Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The whole nine! It is really astonishing to see—it is amazing—because even in their electorates there are people who know that climate change is a reality and we have to deal with it. But the key issue is that, even with people running around in circles and without direction, we have to deal with it, and dealing with it we are. It also seems that there are a few in the other place, the Senate, who have those views as well, and it is interesting to hear that played out. It is also interesting to hear the amount of airplay they get for such a minority view.

I will go back a step. The framework of the 2007 act which this is amending is not capable, in its current form, of providing the regulatory mechanisms required to make advances in domestic and international reporting obligations, and those reporting obligations are significant obligations that we have to be very mindful of given that we are now a party to Kyoto, having ratified that. They also give life to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, providing a cohesive central repository for the data, which will serve the community and government in a coalesced but also discrete way as it helps us achieve our primary goal, which is about reducing carbon emissions. The amending bill will make the principal act stronger and it will support the government’s policy with the introduction of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and the emissions trading scheme, ensuring that the economy is wide and accountable for greenhouse gas emissions, production and energy use, because that is what we have to have being reported.

Because we are dealing with companies and businesses as well, some of them understandably with commercially sensitive information, the amending bill provides the balance between public disclosure of audit outcomes—that which is for the public good—and protection of commercial-in-confidence information. I do not support any regime that hides behind commercial-in-confidence, because sometimes it can be convenient for that to happen—in fact, it annoys me—but this bill actually gives the right balance in that area. But we always have to err on the side of public interest disclosure when we are dealing with these matters. It is a feature of this amending bill that it imposes no burdens on industry beyond those originally intended.

I will turn now to the functions of the amending bill. The functions of the act will be enhanced by the amending bill through strengthening of the audit framework. It replaces ‘external auditor’ with ‘registered greenhouse and energy auditor’ to remove any confusion relating to the status and role of auditors under the act. Importantly, such audit team leaders will be required to register with the Greenhouse and Energy Data Officer, and the AAT—the Administrative Appeals Tribunal—will be able to review decisions by the regulator to not register any auditor. That is an important function.

The stakeholder feedback was supportive of a regulatory process for auditors. It was a good public interest initiative. The legislative instrument may now outline different types of greenhouse and energy audits, thus facilitating scope to target audits to achieve the outcomes. The commercially sensitive information will be protected, and the legislation will also include an offence regarding the release of audit information beyond authorised purposes. Audit team members, as well, are now legally obliged to keep greenhouse and energy information and audit information obtained under the act confidential—I take it by extension, again, unless so authorised to release.

The regulator will be authorised—the way I read it, and I stand to be corrected—on a discretionary basis to publish certain audit results. I am not quite sure on what basis, and I ask the parliamentary secretary if he could address that issue in his speech in reply in the second reading debate. Currently, the regulator is obliged to publish information aggregated in such a way as to render it unusable and potentially misleading and therefore of no utility whatsoever, according to my deduction from what I have read and from some of the comments that the Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change made in his second reading speech. The parliamentary secretary said that the amending bill will remove that current obligation, and that is a good thing.

I have some general comments. This forms part of the Rudd government’s response to climate change, and it is a matter that was committed to in the 2007 election campaign. The climate change policy had 10 key activities contained in it. There was not just one; it had 10 key activities. It covered a whole range of activities and actions that needed to be taken to address climate change, which are about reducing carbon emissions. The climate change policy was a comprehensive one. It also included the mandatory renewable energy targets.

I now wish to make some concluding remarks regarding the bill and its location in the overarching climate change framework policy. It is really surprising to be standing here after about 2½ years of debate, discussion and discourse, when this information, this policy and these ideas have been distilled in the public arena. In the lead-up to the 2007 election there were policies. In fact, I remember hearing the opposition say that they would commit to a climate change policy—that was said in the 2007 election campaign—and there was a cap-and-trade scheme, an emissions trading scheme, as well. It was a big issue in the election; it is still a big issue now in the Australian community. In my seat of Page, it is a big issue. In fact, in my area, there has been a whole lot of leadership in this area of climate change, of environmental advances while at the same time being sensitive to the industry base in my area, which is agriculture, horticulture, timber and also retail and a whole range of other areas. After 2½ years we have had green papers, white papers, the Garnaut report and all sorts of reports. There is nothing not known about this. There is nothing that is new. It is in the public domain.

We still have an opposition that cannot get its act together—it cannot get its leadership act together; that is the key issue—and that is not serving the national interest and basic electorate interests by agreeing to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme legislation with the emissions trading scheme that is before the Senate. To have a policy—no, it is not a policy. To have somebody’s policy, not a policy of the opposition but a policy released yesterday that the Leader of the Opposition said was not a policy and about which he then said, ‘Look at it,’ seems to be more about, ‘Look at me; look at me—I’ve got something too,’ but after seven or eight delaying tactics over a long time.

Even though I am talking about this amending bill, which is about reporting, all of these things fit together like a glove. We need the whole package to ensure that we as a government and an opposition, as responsible parliamentarians, as members of parliament responsible to our electorates, introduce a scheme that will be of benefit to the Australian public. On my local ABC today I heard one of the National Party senators. Senator Nash was on the radio talking about how introducing such a scheme would be the end of the earth as we know it. What absolute nonsense. We only have to look at the Treasury modelling. We just have to look at the figures to do with employment and look at the Treasury modelling on the number of jobs that will be created in this industry: 26,000 green jobs alone. These are not make-believe jobs; some of them are happening now. I have seen newspaper coverage even today talking about the insulation industry and other industries. They are hiring more people. They are training more people. Job numbers are going up.

This is responsible policy. It is responsible environmental policy. It is responsible economic policy as well. No responsible government introduces an environmental policy, however much it is needed, without factoring in what that means to the Australian economy. It is absolutely essential that those two work together, and indeed they do. There are some people who would like to have higher targets. Wouldn’t we all? All of us want to make sure that we do reduce carbon emissions and that we reduce our environmental imprint, but we have to do it in a sustained and balanced way, and doing that is what it is about.

But I am astounded. There is not too much that astounds me in public life, in politics, but I am astounded by the obstructionism, the obfuscation and just the delaying tactics. Sad to say, it really is more about the member for Wentworth, the opposition leader. It appears to be more about his leadership—or his lack of leadership—or his failing leadership or whatever than it is about good public policy. In a sense, the Australian public is being held to ransom by really base political interests in this area.

This is an issue on which the Australian public have made it really clear that they expect us to act. The government is acting. We face challenges. There are future challenges. This amending bill, which in the whole context of climate change forms part of the package to address those issues, is about leadership, is about responsible action and is about positioning Australia to face up to and meet those future challenges that we have. With those concluding remarks, I commend this bill to the House.

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