Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Continuing with the statements of Richard Tol, he says, ‘Very stringent targets may be very costly, however, or even infeasible.’ Professor Tol goes on to say, ‘The science of the uncertainty around the effects of climate change is a political decision.’ However, he says, ‘one should keep in mind that there is a history of exaggeration in the study of climate change impacts’. He goes on to list them:

Early research pointed to massive sea level rises, millions dying from infectious diseases and widespread starvation. Later, more careful research has dispelled these fears.

The ‘price on carbon’ crew have been banging away for some time now, without much challenge, but, as per the need, the economics of climate change is coming to the fore. Again IPCC author Richard Tol found that trying to keep global temperature increases less than 2 degrees Centigrade, as the G8 industrialised nations have promised, would require carbon emissions reductions of about 80 per cent by mid-century, according to IPCC modelling. Based on conventional estimates, this would avoid climate damages of about $US1.1 trillion over the century. But it would cut economic growth by about $US40 trillion a year. In other words, we would effectively be spending $US40 trillion every year from now until the end of the century to do just over $US1 trillion worth of total good. This is in fact widely optimistic. The calculation assumes that over 100 years politicians everywhere will consistently enact the most efficient, effective laws possible to reduce carbon emissions. Dump that far-fetched assumption and the cost could jump by a factor of 10 or even 100.

The carbon price stance is now outdated. Either the Labor government will not back down on a price on carbon simply to appease the Greens, or they simply have not read the evolving literature. May I suggest that investing in advanced technology is a far smarter alternative. Devoting just 0.2 per cent of global GDP, about $US100 billion, a year to advanced energy R&D would produce the kind of factor multiplication that could fuel a carbon-free future. The old Labor adage of acting now to avoid climate change seems a moot point, as it was Ms Gillard who said ‘delay is denial’, then implemented this climate change commission. If we are going to wait and see what is the best way to tackle climate change, maybe actually moving forward to intelligent discussion and viable solutions may be the best way. Also the inclusion of those who do not believe a price on carbon is the best way forward for the climate change commission may actually engender far better outcomes. As it stands, Labor and the Greens are putting together a. climate change Kumbaya which can only have one outcome, a price on carbon. How about we do not just act for acting’s sake. Let us look at the literature on climate change economics and keep emotion out of it.

On the government’s NBN network, forgive me for quoting so heavily but Carlos Slim Helu, the world’s richest man and head of Mexican telcos Telmex, Telcel and America Movil, gave the NBN the big thumbs-down. He said the NBN ‘seems expensive’ at $43 billion dollars, and he was obviously being diplomatic. He went on to say that it is not necessary to invest so much money, because technology is changing all the time, and paying $7,000 a home to connect about six million homes was too expensive. But wait, there is more—he criticised the reliance of the project on fibre, emphasising the need for wireless services. He said:

You need to have a multi-platform of everything: mobile, landline, fibre, cable and copper. You need to have all these. You need to have a very good fibre network and rings and you need to have a loop of fibre to sustain when you have a problem in one place that the communications don’t get interrupted. But with copper and cable you can give 20 or 30 MhZ. I think fibre is not enough. You need to have a good network of wireless.

So the best option is clear: a forward looking wireless network which doesn’t cost the world, or a technological dinosaur, which the NBN will likely be when finally built, that costs the average Australian far too much money. I am all for advancing technology, I am all for new technology. The casemix of technologies must be part fibre, part wireless, part satellite and part whatever new technologies emerge.

I implore the government to respect the public purse. The Labor Party has this strange theory that they saved us from the global financial crisis, and this gives them the right to do what they like with the public purse. They like to take a global view—hence the ‘global financial crisis’—but if you look at all the countries that engaged in stimulus payments, they are pretty much all struggling economically under crushing public debt. Let us also not ignore that these same countries stimulated at much higher rates of GDP than Australia. If you look at the economic health of nations around the world who made stimulus payments, would you really say that stimulus was such a success? I do not think so. So, given the size of Australia’s stimulus packages relative to global packages and the size of the debt that stimulus has created worldwide, is the Labor government really comfortable in claiming victory for their Keynesian dream world when the world experience of stimulus packages has been so much different? I think we should look at a combination of factors that kept Australia out of recession and not one factor that may or may not have made a difference and is now certainly adding to the inflationary pressures in our economy.

I also wish to acknowledge my new parliamentary colleague Ken Wyatt. No matter what your age, gender or heritage, it is an honour and privilege of the highest order to be elected as a member of parliament in Australia. However, as Ken is the first Indigenous Australian elected to the House of Representatives, I could not be more proud of him and the party he and I are part of. I wish him all the best and I know he will be a great leader in his electorate to his Noongar, Yamatji and Wongi people and to all Australians.

Native title and Indigenous issues will also be an important focus for me in this next term and I will be discussing these issues at far greater length in the near future. Other particular focus areas for me in this term will be science, energy, defence, education, economics and communications, subjects about which I will be speaking and writing in detail in this term of parliament.

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