Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

There is no doubt in the climate change debate that Australia, and our farmers in particular, is in a worse position because there was a delay of more than 10 years in responding to the issue. For the last decade, the contribution of those opposite to the challenge of climate change was to delay—to deny that there was a problem at all. And, when the evidence became overwhelming, they said, ‘Let’s just delay any response.’

We were waiting and waiting, and now I notice that on the front page of today’s Australian there is a key engagement going on from the members opposite in this debate, which is to ask the question: ‘Do you reckon we could delay even longer? Do you reckon we could now delay beyond 2010—to 2011, 2012 or maybe 2013? How much longer can we continue to delay any sort of response about helping farmers prepare for climate change?’ I wonder how much longer they will continue to fail to understand that the truth is that, with every year we delay our response, it just gets harder. How much better would it be now for farmers had there been responses to climate change a decade ago? Or should we keep waiting? Would they like to continue delaying? Should we perhaps keep waiting to act until 2020, when extreme fire danger days are predicted to increase by between 15 and 65 per cent? Should we keep waiting until 2030, when Australian production of key commodities is set to fall by nine to 10 per cent? Do those opposite think we should keep waiting until 2050, when south-western Australia is projected to have 30 per cent less rainfall during winter and spring? Perhaps we should wait until 2070, when the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology have predicted there will be 80 per cent more drought months for those same areas. Should we just keep on waiting for more major weather events—whether it be the next extreme flood, the next Cyclone Larry or the next seemingly endless drought?

You see, when you wait to respond to climate change, it is not just that the problem does not go away; the problem actually gets worse. That is why we are committed to research and development as part of the four-year $130 million Australia’s Farming Future initiative, to be directed towards research which helps prepare our primary industries for the challenges of adapting to climate change and reducing the sector’s emissions and to deal with the fact that under every projection for climate change we get told we will have longer and deeper droughts, we will have higher temperatures, we will have more major weather events and we will have an increased proliferation of pests, weeds and diseases. That is under every projection that is looked at.

The research needs to include issues like the following. How could we improve soil carbon levels, and what is the potential to trade improved soil as an offset? How can we reduce methane emissions in livestock, through options like changing their feed, breeding differently, increasing growth rates and immunising to protect against the microbes which make the methane in the guts of cattle? How could genetically modified crops possibly form part of the jigsaw in dealing with a more variable climate—for example, through adaptation, through drought-resistant grain varieties, through the mitigation of emissions or through varieties which require lower levels of fertiliser? The cost of doing nothing is so much greater than the cost of taking action now. Our farmers would be in a much better position if this research had begun a decade ago. This government, in preparing for Australia’s farming future, says that the days of preparing for that future—the days of delay—are over and the days of acting have arrived.

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