Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

( This Morrison government has failed to be up-front with the people of Australia about its failure to have a real climate change mitigation strategy and to actually reduce emissions. Australians are reeling from extraordinary bushfires. Experts ranging from former and serving fire chief commissioners to 274 climate, weather and fire scientists have made it clear that human-caused climate change is linked to the increasing risk of frequent and severe bushfires in the Australian landscape. Australians who have lost homes and livelihoods are calling for real action on climate change. Young Australians are rallying in the streets, calling for politicians to step up, to show leadership and to act to preserve their environment, their future and the world. Yet this Morrison government cannot be up-front with the Australian people because it is led by a Prime Minister who chooses spin and sophistry over truth and transparency, who chooses lies over facts. They are led by a Prime Minister who continues to claim that his government is meeting and beating the Kyoto and Paris targets. That is simply not true. The latest official 'government' data confirms that Australia will not meet the Kyoto commitment to cut emissions by five per cent next year. The horrifying truth is that emission reduction will be 0.3 per cent—pretty much a rounding error!

The government data also confirms that emissions will be down by less than five per cent over the next 10 years. Scientists—the experts, not the people who bring lumps of coal into parliament—say we must reach net zero emissions in 30 years. Under the trajectory that this Prime Minister is presiding over, we'll get there in 230 years. It's possibly the actual definition of too little too late. And the people of Australia aren't going to be fooled by the Prime Minister going around the country doing deals, where he's trying to claim the actions that have been taken by state governments to actually reduce emissions. They're the ones who are acting, and this federal government is failing to act and failing to be honest with the people of Australia about it.

This government's climate policy has been ranked last in the world. Australia is the highest per capita producer of greenhouse gases. Because this government won't tell the truth, not only can we not protect Australia from the effects of man-made climate change, we can't be leaders around the world, something that Australia has a proud history of doing on very many topics, including climate change. If it wasn't for Australia, the world would not have banned CFCs. We wouldn't have dealt with the hole in the ozone layer. We are all proud of that. That's our legacy and that's been trashed because we have a Morrison government that can't be honest about its failure on emissions in coalition with a National Party that can't even be honest about the link between man-made actions, climate change and bushfires.

When the Prime Minister tells Australian people that we need to focus on adaptation, he's actually telling them that he and his government have given up. He's flying the white flag. He is telling the students out on the streets calling for real action on climate change that they just need to adapt and accept a future of extraordinary droughts, devastating bushfires, extreme heat, raging floods. They just need to accept that their future will be no icebergs, minimal biodiversity, barren landscapes, drowned island nations and increased inequality for the people around the world.

I can hear the National Party members of this chamber scoffing at what I'm saying and that's the failure they bring to this parliament and that they bring to the coalition government. Well, I don't accept it. I don't accept that a government should act like this. Labor doesn't accept that we shouldn't mitigate. We will never accept it and we're not going to let this government pretend they're doing something that they're not.

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