Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Amendment Bill 2008. At the end of this speech you will clearly understand my position on this bill, unlike the last 20 minutes where we saw someone dance around a topic and not actually say at any one time what he believed. The member for Ryan’s electorate is just across the other side of the river from me, a nice two-iron away—a well-hit two-iron away, perhaps—but there is a giant chasm between us in terms of what we actually agree on. I am not sure what he believes in terms of a greenhouse strategy. Perhaps his contribution to not adding to greenhouse gas might have been to avoid that speech rather than waste our time. I did not understand what he believed in by the end of the speech any more than I did at the start of the speech.

This bill is another step along the way to achieving an effective carbon pollution reduction scheme. It makes some minor amendments to the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007 to improve the administration of the reporting process. Under the act companies are required to report their greenhouse gas emissions if their facilities emit 25 kilotonnes—25,000 tonnes—or more of greenhouse gases or produce or consume 100 terajoules or more of energy, or their corporate groups emit 125 kilotonnes or more of greenhouse gases or produce or consume 500 terajoules or more of energy.

Like the member for Ryan, I do spend a bit of time going to schools. It is always a good idea to listen to the children, because they will certainly teach me lots of things and I also try to educate them where possible. I am going to touch on one education thing—having been a teacher—and that is to explain what a terajoule is. One joule is the energy required to lift a small apple one metre straight up or the energy released if the same apple were to fall a metre. A megajoule is 10 to the sixth, a gigajoule is 10 to the ninth and a terajoule is 10 to the 12th. That is a ‘1’ with 12 zeros after it, or a million million apples. So think of lifting a million million apples. We often use these terms, so I thought I would unpack that particular bit of information for the information of the students up above in the gallery. This bill, more than any other bill today, is about the future of the students up above—rather than some of the other people in the House.

Currently, around 450 companies are required to report; however, lower thresholds will gradually be phased in from 2010 and the number of companies involved will be increased to more than 700. This amendment will simplify the emissions reporting requirements for companies and will help to give us a clearer picture about the emissions that companies produce. And that is a good thing. At the same time, the bill will increase the number of matters which may be published by the Greenhouse and Energy Data Officer to improve public access to information on corporate use of energy and greenhouse gas emissions. To quote the rock singer Ben Lee, ‘We are all in this together,’ both individuals and companies.

Perhaps the most significant amendment in the legislation is the mandatory requirement for the separate public disclosure of direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions. Direct greenhouse gas emissions are those owned or controlled by a company, while indirect emissions are those produced by third parties using a product. The most obvious example is electricity consumption. This new reporting process will give consumers and investors a much more realistic idea about emissions, as some sectors contribute to significant indirect emissions.

The government will simplify the reporting process by setting up an online emissions calculator. This is a problem for the future, so we are using future technology. With the online emissions calculator we are avoiding red tape and avoiding any significant increase in the reporting burdens that will be faced by business. Business well understands the challenges that are upon us when we actually put a real value on carbon. This bill will also give the minister power to determine the methods for measuring emissions, energy production and energy consumption. The minister will set out how emissions, reduction, removal, offsets, production and consumption are to be measured. Registered corporations and members of a corporation’s group must also comply with an external audit process.

I remain very optimistic that Australians, both individually and at the corporate level, can achieve significant changes in the way we use carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions. This is not just a blind hope or youthful enthusiasm—or maybe I should say ‘middle-aged enthusiasm’. I turn to the example provided by South-East Queensland, and I do so especially for the benefit of the member for Ryan. When we were faced with the worst drought in 100 years in South-East Queensland, residents and businesses completely changed the way we approach water use. We installed water-efficient tap fittings and shower roses, we covered our pools, we mulched our gardens, we turned off our sprinklers, we changed the way we washed our cars and we shortened our showers. Nearly every shower in South-East Queensland now has a little blue egg timer in it. In fact, I have got one up in my office. I am so used to having four-minute showers now; I thought I would do the same thing in Canberra. In short, we learned to value every drop of water. In fact, we slashed our water consumption from almost 300 litres per person per day, before the drought, to as low as 112 litres per person per day in July this year. This is despite quite a cold winter—for Brisbane, I would stress—where a warm shower might be something that people cling to.

Through education and a change of attitude we can do the same thing with carbon emissions. We can effectively put a shower timer on every light and on everything that we use. That is basically what the Rudd government is trying to do. We must do the same thing with our carbon emissions. In fact, some of us already are doing the same with our carbon emissions. Many schools, businesses and community groups in Moreton are already doing what they can to implement energy-saving initiatives.

A very common topic during my visits to schools in my electorate is the initiatives they are undertaking. I will just digress for a second. I was doing a talk on politics at one of the schools—St Sebastian’s at Yeronga—and I had a strange question from one of the students who was doing a research topic. They asked lots of questions, but one of them was quite interesting. He asked, ‘Do you know David Elder?’ His job was to find out about the Serjeant-at-Arms. I was able to say, ‘Yes, I do.’

I will return to the topic at hand: examples of schools in my electorate and the energy-saving initiatives they have taken. Wellers Hill State School, up in Tarragindi, have a gardening club that meets every week. They plant trees and teach the students about sustainability. The school recently won an Ergon Energy Switch Award for their efforts to cut energy use.

At Robertson State School, right in the middle of a very multicultural part of my electorate, all the kids are getting together with the teachers and parents, and they are playing their part by installing rainwater tanks. Even though it is a large school with a large oval, the school informs me that soon they will be totally reliant on rainwater. They have also set up an EcoKids committee, getting every kid involved as much as possible, to raise awareness about environmental issues. One of their ideas was a ‘no rubbish day’ when all the students brought their lunch in reusable containers. I assume the opposition would be interested in a ‘no rubbish day’. It is certainly something I will be telling my other schools as well, because I think it is a great initiative to have no rubbish created on that day by those people.

There is also Sherwood State School. They are installing water tanks and they have integrated environmental education into the school curriculum from go to whoa so that at every occasion, be it maths or English or whatever, people are learning about how to do the right thing by the planet. At Junction Park State School, which is technically in the Prime Minister’s electorate—it is just across the road but I have friends and constituents who send their children there so I will refer to what they are doing—they have installed water tanks for their oval and pool and a solar heating system for the pool. Each class maintains its own section of the school garden. These children will go home and teach their parents and their grandparents about what can be done. It is not enough to say, ‘Australia produces only 1.8 per cent of the global emissions.’ That is not the right attitude at all, but it seems to be the white flag that is being raised from the other side of the room. What can we do? Well, we can all do our little bit.

But it is not just schools. Local companies are also changing their ways for the good of our environment. Hastings Deering, a big company based in Archerfield—they are also technically in Oxley, just across the road—supply Caterpillar heavy equipment to the mining, construction and forestry industries. They have a great apprenticeship scheme as well and they have introduced a fuel efficiency training program to help users reduce fuel burn. This program has the potential to achieve significant fuel savings, so everyone benefits. Another company doing their part are Toll, a major freight and transport company with a warehousing and distribution centre in Moreton. They have already introduced improved waste management systems and now they are working on other ways to address greenhouse gas emissions. For example, they are developing a better emissions reporting process and providing advice to costumers about the most environmentally friendly transport options available. Good environmental practices normally make good business sense. These are just some of the starts that the companies in my electorate are making and no doubt there are lots of others with even better initiatives that I hope to hear from over the months ahead.

As you can see, people in my electorate, the electorate of Moreton, have a completely different view from the opposition when it comes to climate change—a completely different view from the people on the other side of the river in the electorate of Ryan, or maybe the member for Ryan has a strange connection with his electorate. At a street stall in Graceville on the weekend lots of people came along to talk to me about the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. In fact, some of them were having a laugh because, at a fundraising dinner I went to a few weeks ago for the victims of the Chinese earthquakes, a signed copy of the green paper was raffled for $200. That is how interested people were—that a green paper could go for $200. I did say that I could have given it to them for free, but they thought it was a good cause. People understand that, unfortunately, we will all have to experience some short-term pain before we get the long-term gains. We need to do this if we are serious about addressing climate change into the future.

I said at the start of this speech that you would know my position on this bill clearly by the end, because I am proud to be part of a government that is serious about tackling the causes of climate change. I can look my son and the schoolchildren I meet in the eye and talk about practical hope—not just hope, but practical hope, the things that we can do. Unfortunately—and children need to understand this—usually fear will trump hope in politics. Fear usually trumps hope. Unfortunately, in this card game, we are playing for the future of our planet, not just for a brief boost in the opinion polls or a bit of media attention. This is too important. So I am proud to support these amendments which help lay the foundation for the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and which will be introduced by the Rudd government in 2010. I commend the bill to the House.

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