Jim Turnour (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to debate this issue. The opposition called for a debate on climate change, and the government is ready and enjoying the ability that we now have to respond to what has been a very poor attempt to respond to what is a critically important issue for this nation: climate change. Climate change is not something nebulous. It is real and it is happening. That is what the science says and that is what communities in my electorate recognise. They want a government that can take action and they want an opposition that is going to work with the government, as they did last year, to develop a carbon pollution reduction scheme, an ETS that can actually take real action and put in place a real policy response to climate change.

Last weekend we had king tides in the Torres Strait, and there has been some coverage around the nation on that. Climate change is real in local communities like mine. Because of rising sea levels, communities on low-lying islands—Saibai, Boigu and others in the Torres Strait—are facing the real risk that their communities do not have a future if we do not do something about climate change. It is real in Leichhardt and it is real in tropical North Queensland. We have Aboriginal communities living in coastal areas along Cape York Peninsula that also face the real risk of rising sea levels and the impacts that will have on their local communities and their way of life.

In the northern beach suburbs of Cairns, such as Clifton Beach and Machans Beach, people have built right up to the water’s edge. We did not know 10, 20 and years ago, when those houses were being planned and constructed, that climate change would be such a great risk to coastal communities. I see Jennie George in the chamber today. She worked on a report last year that highlighted that tens of thousands of houses across the country are at risk. Many of them are in my electorate of Leichhardt. We are facing a real threat to local communities, such as those in my electorate, and people want action on climate change. They want real action on climate change, and they do not want the con that the Liberal Party are bringing forward today in their attempt to deal with the problems they have in terms of climate deniers in their own party and in the National Party. They are trying to mash a policy together that deals with the divisions in their own party. That is what the Leader of the Opposition has brought forward today. It is not a policy that is about tackling climate change; it is about tackling the divisions in his own party, and that is the reality of the situation.

The Rudd government are serious about this issue. We are bringing forward an emissions trading scheme, our Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. It is a scheme that we sat down and worked with the opposition on late last year, and we all came to an agreement. Those on the other side actually went to caucus and agreed that the deal that had been negotiated between Minister Wong and the opposition spokesperson was a good deal and that it would take action in the context of the international community response. We need an emissions trading scheme. There is no emissions trading scheme in the policy of the opposition. Why do we need an emissions trading scheme? We need it because it puts a real cap on carbon pollution. If we are serious about taking action on climate change then we need to put a cap on carbon emissions. The opposition’s policy has no cap on carbon emissions and no emissions trading scheme. Are there are any other developed countries that are going forward with this singular approach? No. Even conservative leaders overseas are not adopting policies such as the opposition are bringing forward, because regulations, picking winners and using taxpayers’ money in this way are recognised as no way to effectively respond to climate change.

We need an emissions trading scheme; we need a mandatory renewable energy target. That is what we committed to and what we worked with the opposition on late last year. We have a target of 20 per cent by 2020. They are good outcomes, and that is what the Australian people want: for the opposition to work with the government to bring about real action on climate change. That is what the people in my community, and in communities all across the country, want. There has been a lot of talk about direct action by the Leader of the Opposition and by others on the other side. The Leader of the Opposition has been getting around in his budgie smugglers and looking the part. The next thing I will see is him putting his cape on for direct action and he will be like some superhero, flying around the country, trying to fix climate change. You do not fix climate change by wearing budgie smugglers and putting a cape on your back; you fix climate change by introducing an emissions trading scheme and a mandatory renewable energy target and by taking real direct action, which is what we have already done.

If you look at last year’s budget papers, there is a whole series of direct action responses that we have put in place, as well as a series of actions that we have put in place through our economic stimulus strategy. One example is the Green Car Innovation Fund. I see that the Parliamentary Secretary for Innovation and Industry, the member for Corio, is here. I know that he is working actively with the car industry in his local community on direct action and innovation to develop green cars in this country so that in the future we can drive cars that are more climate friendly. As part of our Nation Building and Jobs Plan we have developed efficiency measures which include our ceiling insulation program. That has been very popular in my electorate, and I know it has been very popular in other members’ electorates around the country. I see that Mr Bradbury, who is in the chamber, is nodding in support for that. We have our green loans, which are another example of direct action supporting householders to make a difference in their local communities.

These are examples of the direct action that the government have already taken. In my own electorate of Leichhardt I have a fantastic natural resource management organisation called Terrain, who are working in partnership with a group called Degrees Celsius. I have facilitated meetings between them, Minister Wong and members of her department to look at how we can work with local farmers and local community groups to sequester carbon and give soil carbon a real future in terms of action on climate change. That is not a slogan; that is the hard work that a natural resource management organisation in tropical North Queensland is doing. They are working with the government to develop a framework that will enable carbon to be properly accounted for and audited within an international framework.

The opposition’s policy does not sit within any international framework. As I said, 35 countries, including the United States of America, have either adopted an ETS or have plans to adopt an ETS. We are working on and developing a framework that works with the international community. Businesses across the country want certainty, and they want a framework that will fit within those international obligations. If we go back and look at the risks in my community of Leichhardt in tropical North Queensland, the Marine and Tropical Sciences Research Facility, the MTSRF, and the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre have done a significant amount of work, pulling together the real threats of climate change to my local community. Their climate change projections predict that by 2030 the regional average annual temperature will increase by between 0.6 degrees Celsius and 1.2 degrees Celsius and that after 2030 the rate of increase will be highly dependent on the emissions levels. That is why we need to take action now.

What we do now will take time to impact on carbon emissions, and we need to make sure that we do not have temperature rises like that because they will impact on the Great Barrier Reef and on the wet tropical rainforests. They will impact on communities all across my electorate and all across the country. The region’s average annual rainfall will be similar, but traditionally dry seasons will become drier and wet seasons will become slightly wetter. Cyclones will be stronger, more frequent and longer lasting, and the region of cyclone activity will shift southwards, affecting areas 300 kilometres further south than today by 2070. Local sea levels will be 13 to 20 centimetres above 1990 levels and 49 to 89 centimetres above 1990 levels by 2070. They are predicting sea levels and temperature rises in my local community, and these are very serious issues. Climate change is not nebulous. It is not—as Tony Abbott has described it—‘crap’. It is real, and we need to take action to tackle it.

We need an emissions trading scheme, we need a mandatory renewable energy target to support renewable energy and we need the direct action measures that I have already spoken about. Some of the likely impacts of these projected changes that the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre has come up with include: increased vulnerability of fragmented forests to storm damage, which in turn limits the potential for animal and plant communities to recover via connective corridors; increased erosion, particularly when riparian vegetation is damaged or removed; decreased capacity of the coastal zone to act as a storm buffer; and reduced pollination rates of forest plants, caused by altered flowering regimes that no longer coincide with the presence of insects that are essential for pollination. The list goes on.

The centre says that in the Great Barrier Reef there will be increased frequency and severity of coral-bleaching events, particularly in the central and southern parts of the GBR, which is predicted to suffer catastrophic bleaching events; coral mortality greater than 20 per cent once every five years by 2050; and greater sensitivity to coral bleaching caused by increased exposure to terrestrial runoff. Coastal and intracostal coral reefs are two to four times more sensitive to bleaching due to temperature stress and being subject to runoff. So climate change is real. It has real risks. This is the data of the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre. They are talking about the likely increases in temperature and ocean levels and the impacts they are going to have on the Wet Tropics rainforest and on the Great Barrier Reef. It is a real threat and it is no wonder communities like mine want action.

And what do we have from the opposition? We do not have a policy. We have a grab bag of ideas that have been strung together to try to make sure that the divisions in the opposition are, effectively, papered over. That is what this is about. The approach that the Leader of the Opposition has taken to this issue highlights that this really is a political response rather than a serious response to climate change. As the former Leader of the Opposition, Mr Turnbull, wrote in his blog, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Abbott, has been a bit of a weathervane on this issue. The reality is that last year he basically said that we needed to take action on climate change. Then he said, effectively, that we needed to do a deal. Then he flipped and said we did not need to do a deal. Then he said that he was going to be opposed to an emissions trading scheme. He has flipped and flopped on this issue, and today we have seen him come into this House, ask a series of questions and demand a debate with the Prime Minister after releasing a grab bag of policies.

The hypocrisy of it is that the Leader of the Opposition has described climate change as ‘crap’ and yet is coming in and delivering what he said is ‘an important response to climate change through direct action’. How can he last year describe it as ‘crap’ and this year want to come in and argue that he is serious about the issue? I think the Australian people see that this is not a serious response to climate change.

We need to recognise that Senator Minchin, Senator Joyce and others who supported Mr Abbott becoming Leader of the Opposition are in the background there. We all know that they are on the record as believing that climate change is not influenced by human beings and that it is not a real result of human activity on this planet. As I have said, according to the Tropical Forest Research Centre, the RRRC in my electorate and the intergovernmental panel, the science on this is settled. There is a real risk of climate change impacting local communities as a result of human activity if we do not take action. I go to a quote showing Mr Abbott’s real lack of understanding, considering the issues that I have already raised in my electorate. In a recent speech on 30 January 2010, he said:

… even if dire predictions are right and average temperatures around the globe rise by four degrees over the century, it’s still not the “great moral challenge” of our time …

So a couple of days ago he basically said that temperatures can go up four degrees and it really will not be a major issue. Tell that to the people of the Torres Strait. Tell that to tourism operators in my electorate who are taking action in their own businesses. Big Cat Green Island Reef Cruises are looking to reduce their carbon emissions. Quicksilver are looking to reduce their carbon emissions. Tell that to tourism operators who are taking tourists every day to the Wet Tropics rainforest. We have seen the RRRC say that the Wet Tropics rainforest and Great Barrier Reef are under real threat if we see just a small rise in temperatures in our region, yet Mr Abbott is saying a four-degree rise is not an issue. I think that climate change is not crap. The response of the opposition is, effectively, as Mr Abbott has described, crap, and we need to make sure that we act in the national interest. We need to work with the opposition. I call on them to work with us so we take real action to ensure that communities in my electorate have a long-term future, whether in tourism or in Indigenous communities in the cape and the Torres Strait. They want action. We are going to continue to act in the national interest. I support strongly the actions of the Prime Minister and others who are looking to develop and further advance our policies.

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