Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Quite rightly, around the country, people have dropped everything to deal with the coronavirus crisis, as we have put the protection of human life above everything else. As a result, here in Australia we have seen some results and, thankfully, a lower loss of life than in many other countries around the world. It shows what happens when the science and the health expertise are respected and made a priority.

But, while we've been doing that, the climate crisis has not gone away. It has continued to proceed apace and get worse. As we speak, scientists are worried that parts of Antarctica are melting at a rate they thought they might see in 10 or 20 years time and, if that melting proceeds and we cross the crucial tipping point, that we could be seeing three- to four-metre sea level rises by the end of the century from that bit of Antarctica alone. If we continue on the track that we are going on, and that the government's targets are consistent with, we face a world that is warmed by three to four degrees during the lifetime of today's primary school students. That means the carrying capacity of this planet will be reduced from 7½ billion people down to one billion people. That is a lifetime of war, conflict, devastation and fights over resources that our children have ahead of them, unless we act.

Also as a result of the corona crisis, we are in a recession. The burden is falling on young people and on women, and we are seeing depression-era jobless figures. We have now got not only a massive inequality crisis in this country, not only a massive climate crisis in this country, but we've got a massive jobs crisis as well. We need to tackle all of these crises at once, and we need to do it urgently. That is what the Green New Deal is about, and that is what this bill is about. It is about improving the quality of life of everyone in this country, tackling the crises that we face, and ensuring that everyone has a decent job as we tackle the climate crisis and preserve the future for our children.

We here in Australia can utilise hydrogen and bio-innovation to substitute gas as a feedstock and coking coal in our industrial processes—these advances are how we secure an increase in our living standards.

But, if this parliament keeps listening to the donors and lobbyists from the coal and gas industry, then it not only means higher energy bills, stranded infrastructure and even more devastating bushfires—it also means devastation for us and our kids.

We clearly can't stay shut down forever. That is not an acceptable path towards reducing emissions. But nor can we snap back to normal, because, if we do, then we sell out the future for our children, for today's primary school children.

The only option open to us is for a Green New Deal that puts people to work to build the infrastructure society needs to rapidly reduce pollution and to keep our families safe.

This Green New Deal (Quit Coal and Renew Australia) Bill 2020 does exactly that. It gives the government the tools that are needed to ensure a safe climate and a fair and resilient economy.

The bill establishes a new public authority, Renew Australia, to lead the transition by working with communities, energy companies and governments at all levels to plan exactly how we can build the pipeline of clean energy projects to create jobs and keep pushing down power prices for homes and businesses.

The authority will do this, as it oversees a phase-out of coal in Australia by 2030, by a mixture of owning and financing the construction of renewable energy projects—giving the industry the market certainty they have been deprived of since the Liberals came to power.

The authority will not only make sure that they support regional jobs through their construction program, but they will guarantee that transition plans are put in place so that coal-dependent communities get the funding and support that they deserve.

We don't want coal communities to collapse. So many people have invested their time and their lives into their communities. Leaving them to the whims of the market threatens their ongoing prosperity, and they deserve more respect than that. We owe these people a debt of gratitude for helping power our country and keeping the lights on, but it's just as simple as the fact that we know something now that we didn't know before. We cannot keep burning coal at the rate that we did before, and we cannot keep digging it up and exporting it at the rate that we used to do, because we know it threatens life.

But we need to support the workers and the communities as we transition. In many respects, that might involve supporting them into other mining jobs. The best job for a coalminer is another mining job, and Australia is going to continue to mine the minerals that are going to be needed to make the products we need in a zero-carbon world. So we can find secure other mining jobs for coal workers. We can find jobs making green steel in New South Wales and Queensland so that Australia doesn't just dig up its iron ore and send it off and then buy it back, more expensively, but we use our sun and our wind to make the steel here from the ore here that we then use to lay the tracks for high-speed rail or to build the wind turbines that are going to power the country with renewable energy. That is what this bill is about.

That is why the bill requires the Renew Australia authority to support the aspirations of workers affected by this inevitable transition. It will make sure that we attract the new industries and jobs that each of these local communities wants. If the private sector won't or can't deliver it, then the government should invest directly to turn those local aspirations into reality, to make sure we leave no-one behind.

The timing of these transition plans will be determined by the other main part of this bill: the prohibition of the mining, burning and the export and importation of thermal coal in Australia by 2030.

The bill specifies a gradual phase-out of thermal coal exports over the time line that the science requires. Four out of every five tonnes of thermal coal we dig up in this country are exported overseas. So, if you don't have a plan for the phasing-out of exporting of coal, then you don't have a plan for climate change.

Likewise, the importation of coal will be prohibited, but with exemptions on the grounds of heritage or research purposes.

Thermal coal is a dangerous and unnecessary product and it should be treated as such. While steam turbines have delivered our past prosperity, technology means we no longer need them in our lives.

Yet we are also one of the laggards in developed economies. We still rely far too heavily on this 20th-century technology as we try and keep up with a 21st-century world. While domestic coal use has dropped significantly in the last decade, we still have a long way to go.

That's why this bill schedules a timetable of when coal stations have to close by. This gives communities certainty, it gives government certainty in being able to ensure no worker is left behind and it means that they can walk into another well paid and secure job.

But importantly a timetable for closure also makes it clear to the energy market how much clean energy we will need where and by when. This plan will attract billions in global capital looking for a safe, clean place to invest.

Without such a plan, coal plants can shut at short notice, like Hazelwood did and like others might do next.

Germany has undertaken this approach under the slogan 'no-one left in the pits'. Thousands of workers have exited the industry so far and to date not one person has been left unemployed. The plan they made between workers, employers and government meant that every coal worker walked into a new job or transitioned safely into retirement.

We can do the exact same thing here in Australia with a bit of planning, a bit of compassion and a bit of foresight—but we need this bill to do it.

That is why I commend this bill to the House.

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