest emitters of greenhouse gases on a per capita basis after the United States. Under this government our emissions have grown at twice the global average, and we have a pathetic renewable energy target that will add less than one per cent to our national energy supply by 2020. ‘Australia cannot fight climate change when China is building a new coal-fired power station each week’—how often do we hear that excuse for inaction from this government? What we do not hear is that by 2020 one-fifth of China’s energy will come from renewable sources, such as wind, local hydropower stations and solar. China is already the fifth largest generator of wind power in the world, while Australia is ranked at a lowly 15th. China is also home to over 60 per cent of the total installed capacity of solar hot water, meeting the needs of over 29 million households. I will say something a little later about Labor’s plans for domestic water heating.

Instead of nurturing Australia’s renewable energy industry, this government remains a captive of the fossil fuel and nuclear energy lobbies. Its solution to climate change and global warming is almost totally reliant on unproven technologies, including the next generation of nuclear reactors and carbon sequestration. Neither of these will have any impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions for at least a decade. The much lauded Sydney APEC Leaders Declaration on Climate Change, Energy Security and Clean Development agreed to at last week’s meeting calls for improvements in greenhouse emissions efficiency of 25 per cent by 2030. However, by 2030 Australia’s economy is likely to be some 75 per cent larger than it is now. Even if we are emitting 25 per cent less greenhouse gas per unit of GDP by then, we will still be pouring more into the atmosphere than we are now—and the government calls this leading the world!

An effective framework for tackling climate change must include an emissions trading scheme. The weight of submissions from business to the Prime Minister’s own task force made him a reluctant convert to this view. ‘Kicking and screaming’ is a phrase that frequently comes to mind about the Prime Minister and climate change. It was only a year ago that he said ‘unilaterally embracing an emissions trading scheme will result in great damage to this country’. Yet now the Prime Minister claims to be implementing emissions trading in a methodical way. Let us have a look at the progress of this ‘methodical way’.

Ten years ago, in 1997, the former environment minister established an inquiry into emissions trading. In 1998 the Minister for Foreign Affairs backed emissions trading. In 1999 the Australian Greenhouse Office released four detailed discussion papers on emissions trading. In 2003 the Prime Minister rejected a cabinet submission from the Treasurer and the then environment minister to establish an emissions trading scheme. And then the government abandoned all the work of the Australian Greenhouse Office on emissions trading.

It is symptomatic of the government’s recalcitrant attitude to climate change that the bill we are debating today comes to the House four years after the Howard cabinet rejected a proposal for a national emissions trading scheme. It is also symptomatic of the government’s approach to legislation that what we have before us today is sloppy, rushed and riddled with problems. There was no consultation with state governments, industry bodies or environmental groups, and all of those stakeholders identified problems with the bill during the Senate committee’s inquiry. Reporting thresholds that are too high, time frames that are too slow and inconsistency with previous agreements between the states and the federal government are just some of the issues that were raised.

Labor has a longstanding commitment to implementing an emissions trading scheme as part of a comprehensive approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Mandatory reporting is a small but vital first step. There are much bigger issues on which the government continues to drag its heels. The Stern review for the UK government concluded that climate change is the biggest market failure the world has ever seen. While there have been criticisms of Sir Nicholas’s findings, few have challenged that opinion. But without an explicit price on carbon it will be almost impossible to address this market failure, and you cannot have a price on carbon without emissions targets. A constraint on emissions is needed to give a value to any carbon trading permits. The Prime Minister’s ideological disdain for targets shows that he just does not understand how ‘cap and trade’ market based schemes operate. How can he say he supports trading while opposing a target? He is clearly out of touch when it comes to emissions targets.

While he prevaricates, opportunities to create new sustainable technologies, industries and jobs are also passing us by. The bill before us should be the first step in providing greater certainty to emitters, manufacturers and consumers about the impact and opportunities of putting a price on carbon emissions. But, in its haste to be seen to be doing something after 11 years of inaction, the government has come up with a bill that is more likely to increase than it is to reduce uncertainty for those stakeholders.

Of course, emissions targets are not the only targets that the Prime Minister has an aversion to. The government has all but abandoned one of its few clean energy measures, the mandatory renewable energy target. Renewable energy targets are a critical part of climate change solutions all around the world, and just five months ago the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources claimed:

… the mandatory renewable energy target has been particularly successful.

California has a target, Europe has a target, even China has a target, but Australia is walking away from its renewable energy target. The government is letting MRET fade away, despite the target being responsible for generating enough renewable electricity to meet the electricity needs of four million people by 2010. The government is failing on renewable energy just when it is most needed.

This is bad news not just for the environment but also for Australian jobs. The government’s abandonment of the mandatory renewable energy target cost 130 jobs in south-west Victoria last month, when Vestas announced the closure of its wind blades factory in Portland. Two years ago, the member for Wannon promised to ‘create a centre of renewable energy in the region’, but his own government’s policies are causing the renewable energy industry to shut up shop.

The global renewable energy market is expected to reach $US750 billion a year by 2016, and our local industry has an excellent track record in creating jobs in regional Australia. But the Howard government’s complete failure to embrace climate change, its failure to set a price for carbon, its abandonment of the MRET and its continuing refusal to ratify the Kyoto protocol mean that Australian jobs and investment are heading overseas. Renewable energy companies are voting with their feet. For example, in August 2006 Vestas Nacelles announced it would close its wind turbine assembly plant in northern Tasmania, costing 100 jobs. In February 2007, Pacific Hydro announced it was investing $500 million in Brazil because Australian renewable energy projects had been stalled by the government’s refusal to ratify the Kyoto protocol. In March 2007, the Australian company Global Renewables announced a $5 billion deal in the UK to cut greenhouse pollution. They had to go to Britain to realise their ambitions. And, as I said, last month Vestas announced that its Portland factory would close in December 2007 because ‘further investment cannot be viable in current market conditions’. The government’s retreat on mandatory renewable energy targets is another clear example that its attempt to catch up on a decade of climate change inaction is only so much greenwash. A Labor government will revitalise Australia’s renewable energy industry. It will substantially increase the mandatory renewable energy target and drive a clean energy revolution.

Nowhere is the deployment of renewable energy more important than in our cities, where most Australians live, yet a landmark report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Heritage entitled Sustainable cities is still sitting on the desk of the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources two years after its release. As a member of that committee, the member for Wentworth was an enthusiastic contributor, but as minister he has failed to respond to the report despite his department saying seven months ago that a reply had been prepared and was awaiting his approval. This is a highly significant report that has bipartisan support. When the committee tabled its report in September 2005, it called for concerted national action and for the Australian government to assume a leadership role after this emerged as a common theme in the 196 submissions that were received.

The inquiry, which was chaired by the member for Moore, recommended measures to set Australia’s cities on a sustainable path in relation to the environment, social cohesion and economic productivity. The report’s recommendations on energy, for example, include doubling the Australian government’s photovoltaic rebate to further encourage the uptake of photovoltaic systems; further developing the Australian government’s commitment to energy sustainability, particularly by increasing the use of renewable energy; through the National Framework for Energy Efficiency, examining the economic and environmental benefits of decentralised energy delivery to encourage investment in this area; and investigation of the US and German initiatives in solar energy generation and purchase and, where appropriate, implementation or emulation of them. But we have seen no concerted action or leadership from this government on these or other key recommendations including the establishment of an independent Australian sustainability commission, benchmarking transport infrastructure planning decisions against a recommended Australian sustainability charter and a review of the current fringe benefits tax concessions for motor car use.

Many Australians are keen to do their bit to help the environment. Australian households led the world in recycling domestic rubbish and now they want help to reduce their greenhouse emissions. Hot water heaters produce 28 per cent of an average home’s greenhouse gas emissions and some electric systems produce more than three times the greenhouse pollution of solar systems, heat pump systems and high-efficiency gas systems. The criticism from the government about Labor’s plan to help families switch to more energy efficient hot water systems is just another example of how out of touch they are over climate change. The Prime Minister and the environment minister cannot have it both ways. They cannot say that they are all for addressing climate change and then criticise a plan that helps Australians to make their homes more energy efficient. Solar hot water systems have much lower running costs and, with the subsidies, low interest loans and the $1,000 solar hot water rebate, they will quickly pay for themselves under a Labor government.

Labor will retain the Commonwealth’s solar hot water rebate and boost it with a $300 million solar, green energy and water renovations plan. This plan will offer low interest loans to help Australian families reap the benefits of more energy efficient homes and they will be in addition to various state and local government subsidies that are also available. Labor will work with state and territory governments and industry to implement improved greenhouse and energy minimum standards for hot water heaters, while ensuring that low-income earners are not disadvantaged. These measures are calculated to save Australia more than 7.5 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year from 2012—that is the equivalent of taking more than 1.7 million cars off the road—and they will save households about $300 a year on the average electricity bill. Australian families want to make a difference and save costs by making their homes more energy efficient. Only a Labor government will help them do that.

The government’s inaction on climate change is also passing up other economic opportunities for Australian business, such as the car industry. This side of the House firmly believes that Australians should have the opportunity to buy Australian made green cars. Labor’s $500 million green car innovation fund would generate $2 billion in investment to secure jobs in the automotive industry and tackle climate change by manufacturing low emissions vehicles in Australia. Australia simply cannot afford any more short-term fixes in its car industry. This is about creating a long-term plan for the future of the car industry. The green car innovation fund will boost industry research on fuel efficiency and vehicle manufacturing to slash carbon emissions, promote the development of low emission vehicles—including hybrid, flexible fuel and low emissions diesel vehicles—and ensure that Australia plays a leading role in the global development of green car technology. To encourage our domestic car manufacturers, we have also pledged to purchase environmentally friendly vehicles such as hybrid cars for the Commonwealth’s fleet, if they are produced in Australia. Australia currently does not manufacture hybrid, flexible fuel or low emissions diesel vehicles, but their importation is increasing rapidly as Australians demand greater fuel efficiency in their motor vehicles. Motor vehicles contribute 13 per cent of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. Low emissions vehicles, produced overseas, generate less than half the emissions of a standard Australian manufactured vehicle.

The green car innovation fund is just one part of federal Labor’s comprehensive approach to dealing with climate change, which also includes ratifying the Kyoto protocol, cutting Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent by 2050, setting up a national emissions trading scheme, setting up a $500 million national clean coal fund and substantially increasing the mandatory renewable energy target. I invite anyone to compare this to the record of the Howard government on climate change, which is amongst the worst in the developed world. A Labor government will bring a fresh, new approach to climate change—an approach that will end more than a decade of inaction and take Australia back into the mainstream of the international community to address perhaps the greatest challenge facing the world today. I will be supporting the amendment moved by my colleague the member for Kingsford Smith.

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