Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme Bill) 2014. I do so to support this bill wholeheartedly. Firstly, the practical measures of this bill amend the Social Security Act 1991 and the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999. They clarify the social security arrangements for participants that will be receiving the Green Army allowance. The Green Army is set to become Australia's largest ever environmental workforce. It will deliver work and jobs for 15,000 people, making it the largest standing environmental workforce in our history. It is a program that will provide real and practical solutions for clearing up our riverbeds and creeks, revegetating sand dunes and revegetating mangrove habitats, amongst the many other environmental remediation initiatives.

There are two bonuses for the community in this. Firstly, there are the environmental benefits that we will receive throughout Australia. Secondly, there are the training benefits for 15,000 young Australians who will receive the opportunity to have up to 20 weeks training in an environmental program. So, it is good news on both fronts.

I am very proud of the projects that have already been announced in my electorate, which are all based around the Georges River. The Georges River has a long history with Australia's settlement. It was first explored by Bass and Flinders back in 1795, when they took that famous little boat of theirs, the Tom Thumb, and sailed it all the way around from Port Phillip, around into Botany Bay and up the Georges River. They mapped the area all the way up to Georges Fair. That expedition opened up a lot of the land and farmland around Bankstown.

Another part of the Georges River that is very historically important is the weir at Liverpool. That was constructed in 1836. That was the dividing mark on the river, where on one side was the brackish saltwater and on the other was the freshwater. Everything upstream from the weir was all freshwater, which became the drinking supply for the township of Liverpool. Today, over one million people live in the catchment area of the Georges River. It is one of the most highly urbanised catchment areas in Australia. It has over 200 years of history behind it. It is an area that needs significant environmental remediation in many areas.

I am proud to say that we already have announced for my electorate six separate Green Army programs—one in Kelso Creek, one in Clinches Pond at Moorebank, one at Wattle Grove Lake, one at Yeramba Lagoon, another at Harris Creek in Holsworthy and one on the border of my electorate, under the Liverpool Bridge, at the famous Lighthorse Park. These programs will make a serious and significant improvement to the environment along the Georges River, for the thousands and thousands of people that use the river for recreation. In fact, I was down there late last week and a little fishing boat had pulled up. The guy who was fishing there had caught about a dozen blackfish. So the river is actually not in bad nick now, but a lot more could be done to improve the quality of the river and to bring it closer to what it was when Bass and Flinders first sailed down there in 1795.

While I am talking about the Georges River and the things on our environmental program, I would like to give my congratulations to the Chauvel Park Environmental Group. This is a group of citizens in the local community who are doing work similar to what the Green Army would do but on a volunteer basis. I have been down there and seen them working away on the weekend. They showed me the river banks, and there is that much work and clearing of vegetation to do that it is almost beyond explanation. When the member for Kingsford-Smith talks about how these programs will somehow crowd out what some other community members are doing, it is just absolute and complete nonsense. I would like to congratulate Robert Storey and Ian Bailey and all the other workers in that Chauvel Park Environmental Group for the great work that they do, and I am sure that that can be complementary to all the other things the green army project will be doing.

I have heard during this debate many members from the opposition making sad, sniping remarks complaining about this program and saying how truly wonderful their carbon tax program has been in taking action on climate change. This program provides a true example of the difference between the coalition and the opposition. What we are proposing here provides practical steps to improve the environmental areas of our country. In comparison, things like the carbon tax are purely symbolic and have absolutely no beneficial effect on the environment. This is the difference. The carbon tax actually does do a few things for the environment and that is exactly what I would like to get onto. What we see with Labor's carbon tax is a classic example of the law of leftist unintended consequences. That law simply states, for every leftist government law, hurriedly passed in response to a current or recent crisis, to give greater power to government or to provide for more centralised control over the economy, there will be two or more unintended consequences that will have greater negative effects than the problem it was designed to fix, often harming the very people the legislation is intended to assist. I would like to give an example of how the carbon tax does that and contrast that to the green army program.

One thing the carbon tax does is push up the price of electricity. What is the average person's response to an increase in a price in one particular good or one particular way of producing things? They look for substitutes and alternatives. That is exactly what is happening in Sydney as we speak, today. People are finding that they cannot afford to turn on the heater to warm their house during winter. So what are people doing? They are going out to the bush or to their backyard, cutting down a tree and burning the wood. They are using wood fires as a substitute because of the high electricity prices. They are burning wood to keep themselves warm. What effect does that have? We know that when you burn wood you release into the atmosphere not only carbon dioxide but also particulate matter. In Sydney in winter, between 50 and 60 per cent of the particulate matter in the atmosphere comes about through people using wood fires in their homes to keep themselves warm. This action releases particulate matter, commonly known as PM10 or PM2.5.

Why is there a concern about this particulate matter? I refer to a few recent reports. Firstly, the report of the World Health Organisation states:

PM affects more people than any other pollutant. The major components of PM are sulfate, nitrates, ammonia, sodium chloride, black carbon, mineral dust and water. It consists of a complex mixture of solid and liquid particles in organic and inorganic substances suspended in the air. The most health-damaging particles are those with a diameter of 10 microns or less, which can penetrate and lodge deep inside the lungs. Chronic exposure to particles contributes to the risk of developing cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, as well as lung cancer.

A recent article written by Professor Bin Jalaludin notes:

… the world's leading experts on cancer, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified outdoor air pollution as a carcinogenic to humans. The agency's report, Air Pollution and Cancer, said there's now sufficient evidence that components of outdoor air pollution can cause cancer.

He notes that air pollution is:

… one environmental hazard that everyone is exposed to; we all have to breath the air around us.

Even unborn children are exposed to the potential harm of air pollution, a complex mixture of particles that can be solids or aerosols, and gases.

It was only a few years ago that the New South Wales Chief Health Officer, Denise Robinson, told a public inquiry at New South Wales Parliament House that the deaths of between 600 and 1,400 Sydneysiders every year could be attributed at least partly to air pollution. I will repeat that: between 600 and 1,400 deaths are attributed to air pollution in Western Sydney. The World Health Organisation rightly sets maximum recommend pollution levels. Although they say that there is no safe level, there is no threshold that they have identified at which no damage to health is possible, they do note that guidelines for the particulate matter PM10 is 20 microns per cubic metre as an annual mean. What has happened in Western Sydney since the carbon tax has been introduced? It has turned more people over to burning wood, releasing more particulate matter. We have the measurements of the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage from their monitoring station in Liverpool. Since the carbon tax was introduced in 2010, every single year the particulate pollution in Western Sydney has increased. Last year the particulate pollution in Western Sydney was above World Health Organisation standards for PM10.

For PM10, pollution has increased 25 per cent since the carbon tax was introduced. These levels of air pollution are caused by wood heating, which people converted to to try to keep their home warm in the winter, because of the imposition of the carbon tax. In Western Sydney we now have pollution levels above those the World Health Organisation recommends. The situation is just as bad for the more dangerous particulate, PM2.5. Since the carbon tax has been introduced, it has pushed up the prices of electricity and people have converted to heating their homes with wood. PM2.5 pollution, the most deadly of all the particulate pollutions, has actually increased by 50 per cent since 2010.

These are the unintended consequences of bad policy and symbolic policy which is actually harming the environment and harming the air quality of people in Western Sydney today. That is what we are dealing with here in this parliament. It is not only a matter of the cost burden on the community. Policies like the carbon tax are actually harming the environment and they are harming the health of millions of citizens that live in Western Sydney today. This is what we get from the opposition.

We need to think through the unintended consequences of this bad policy. That is why I am so glad that we on this side of the House are taking practical steps to improve the environment in Western Sydney. We are taking practical steps with our Green Army Program to improve the quality and the health of the Georges River for the benefit of all Sydneysiders. That is what a good government does: take practical steps rather than simply symbolic steps that have these unintended consequences which today are harming the health of residents of Western Sydney, not only in my electorate but throughout the entire Western and South-West Sydney basin.

So I commend this bill to the House. Again, it shows the difference between the coalition and the opposition. We are here taking practical, real steps that will improve the environment in Western Sydney, while the opposition are intent on implementing these symbolic measures that not only have no effect but do the opposite—cause harm to people's health.

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