Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak to the Climate Change Bill 2022 as the representative of my community of Goldstein. I'm aware that some members of the Goldstein community will be disappointed with the legislated target of 43 per cent carbon emissions reduction by 2030. I agree with you. We need to do better than that. The science says we should be hitting higher targets. I went to the election believing, based on scientific modelling and evidence, that 60 per cent is a realistic target within that time frame. My position has not changed. But there is will that is in the majority in this place, and certainly that will far exceeds the stalling of the last decade, which saw our nation go to COP26 with a grossly inadequate target of 26 to 28 per cent. It was a target which did not take responsibility for our environment, our industries and businesses, our regional communities and their deserved just transition, or the future of our children. As parliamentarians and as leaders, we do have a duty of care to our communities on climate.

However, progress needs to be stepped through, and this bill has yielded a collaborative process between government and the crossbench that I believe reflects the kind of approach to politics that Goldstein voted me in here to help provide. I commend the work of the member for Warringah, whose tireless work on climate helped bring about the climate election. Finally our communities have spoken. I appreciate the work and intent of the climate change minister and the willingness from his office to engage with me and other members of the crossbench to improve this important legislation. The Goldstein community made it abundantly clear that they wanted politics done differently. The government, for the moment, appears to have gotten the message. So far, so good.

In the course of conversations with the minister about this bill, I and others on the crossbench have advocated strongly for 43 per cent to be explicitly noted as a floor, not a ceiling, when it comes to carbon emissions. This plain language is necessary, I believe, to prevent ambition from being thwarted—to make sure that there are no unintended consequences of this law that limit our future capacity to be brave and innovative and to lead on climate policy. Science and the best available scientific knowledge must underpin everything that we do from now on. This is the time for consistency.

As a person who grew up in regional Australia—much as I now live in and love Goldstein—first in Tasmania and having since lived and worked in Lismore and along the coast of New South Wales, as well as in Darwin, I pay heed to the apprehension in communities outside the big cities. Their experience when they've seen changes made to policy for environmental reasons has often created negative community impact. We must do better in ensuring that regional communities reap the benefits of the transformation from our dependence on fossil fuels to leading on clean, green technology. It's not about transition; it's about transformation. The backdrop is the physical impact of climate change on communities who are now bearing the brunt of floods, fires and droughts. Risk management and planning must be a priority area as we step through this process.

I would have liked the minister to agree to amend the legislation to insert a new clause to make it crystal-clear that the 2030 target does not constrain even greater emissions reductions. This is a change which would give the final legislation, I think, greater legal force. But I am pleased that he's indicated that he is prepared to make it clear that the legislation doesn't limit Australia's ability to reduce its net greenhouse gas emissions beyond 43 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. Half a loaf is better than none. But rest assured I will keep pressing the government for more.

To that end, the government should next commit to establishing in legislation emissions budgets for each emissions budget period beyond 2030—that is, 2031 to 2035, 2036 to 2040, 2041 to 2045 and 2046 to 2050. The government should also commit to inserting a climate trigger into the EPBC Act to ensure that proposed fossil fuel developments cannot undermine the pathway to net zero, efficiently, equitably and rapidly. The State of the environment report released by the environment minister a week or so ago paints a shocking picture of the degradation of our flora and fauna—just shocking. We must make up for lost time if our children, and theirs, are going to enjoy the natural bounty of this nation and if we are to remain a continent of wonder or, as I used to tell my children when we were living overseas, 'the magical land of Oz'. I call on the government to reveal when it intends to publish the planned and staged emissions budget for 2021 to 2030 that it's committed to in this climate bill. How exactly will we hit and exceed that mark? I also call on the government not to again politicise this debate and reignite the climate wars by tying budgets beyond 2030 to election campaigns.

I've spoken previously in this chamber about my direct experience in the aftermath of climate related disasters. In 2011, I spent several months covering what were described as one-in-1,000-year floods in Thailand. Almost 14 million people were affected in 65 of Thailand's 76 provinces, across 20,000 square kilometres. Central Bangkok was under serious threat, and, as the creeping disaster dragged on and the Mekong and Chao Phraya river basins overflowed, the government closed the city's floodgates. When the city closed the floodgates to protect the high-rises, shopping centres and apartment blocks of the CBD from the rising waters, the CBD khlongs, or canals, were empty. But, outside those floodgates, water that couldn't flow away inundated communities for months. People attacked the floodgates, trying to open them, to no avail. Central Bangkok was spared, but the largely poorer residents on the outskirts were not.

One of the communities we had visited on the flooded side of the barriers invited us to a funeral. A small child, a boy, had woken up from his afternoon nap. The toddler stepped out of his home and into the flood. His was one death of several hundred during those one-in-1,000-year floods, which, as we know all too well in Australia and elsewhere, happen a lot more often than every thousand or even every hundred years. We must not allow ourselves to get used to this. We cannot get used to the death, destruction and ongoing trauma that is ever more frequently happening because of climate change. We were warned, and we have been too slow. This little boy was a victim of that, as are the residents of South-East Queensland and northern New South Wales, especially in my old home town of Lismore, and those affected by repeated bushfires across our fragile and beautiful nation.

We now have a minimum number to provide certainty for business and community. Further consistent government policy must follow to ensure that we exceed that number and become the leaders that we can be. Let's get on with it. If not us, who? If not now, when? I commend this bill to the House.

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