Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

This is an important statement for talking about Australia's international obligations in the environment space. I note that, in the nine years we were in government, we had rooftop solar on one in four houses. That was world's best. That was world's best practice. A lot is often said condemning what the coalition did or didn't do during our three terms in office, but rest assured that there was money for such vital environmental projects that Landcare did right throughout the country. We made huge investments in ensuring that our waterways were as they should be. There were huge investments and consideration for the soil.

With the member for Paterson, I am very pleased to be the co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Soil, because what we can do as a nation in being good environmental stewards dealing with climate action is right beneath our feet. What we should be doing more of is making sure that there's carbon sequestration. We should be making sure that the soil we have is healthy and protected, because, if we don't, that is going to lead to more soil degradation and more soil salinity. You would know that yourself, Deputy Speaker Scrymgour, coming from Lingiari, that massive electorate in the Northern Territory. I know that, right throughout the nation, our soil needs to be preserved and protected.

I note too that, in her 15 November 2023 statement on international environmental leadership, the Minister for the Environment and Water talked about Labor promising a fresh approach to leadership and the environment and mentioned, in only the third sentence in that particular statement, that Labor was renewing Australia's relationships abroad, particularly in the Pacific, establishing trust in the Pacific. There was always trust in the Pacific. It annoys me that this rubbish is perpetuated by those opposite—saying that we never looked after or we ignored the Pacific. The Pacific is our neighbourhood. It's our environment. We have been very good friends with our Pacific friends, no less so than through the former foreign affairs minister Senator Marise Payne, who did a power of good, a power of work, in the Pacific to ensure that those links, which stretch back many, many decades, were continued, built upon and enhanced.

Speaking of the Pacific, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch—you can also call it the Pacific Trash Vortex or the North Pacific Garbage Patch, whatever you like—is an alarming concern. It is indeed growing. The Ocean Cleanup projects researchers claim that the patch covers 1.6 million square kilometres. That is massive—three times the size of France, I think. It includes many items of plastic. To address climate, we have this folly in this nation that we're going to close down every coalmine, every coal-fired power station, tomorrow. I see the member for Hunter opposite. That would destroy the communities in his electorate. We have this rush towards renewables, this linear approach towards getting to net zero by 2050, which is dictating that Labor needs to out-green the Greens political party at times. There is great folly in this, because, if those opposite truly believe that we are going to have worse weather, more severe droughts, more severe flooding, more severe weather events having an impact on our environment, on our communities, on insurance premiums, then why the rush to renewables, where Labor is going to rely on the weather—on wind and all of those things, hydroelectricity et cetera—to power our nation?

If, as the member for Boothby said, Labor wants a Future Made in Australia, with manufacturing made in Australia, producing goods made right here and not necessarily relying on those that come from abroad, then we're going to have to have good, reliable, available, affordable power supplies. That energy can't just come from solar and wind, because, as has been often stated—and it is decried by those opposite—when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine, the battery storage capacity, the technology, at the moment just isn't at that point. It may well be in the future, but it is not right here right now. That is why we need to have a mix. That is why we need to have a balance. And that is why I believe, and so do the coalition members, that we need to have a national, rational discussion about the possibility of having nuclear in that mix, because to get to net zero by 2050 we need to be able to have—like so many other nations in the world, so many other progressive economic leaders in the world—nuclear as part of the energy mix and not rely solely or too heavily on wind, solar and renewables.

The difficulty that we face as local communities—and all politics is local—is that, particularly up in northern New South Wales and other parts of the nation that I have visited, we are running out of room for our rubbish tips. We are running out of room. We are such a consumer-driven society. You buy a shirt these days and you unpack it, and you've got any number of pins and cardboard and plastic. The plastic surrounding it weighs even more than the actual product itself. You buy a three-pack of soap these days, and each cake of soap is contained in its own box within a box. This is all leading to more and more landfill. What are we doing to address that? I have to pay credit to the former environment minister, the member for Farrer, Sussan Ley. She did a lot of work in this space to ensure that we were addressing these sorts of issues. But we do need to have not a war on plastic but careful consideration of what we do in this space so that we are not just making more and more landfill.

I can well remember going to Nairobi, in Kenya, not that long ago. They had a rubbish dump there which was started in the late eighties or early nineties and which had filled up by the early 2000s and was closed, but they continued to deliver rubbish there. Sadly, thousands upon thousands of women, particularly young girls and women, went there each day and picked through the rubbish that was collected there. You can see this rubbish dump from outer space; that is how large it is. We don't want a repeat of that anywhere in the world. I know that Kenya as a nation is doing its utmost and level best to address its plastic problem—you're not allowed to take plastic bags into the country and, if you get caught at customs or the borders bringing in a plastic bag, even to put your clothes in within your luggage or whatever the case might be, you cop a fine. That's probably a good thing given the problem they have at the Nairobi rubbish dump.

But to my point about local councils: they are running out of room for their landfills. We as a parliament and, indeed, also state governments need to address this problem because we need to have better recycling. We need to encourage more recycling. We throw out so many materials—bottles and plastics—that could easily be recycled. Whether there's the room and the political will to incentivise that process remains to be seen. But this is an important statement. I appreciate that the government will always say it's doing better than what we ever did. That is truly not the case, but we don't need the Greens in a power-sharing arrangement in any future government to lead us all down an environmental path which would be very bad for business and very bad for household budgets.

Debate adjourned.

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