Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Before going into the body of my address, I would like to congratulate and thank the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government for the packages that he has announced today and, further than that, for the way in which he and the parliamentary secretary are addressing regional grants and involving local government in those grants. Rather than pursuing the road that was pursued by the last government, which obviously politicised and corrupted some of the processes in terms of financial management and accountability, I do think people respect the way in which you, Minister Albanese, and the government are approaching these issues. I would encourage you to maintain that thrust, because that is what impresses people in real regional areas. They are not impressed by the politicisation of a process. They would rather have a fair go, a fair chance and a fair summation of their particular project. So I thank you on behalf of those people.

I thank the member Lyne for the topic ‘time running out’. I agree with everything the member for Lyne said, but the approach that I would like to take is in relation to climate change and what impact climate change is likely to have on country areas and on the economic sustainability of those areas. I think there has been a lot of debate about emissions trading or a carbon tax—depending on which side of the parliament you are on—but there has been too much concentration, in my view, on the market being used to solve an environmental problem. I was a little bit disgusted in the current government’s arrangements when they put in place a very low target of five per cent in terms of carbon reduction, or methane and nitrous oxide, and then suggested they were going to apply that through a market mechanism such as an emissions trading scheme. It is quite obvious to me and to anybody that that five per cent level could be reached quite easily without embracing the market mechanism that the government is talking about. The opposition is suggesting a carbon tax, and both of those things will work to some extent, but they should not be the only mechanisms that go to the heart of this issue.

The electorate of New England—and I think this will give you a sort of microscopic look at the potential impacts of climate change on a regional area—is in the Murray-Darling Basin. New England has all but one of the major storages in the Darling system, which forms part of the Murray-Darling Basin. Not only are those storages important to New England’s communities and to the irrigators downstream; they are very important in the regulation of streams when it comes to the flows within the Murray-Darling system. Some people deny that climate change is happening. It is one of those things that will not be known until we are all dead. People will look back and say, ‘Why didn’t we do something about it?’ or, ‘We did something about it and the environment is much better for what we did.’ I do not think there is a downside to this in the long term, but there could be some short-term adjustments.

The electorate of New England and its position in the Murray-Darling system are very important. I have raised in the House before a number of the issues in relation to mining and groundwater and the relationship between groundwater systems and surface water in the Murray-Darling system, and recently we had before the parliament that critical piece of legislation embracing four states. If the climate scientists are right, and we do nothing, as some suggest, the Murray-Darling system could suffer a loss of up to 30 per cent of its run-off. If we add to that some of the more carbon conscious and productive forms of farming and grazing, such as no-till farming systems, groundcover pasture strategies et cetera, and then overlay it with some encouragement to revegetate because of salinity issues or to create carbon sinks or just because people like to grow trees, all those things will reduce the run-off into the system. So additional changes in land use could compound even that worst possible option of a reduction in run-off of 30 per cent on 1990 levels, when our farming systems were quite different. What is that going to mean for the communities who rely on irrigation water? What is it going to mean for the communities who rely on that run-off for drinking water? What is it going to mean for the Murray-Darling system itself, the major provider of food in this nation, if we do nothing?

There are a number of suggestions as to what we should do. Do we wait until the Americans, the Chinese and a few others decide to do something and then follow them? Do we embrace some of the newer technologies and initiate some leadership? The debate has been: ‘If it does not fit within a market mechanism, don’t go near it.’ That is wrong. Malcolm Turnbull—whether it is just for the politics of it or because he really believes in it—has started to hint at some of the other things that could be used to alleviate the concerns. We have had Science Meets Parliament this week. I had a scientist from Western Australia in my office this morning from North East Farming Futures who has been working on the development of new plants that could be used for alternative pasture techniques. There has been a 30 per cent reduction in methane from the animals that have been grazing on those plants, due to the tannins in the plants.

Rather than the farm sector, the NFF and the National Party being frightened and encouraging fear of climate change and possible solutions, we should be out there encouraging research. I was very pleased to see that the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry recently announced $20 million to look at, amongst other things, soil carbon, nitrous oxide and methane. They are the sorts of issues that we need to research, because if they go unresearched and we do nothing they will have a much greater impact on jobs and the sustainability of our inland communities than do any of the other things we have been talking about. They are long-term issues that could prevent long-term damage, not short-term issues that prevent short-term political gain or loss.

Soil carbon, vegetation, recycling—all of these issues need to be addressed. If we are going to go into systems where there will be widespread land-use changes, we must know what impact they are going to have on run-off in the Murray-Darling system and other parts of Australia. And we do not know. We have had the NFF and some of the climate people from the department of agriculture at meetings recently where we have not modelled some of the farming systems that we might be trying to encourage through drought policy. And we should; these are very important issues that we need to address.

The government has made a good start on some of these things. It has been rattled by the fearmongers on the climate change issue and I think it is probably hoping that the bill will be defeated in the Senate so that someone else can be blamed. I do not think I will be supporting the bill either, because a five per cent target and the way it is structured would be setting up a carbon economy for very little gain. I think the target is far too low. Minister Wong has not embraced enough of the other options that could shrink the domestic problem and could operate—and should operate, even if there were no carbon emissions problem—quite effectively within the domestic economy even without a global economy doing anything. It could only be positive for agriculture, food production, the environment and other issues.

The other very important issue that creates enormous opportunities in country Australia is renewable energy. Until recently, nothing had been done with solar, wind, water or geothermal power or with renewable biofuels such as second-stage cellulosic ethanol and the impact that can have on land management, the carbon issue, the water issue and the soil erosion issue. All of these things will bring to us a sustainable environment where country Australia will not be running out of time. They will be an important part of an important solution to an important problem. (Time expired)

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