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

I thank the member for his question and note his continuing strong interest in and concern about the environment. The United Nations has declared the theme for World Environment Day 2008: ‘Kick the habit! Towards a low carbon economy’ and for our part the Rudd government is taking a whole-of-government comprehensive approach to the whole-of-planet problem of climate change. Earlier today the Prime Minister spoke in the House about the positive contribution Australian car manufacturers can make in helping the transport industry kick the carbon habit.

A further example of the comprehensive approach we are taking in addressing the risks of climate change came with the $2.25 billion Caring for Our Country program designed to build the resilience of our natural and farming landscapes in the face of climate change pressure. I was pleased that this week we could announce a major initiative, the launch of Australia’s 25th Indigenous protected area, the Kaanju Ngaachi, Wenlock and Pascoe Rivers Protected Area, covering some 2,000 square kilometres of wet tropical forest country and sand ridge country between Lockhart River, Cullen River and Weipa on Cape York. As well as building nature’s buffers against climate change, this brand new protected area will create meaningful work for Indigenous people in some of Australia’s most remote areas, helping more communities access the social, economic and educational benefits that IPA communities already experience.

The government will establish an emissions trading scheme. Additionally, the government knows that we must act decisively now to slow the rate of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. That is why we are also committed to a range of complementary measures, particularly in the area of energy efficiency, sometimes known as the so-called ‘low-hanging fruit’. We want to give Australians the opportunity to pick that low-hanging fruit and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save household energy bills.

Today the challenge to reduce those emissions on a domestic front was brought home with the release of a new report, Energy use in the Australian residential sector 1986-2020. The bottom line of the report is sobering: a forecast increase in energy usage of some 56 per cent by 2020 with a growth of almost four million homes and 1,000 million square kilometres in that time. But the real news in the report is not the size of the challenge—we have accepted that energy use is increasing; we have known it for some time. It is the fact that we take up the opportunity to enable householders to respond as they use energy by getting access to consumer information with minimum standards for energy use that is a powerful tool for them which encourage innovation and see the deployment of existing technologies so consumers can make smart decisions and achieve fantastic results for the growing number of households and for the environment.

The other message from this report is that Australia has lagged behind in energy efficiency improvements. So today I am pleased to report to the House that as well as taking the steps along the path of existing energy efficiency measures, including appliance standards and labels, additionally we have announced important steps in the budget—a total of $1 billion in support for Australian households and communities to tackle climate change. We have also committed $14 million to put the energy efficiency of electrical appliances on the fast track, giving Australians better information as well as providing an incentive for manufacturers and importers to continually improve their products. As well, we are hitting the accelerator pedal with additional initiatives of a new television labelling scheme to enable consumers to identify the most energy efficient sets at point of sale with an expansion of the label to identify super efficient products. There is a new guide to help householders, and in particular renovators, to identify ways to incorporate energy saving measures in their homes, and, with the boom in household renovations, this will be well received. And there is also the acceleration of the phase-out of traditional incandescent light bulbs.

Not only are we bringing significant new measures forward; we are also speeding up and strengthening things that were begun earlier. Each of these measures is important. Each of them shows the commitment that the Rudd Labor government has on issues of climate change and on recognising the importance of energy efficiency. Given the debate and the questions that we have had in the House today on the matter of where the opposition has been on climate change and on questions of this sort, I referred in the House the other day to the statement by the member for Flinders when in government concerning the gift of a Wollemi pine tree to the King of Sweden, which was described as a ‘symbolic gesture’ of action being taken to tackle climate change. I simply say this: imagine the conversation when the member for Flinders had the discussion with his Majesty, the King of Sweden. ‘Your Majesty, I am from the Howard government. We won’t sign Kyoto. We won’t set a target to reduce emissions. We don’t like emissions trading very much. We think Al Gore is a fraud. Our backbenchers spend a lot of time writing reports about climate change on other planets. But anyway, here is a Wollemi pine tree as a symbolic gesture of our commitment.’

See this speech in context