David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Grayndler proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The need for strong Government action to address the threat posed to Australia’s environment and economy by dangerous climate change.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is an inconvenient truth that the Howard government is increasingly isolated on climate change. It is an inconvenient truth that between 1990 and 2004 emissions rose in Australia by 25.1 per cent, once you exclude the decisions of the New South Wales and Queensland governments on land clearing. And it is an inconvenient truth for this government that, over coming weeks, hundreds of thousands of Australians will be become more aware about climate change due to Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.

I have had the privilege of watching that documentary on a number of occasions, and it is extremely powerful. The former Vice President of the United States puts a great case for why this is the moral cause of our generation, in the interests of future generations—and that is because climate change threatens the very conditions that allow human civilisation to live on this planet. However, this important documentary has been dismissed by the Prime Minister’s Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, Ian Macfarlane, who stated, ‘It’s just entertainment, and really that’s all it is.’

That reminded me of one of my favourite songs, That’s Entertainment, written by Paul Weller of The Jam. But Weller used ‘That’s entertainment’ in the ironic sense. It was a devastating critique of social dislocation in Thatcher’s Britain, but from this mob over here there is no irony at all in saying that Al Gore’s movie, which documents the threat to our water supply, the increase in extreme weather events, the potential for over 100 million environmental refugees and the catastrophic future that we face unless we act is just about entertainment as far as this government is concerned. But we should not be surprised, because on the date that the Kyoto protocol came into effect the minister said:

Whether or not those emissions are causing climate change, I don’t know ... If you go back across history, millions of years, carbon-dioxide levels go up and down and global warming comes and goes.

That is an extraordinary statement from a senior minister in the Howard government. Last week, the Prime Minister said he was sceptical about gloomy climate change predictions. Al Gore was asked on The 7.30 Report about the Prime Minister’s scepticism, and he said:

He’s increasingly alone in that view among people who’ve really looked at the science. ... The so-called “gloomy predictions” are predictions of what would happen if we did not act. It’s not a question of mood. It’s a question of reality. And, you know, there’s no longer debate over whether the earth is round or flat, though there are some few people who still think it’s flat, we generally ignore that view because the evidence has mounted to the point where we understand that it shouldn’t be taken seriously.

And that is why we should not take the Howard government’s flat-earth view of climate change seriously.

Today, I want to take the opportunity to go through the five arguments that the government advanced against ratifying the Kyoto protocol and against taking action to avoid dangerous climate change. The first is pretty simple. They say that it will ruin the economy—but in the next breath they say that Australia will meet the target. The contradiction between the two statements is so obvious. You cannot on the one hand say that it will cause enormous economic damage but on the other hand say, ‘We actually don’t have to make any changes to meet the 108 per cent target, thanks to the decisions of the New South Wales and Queensland Labor governments.’

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hunt interjecting

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Flinders will have an opportunity to reply if he remains quiet.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Argument No. 2 against ratifying Kyoto is perhaps the most offensive. It is that we should not be involved in Kyoto because the developing world is not involved—China, India and all those countries. That is simply not true. Kyoto has been ratified by 158 countries, including China, India and most of the developing world. The fact is that the developed world created the problem. We created the emissions that have caused climate change. We have a moral responsibility to take the lead on these issues.

On Enough Rope on Monday, Al Gore put it particularly well when he stated:

Since the end of World War II there has been the same basic architecture for every international treaty. The wealthier countries that have the wherewithal to go first have agreed to take the first steps and then after we find the pathway and chart the course, then the poorer nations, where per capita income is just a fraction of what it is in Australia and the United States, they then join in the work. And the Kyoto treaty, the first of the treaties to come on the climate crisis, is based on that same model.

As it is. We have a moral responsibility, along with the United States—being the two highest per capita emitters in the world—to take the lead. I can assure you, having attended the Montreal climate change conference last year, that countries in our region, like Kiribati and Tuvalu, which are sinking under rising sea levels, and countries in Africa, South America and Asia find it incredibly offensive that Australia and the United States, having signed the Kyoto protocol, have not ratified it.

And the Prime Minister is so unaware of the detail. Yesterday, when I asked a question, he spoke about 2010 targets. There are not any 2010 targets. The Kyoto protocol’s first commitment period is 2008 to 2012.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Gee, what’s in the middle of that?

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Flinders will be removed if he does not remain quiet.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And last year the world made a unanimous decision at the Montreal conference to begin the discussion about the post-2012 architecture. The whole world is moving forward, and Australia is being left behind.

Argument No. 3 against ratifying Kyoto is about jobs and international competitiveness. Well, have a look at what is happening. John Howard’s failure to plan for the future—

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member will refer to people by their titles.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

meant that 100 jobs were lost in Tasmania. The Vestas Nacelle wind turbine assembly plant in Northern Tasmania will close as a result of the failure of the government to increase the mandatory renewable energy target. We all know about the Bald Hills wind farm, where one theoretical parrot being killed every 1,000 years stopped a $220 million wind farm project. And, in July, the Roaring Forties company, based in Tasmania, announced $300 million to provide three wind farms to China, which has a 15 per cent mandatory renewable target, but at the same time they are not proceeding with projects in South Australia and Tasmania worth $500 million because of the failure of the government. There is a trillion-dollar emerging industry in renewable energy technologies, and we are not a part of it. Our innovation and our ideas are being taken offshore. Companies like Pacific Solar are moving offshore—an absolute tragedy.

Argument No. 4 against ratifying Kyoto is that somehow technology will solve the problem: ‘We are about supporting this new technology.’ Who is opposed to new technology? Nobody. That is a given. The question is—this is Economics 1A—how do you get that technology to actually be applied and commercialised? How do you bring it on? What do you do? There is something called ‘a market’. You use market based mechanisms. What is extraordinary about this mob is not that there are climate sceptics in the cabinet; it is that there are market sceptics in the so-called right-wing, free-market government who oppose emissions trading and who insist on trying to turn it into a tax when the fact is that there are two price signals that you can have for carbon, and one is trading a market based signal. They say a price signal is necessary; that means they must support a carbon tax, because that is the other way that you have a price signal.

Argument No. 5 against ratifying Kyoto is related to the first: ‘AP6 is the alternative to Kyoto. We’ve got something else.’ Except they failed to mention that most of the partners in AP6—of course, everyone except us and the United States—is also a part of Kyoto. Korea, China, India and Japan—funnily enough—are part of Kyoto. They missed that one! It is extraordinary. You actually hear them argue: ‘Japan and China aren’t a part of it.’ Where do you think Kyoto is, Parliamentary Secretary? I say that to you.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hunt interjecting

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Flinders!

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Then we have the response to AP6. Senator John McCain—perhaps the next Republican President of the United States—said this when it was released:

The [Asia-Pacific] pact amounts to nothing more than a nice little public-relations ploy. It has almost no meaning. They aren’t even committing money to the effort, much less enacting rules to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said this:

This pact has no power for legal restrictions. It is a complement to the Kyoto treaty, not a replacement.

The Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pierre Pettigrew, said:

When you want to complement something, you recognise that the real substance is somewhere else.

That is right. No-one opposes new technology; of course we support that. The question is how you drive that new technology. It is a triumph of hope over experience to suggest that you get new technologies applied without market based mechanisms or without regulation. We support market based mechanisms to drive that change through.

In evidence of that is that in the United States, when the funding debate for the Asia-Pacific pact came on, at first they got zip. They got nothing; they got knocked back. Then, in the end, when this was a bit embarrassing for Australia and the push started, they got $52 million to support the pact in 2007. This is the alternative to the Kyoto protocol! Billions of dollars are involved in the protocol, and they got $52 million. The truth is you need push and pull: the push of new technology and the pull of the market to drive it through. That is why you need strong action.

The work undertaken by ABARE and released by the government at the climate pact showed that emissions would increase by 80 per cent by 2050—that is under their scenario—when we know that there is a scientific consensus that we need a 60 per cent reduction by 2050. Climate change is real and the threat of dangerous climate change is also real. What Labor would do is cut Australia’s greenhouse pollution by 60 per cent by 2050. We know that, if you have a target, it is like a one-day cricket target: you do not bat out the first 30 overs; you send out Adam Gilchrist to get some runs on the board early because it makes it easy to get to the target later on. That is what the business council’s Global Roundtable on Climate Change has said. That is why they have called for early action.

We would ratify the Kyoto protocol. We would significantly increase MRET. We would introduce a national emissions trading scheme. We would have a climate change trigger in the EPBC Act. We would have specific policies to drive change, such as the green-car challenge to introduce a hybrid car being made here in Australia. We would make every school a solar school. We should be the silicon valley of the solar energy industry.

What is happening with this government? Where does it stand? It is increasingly isolated. Yesterday in the Sun newspaper in London the front page was ‘Go green with the Sun’. It said:

Man the lifeboats. Will your town be underwater if global warming takes hold?

You could log on and find out exactly what the situation was.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hunt interjecting

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Flinders is warned!

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is the Sun newspaper, not Green Left Weekly. This is Rupert Murdoch’s major UK publication, just as the Daily Telegraph this week has on page 1 an ad for the fact that it is promoting green energy in Australia. Increasingly, this mob just cannot make that leap to the future. This is what the Sun’s editorial stated:

Too many of us have spent too long in denial over the threat from global warming. The evidence is now irresistible. Searing summers and dry winters in the UK, increasingly frequent tornadoes and hurricanes worldwide, the shrinking Arctic ice cap ...

I say to the government: get on board before you are the last people on earth who are sceptical about the need to take serious action on climate change. Every day, more people are more conscious about the threat that this represents and the responsibility that we have—not just to ourselves but to our kids and our grandkids—for the survival of this planet. (Time expired)

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take on this matter of public importance debate with relish and I do so because it defines the difference between this government and this opposition. What in essence is that difference? It comes down to two principles. The first is that the opposition would sign but we are already delivering. Its entire principle on this is that you must ratify the Kyoto agreement so that you can achieve the target of 108 per cent of 1990 emissions for the period between 2008 and 2012. Guess what! We are one of the only developed world countries that is actually meeting its targets. We are one of a handful of countries that is achieving the very outcome it wants to pursue.

What does that mean in a broader sense? It is the difference between doing the easy and the hard. What is it that defines the Leader of the Opposition? It is the desire to do the easy. What is it that defines the Prime Minister and the government that supports him? It is the desire to do the hard. The concern of the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Grayndler comes down to a simple principle, and that is, ‘Look, let’s just sign and everything will be fine.’ We have already delivered in a way that almost no other developed world country has.

I want to deal with this fraud in four steps. Firstly, I want to deal with the notion of how Australia is one of the few countries to actually be meeting its targets under the international agreements. Second is the fact that we do accept the IPCC findings and recommendations in relation to climate and we have taken profound action. Thirdly, I am happy to say that, of all the countries in the world, we have taken the best and most practical international leadership role. We have taken a step to produce savings of 90 billion tonnes of CO over the years between now and 2050 through the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate—which is approximately three times the amount that would come through the Kyoto mechanism. These are real figures with real estimates which utterly put the lie to the position that the member for Grayndler outlined that by signing and ratifying everything will be fine, whereas we take the real steps. The fourth thing I want to do is outline some of the practical steps we are taking to control our greenhouse emissions. Let me put a very simple proposition. In 1990 our greenhouse emissions as a country were 550 million tonnes; in 2004 and 2005 we are looking at a figure of approximately 560 million tonnes. That is a fascinating reality check for the great claims made by our friends in the opposition.

Let me go first to this notion of meeting our targets. The very concept here is that, when you look around the world amongst the developed countries, Australia is almost unique or alone in doing the practical things to meet the outcomes. The great shibboleth on the other side is that we have to ratify Kyoto. What defines Denmark, Austria, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, France, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Norway, New Zealand, Canada, Japan? All of them have ratified Kyoto; none of them is meeting its targets. Not one of these countries, which the opposition hold up as moral leaders, is meeting its targets. Denmark is 25 per cent over its target; Austria, 22 per cent; Belgium, 8½ per cent; Italy, 9½ per cent; the Netherlands, 10 per cent; France, nine per cent; Ireland, 20 per cent; Spain, 36 per cent; Portugal, 25 per cent; Norway, 22 per cent; New Zealand, 10 per cent; Canada, 22 per cent; and Japan, 12 per cent. They are all over their targets.

In Australia, by comparison, we are achieving what we set out to do. But we did not accept that the mechanism for doing it was in the Australian interest or in the international interest. Why? Because of a simple proposition. It is the proposition of perverse outcomes—that if you pursue that particular mechanism what is likely to happen is precisely what has happened in Europe where we have seen aluminium and cement plants not close down, not cease to exist but move from Europe to North Africa. That has actually led to an increase in total global emissions. That is the only test that matters: what is the effect on total global emissions? So we have a mechanism that relies on an accounting fraud in that it relies on the collapse of Russian industry post-1990 and achieves a perverse outcome. It achieves precisely the opposite of what our friends in the opposition would seek to portray as happening. They wish to sign and they wish to ratify but we have already achieved the outcomes. They demand that we adopt a mechanism, though, to achieve those outcomes which globally is having a perverse effect. That is why we reject it—because it does not do what it was intended to do. It does not do what they said it would do. Worse than that, it is destructive and is backed up by the hypocrisy of all those countries whose names I have just read into the record and the amount by which they are exceeding their targets.

I make no apology for the fact that we have not fallen for this particular trap but instead have delivered where none of those other countries has delivered. And that is fundamental. What it means in practice is, firstly, that we have been able to achieve a sensible outcome in the balance between the contribution of this generation and future generations and, secondly, that we have been able to do it in a way that makes Australia a global leader. I particularly pay respect to the work of Senator Ian Campbell in doing this and point out that Australia has been enlisted through the role of Mr Howard Bamsey, who is the head of the Australian Greenhouse Office, as one of the world’s two co-chairs of the post-2012 negotiations.

That is what is fascinating in this regard. Of all the countries in the world, Australia, through the work of Senator Ian Campbell and, through his agency, the work of Mr Howard Bamsey, has been selected as one of the world’s two co-chairs of the post-2012 talks. I think that is a recognition of where Australia stands in the international community on this matter—amongst those people who actually focus on balancing our economic responsibilities for individuals’ lives, for people with families and jobs, with our responsibilities for future generations.

Having mentioned future generations, this brings me to the next point that I would like to make. We do, as a country and as a government, accept the general principles of the IPCC and we accept the general principles of climate change. Our key advisory bodies, the Bureau of Meteorology, the CSIRO, the Australian Antarctic Division—which does a lot of core sampling—and the Australian Greenhouse Office, have all presented material which the government has accepted as setting out a principle. There may be some debate about the extent and range of activities, but all of these key advisory bodies, as the Prime Minister himself has acknowledged, have set that out. That is why we have invested almost $2 billion in addressing climate change. That is why Senator Ian Campbell was able to work with the Prime Minister on establishing the Solar Cities program. We have real programs, backed by $2 billion of funding and by the delivery of real abatement changes. We can compare that to the notion of hollow rhetoric—and I think that is a fundamentally important point.

I do take it as a responsibility that we recognise that we have to make abatement cuts, that we have to achieve outcomes. But we have to compare that to the magical notion that if we simply ratify a document suddenly everything will change. We say that that mechanism will not work. Also, there is the problem of perverse outcomes: by exporting jobs, plants and factories from Europe to North Africa, precisely the opposite of what is intended will be achieved. In Australia, we have achieved what we wanted to achieve, and that is why we are not going to export our jobs and our emissions to other countries. That is why the mechanism is fundamentally flawed. It is what I call the Union Carbide argument: export your problem overseas and pretend that you are absolutely fine. So I respect that people have good intentions in this regard, but it is a mechanism that fundamentally fails to deal with the very thing that it purports to deal with.

This brings me to our role in leading international change. The Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate—I call it the Sydney partnership, put together by the Prime Minister, the foreign minister and the environment minister, Senator Ian Campbell—brought together six nations. But it did not just bring together any six nations; it brought together Australia, the United States, China, India, Japan and South Korea. Between them, those nations represent 50 per cent of global emissions, approximately 50 per cent of the world’s population, and the greatest growth in emissions through India, China and South Korea. By bringing those countries on board, we helped to establish a framework and a mechanism to try to introduce clean technology into the countries where the greatest growth in emissions is likely to be found.

As an aside, I point out that the member for Grayndler was absolutely silent when the Victorian government reapproved the Hazelwood power station and he said nothing about the Sydney desalination plant. He was totally silent when his state colleagues took such steps, even though they were responsible for the activities.

To return to the point, these countries are fundamental. If we do not deal with them, nothing that we do will have an impact. Australia’s emissions represent 1.4 per cent of global emissions. We could close Australia down, as some on the other side may implicitly want us to do, and within nine months all the emissions saved would be recovered by China’s growth. We emit 560 million tonnes a year of CO, and that is less than the amount by which China’s emissions profile is growing annually.

Through the Asia-Pacific partnership mechanism, we have put together a system of clean technology on issues such as clean coal—which is fundamentally important—and all sorts of other projects which can, over the period between now and 2050, lead to the abatement of 90 billion tonnes of CO. That is the estimate from ABARE—that the Asia-Pacific partnership is likely to lead to the abatement of 90 billion tonnes of CO.

Let me put that in context. Under Kyoto, the estimate is that, between now and 2050, if the figure is extrapolated out, about 25 billion tonnes is likely to be saved. Let us increase that figure to 30 billion tonnes. With the partnership mechanism we are talking about a proposal which is complementary but which is likely to lead to the saving of up to three times as many emissions that may occur under this great saviour that our friends on the other side argue is the key to everything. It is a flawed mechanism which exports jobs, which exports emissions, which exports the problem but which makes people feel good about themselves.

Let us compare what we are doing at the international level with what we are doing domestically. I am very proud of what we are doing domestically. We have a series of initiatives in Australia that contribute to greenhouse gas initiatives worth $2 billion. The practical steps that we take mean that Australia is one of the very few countries in the world to actually be delivering in this regard. So where others promise, where others would sign, we are delivering on real targets and on real outcomes. We are delivering on the 108 per cent target.

What are these practical initiatives? We are not talking about two per cent of renewable energy, as some would say. Australia is currently at about eight per cent, and on track to reach 10 per cent, of our total energy generated, or 11 per cent of our energy consumed, being from renewable sources by 2010. So 11 per cent of energy consumed in this country will come from renewable sources. People misrepresent what happens in that regard. I would hope that folk on the other side would not fall into that trap but would be honest about it.

We have a $500 million Low Emissions Technology Development Fund. That may help with solar, geothermal energy or clean coal—which I think is fundamentally important for the future. I would say that all of those are critical. They are critical to our economic health; they are critical to our innovation; and they are critical to our contribution at an international level. Ultimately, whether it is the Solar Cities program, whether it is the renewable energy development initiative or whether it is the $500 million Low Emissions Technology Development Fund, our proposal is simple: we are meeting our targets, we are making investments and we are making absolutely no apologies for failing to adopt a proposal which would endorse a flawed mechanism. (Time expired)

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Reconciliation and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Regrettably, the member for Flinders has brought nothing new to this debate on climate change, despite the fact that the tempo of information and dialogue about global warming and the challenges posed by global warming continue to increase. As the member for Grayndler pointed out to the House, that is now recognised unanimously by scientific communities that are recognised for prudence and, more importantly, by those parts of the media community who can see that this is not something that has been dreamt up, that the sceptics have got it wrong, that the science is clearly in. It is a double-jeopardy situation for the government here, really. They are trying to pretend that it is not really a big problem, and then they get up and spend a lot of time in the House telling us what they are doing about it. It either is a big problem and you ought to be doing more about it, or, as some of your members have said in the past, it is not really that much your problem—in which case, why the speech?

Fact 1: Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are of a very high order—we are amongst the highest per capita emitters of greenhouse gas emissions in the world. Fact 2: we are going to continue to increase greenhouse gas emissions in the foreseeable future, but particularly up to 2050. Fact 3: there is a majority of scientific consensus that there will be temperature increases, called global warming, which will occur in that period of time, up to 2050. Fact 4: Australia will be contributing to that global warming. They are the facts that the member for Flinders has chosen to ignore in his address to the House on this matter of public importance.

There are many lawyers in this parliament, including the Prime Minister, who might know that the definition of ‘duty of care’ is: a legal obligation to avoid causing harm. This duty arises, according to the Australian Legal Dictionary, where the harm is foreseeable if due care is not taken; and the type of harm, not its extent, must be foreseeable. The Australian public, the international scientific community and citizens worldwide know that there is a type of harm that will be caused by global warming and that it is foreseeable. So we have reached a point in our history where a failure to meaningfully act on a national and international crisis—which global warming is—where the projected damage that flows from climate change is foreseeable, represents nothing less than a failure of a duty of care that the government owes to its citizens. With the prospect of an average rise in global temperatures of up to 5.8 per cent by 2100, with corresponding sea-level rises, and no sign of real action by the Howard government, Mr Howard as Prime Minister is simply failing to discharge his duty of care and his government’s duty of care to all of us.

In this parliament we become properly consumed by the stem cell debates, and we will speak about those in the coming weeks. We will weigh the prospects of new scientific discoveries and the prospects they hold for improving health against some people’s firmly held philosophies. The opposition will continue to focus on the need for the government to invest in targeted ways in infrastructure and education and we will criticise the Howard government because it has not done enough of that. But, frankly, these debates are overshadowed by the profound challenge of global warming. Global warming is casting a giant shadow across this parliament and the next, and it is casting a shadow across our way of life, literally. The rhetoric and the half-formed arguments we have just heard from the member for Flinders, and the policies that the government puts up to justify its position on the climate change debate, are an insult to us in this House. And they are an insult to the people that we have been elected to serve.

I suspect that next year’s International Panel on Climate Change will provide more factual research material which will expand both our knowledge and understanding and also our alarm about the prospects of global warming. In fact, there are very few sceptics left in the known universe. It is true that the government benches are a sceptics refuge—and it is a bit scarier to be over there than in a wildlife refuge! But dangerous climate change poses a real threat to Australians who live on farms that face drought and to those who live in big cities and face drought—and it seems that the government does not get it. It will not take off its ideological blinkers. It will not say out loud that it has got it wrong. What it really spends its time doing is abusing others who disagree with it, countries and senior politicians from our most important ally, such as the former Vice-President of the United States. This failure to say out loud in this place, ‘We recognise that the climate crisis is on us and we will now do something seriously about it,’ is jeopardising our national interest—and it renders this government unfit for the stewardship that it has to exercise in shepherding our country through this very difficult time.

If you cannot see the stark evidence of icecaps and snow cover shrinking, of lakes evaporating, of warming trends and temperature graphs heading upwards; if you continue to view these pictures through the prism of mad, singular scientists or neoconservative op-eds; and if you continue to ignore the photos and images placed in front of you courtesy of the former Vice-President of the United States in his film An Inconvenient Truth, then you are simply blind. You are blinded by your ideology. When you ignore, as this government regularly ignores, the pleas of our Pacific neighbours already struggling, as the member for Grayndler pointed out, to contend with rising sea levels—they are building small walls around their vegetable plots to stop the seawater coming in—then you are deaf to the pleas of our neighbours who face climate change and global warming now. And when you dress up your arguments you are exposed because it is all about self-interest; it is all about sectional interest. The government cannot escape its ideological straitjacket. When you do that, you are not taking the national interest into account at all.

The Prime Minister maintains Australia will suffer economically if we sign the Kyoto protocol. But his government is willing it seems, and the Prime Minster is willing, to continue to accept that our future economic growth will be partnered by future increases in carbon dioxide emissions. For Mr Howard the natural order of things is more economic growth, more pollution and more CO. But there is another way to do it and that is what smart countries do—they invest in renewable energy. They take serious measures to reduce greenhouse emissions. They develop strategies, policies and products to harness the growing energy-efficient economy that is building rapidly worldwide.

Last week another report on the Great Barrier Reef—our natural and economic treasure that generates billions of dollars per year and employs thousands of Australians, which represents one of the great natural wonders of the world and is a magnet for our tourists—pointed out, as reported in the Courier Mail on Friday, 8 September under the headline, ‘Warming a reef threat’:

SCIENTISTS believe an increase in average temperatures of just 1C could cause coral bleaching on up to half the Great Barrier Reef.

A 2C increase ... 80 per cent of the reef ...

And as scientists simply say:

Mainstream scientific opinion is that the rapidity of change is the problem.

That is what we are facing now: an acceleration of global warming identified by Vice-President Gore, confirmed by scientists worldwide and particularly in Australia. The government refuses to embrace a national trading scheme. It refuses to increase mandatory renewable energy targets. In the midst of the worldwide boom in renewable industries—these are the industries of the future which are already experiencing rapid growth and to which our economic fortunes are tied—the government has no clean energy investment strategy in place. This government will not permit Australian innovators and industry to get the opportunity to build into this market. In fact they are preventing them from doing it, and those that want to do it actually have to head overseas.

Most scandalous of all for a national government is that we have a national trading scheme which is being run by the states. To their great credit the states have taken it up but it will be extremely difficult for them to maintain and run a national trading scheme without the assistance of the Commonwealth. Seeing as this has been identified as the most important environmental issue we face, and that one way of dealing with it is through the market which this mob on the other side of the House supposedly believe in, what is the problem? What is the problem with this government?

The Country Womens Association said it very simply to this government: we need the development of renewable energy sources and that development is required now. But as the world goes for wind and solar, Mr Howard embraces nuclear. As California, Sweden, the UK and others set ambitious targets and time lines for reducing greenhouse pollution, the government vacates the playing field altogether. In fact, as things stand in Australia in 2006 with the most important environmental challenge coming upon us, the Howard government has no national climate change action plan, no time lines, no targets and no policies to significantly reduce our greenhouse pollution or slow our energy demand. So if the Australian people want more droughts, vote for John Howard. (Time expired)

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Grayndler attacked the Prime Minister and Ian Macfarlane at the start of his address in relation to the matter of public importance:

The need for strong Government action to address the threat posed to Australia’s environment and economy by dangerous climate change.

To support the Prime Minister and Minister Macfarlane, Professor RM Carter, head of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Townsville, says in the IPA Review of September 2004:

Droughts, floods, hailstorms and cyclones are natural weather events which human populations have always managed reactively. No empirical relationship has yet been observed between modest temperature changes of a degree or so and the frequency or intensity of such events.

Secondly, Ian Plimer, professor of geology at the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne, wrote in March 2003 in the same review:

Maybe the global warming of the twentieth century is just a measure of the variability on a dynamic evolving planet?

His conclusions in the article were:

Underpinning the global warming and climate change mantra is the imputation that humans live on a non-dynamic planet. On all scales of observation and measurement, sea level and climate are not constant. Change is normal and is driven by a large number of natural forces. Change can be slow or very fast. However, we see political slogans such as Stop Climate Change or government publications such as Living with Climate Change, demonstrating that both the community and government believe that climate variability and change are not normal. By using the past as the key to the present, we are facing the next inevitable glaciation, yet the climate, economic, political and social models of today assess the impact of a very slight warming and do not evaluate the higher risk of yet another glaciation. Geology, archaeology and history show that during glaciation, famine, war, depopulation and extinction are the norm.

What a future we look forward to in this debate. I have been disappointed by the member for Grayndler and also the member for Kingsford Smith. Why am I disappointed? Because they refer to articles in newspapers across the globe but fail to address one in one of Australia’s major newspapers, the Herald-Sun, today from our good friend Andrew Bolt. I am not close to Andrew Bolt and sometimes I have an opposite opinion to him but today he outlines 10 of his own inconvenient truths and asks for judgement, yet neither the member for Grayndler nor the member for Kingsford Smith came in here and were prepared to address these reasoned criticisms of the movie by Al Gore.

Why do you just come into this House with the arguments you came in with last time? I have to say to the member for Kingsford Smith that it was probably his best address I have seen him make in the House. He is obviously getting more comfortable in this place. He is obviously passionate about what he is talking about. I can understand the position he comes from. His consistency is like the religious fervour of a Bible-bashing priest in the far south of America.

But I get disappointed that you cannot see any argument whatsoever for a reasoned debate—nothing. It is like everybody that might have some consideration, like the Prime Minister who in his statement this week said: ‘Look, the science is out there. We’re addressing those. We’ve done all these things, as outlined by the parliamentary secretary.’ All of those things are outlined but there is no real debate on the issues. The member for Grayndler and the member for Kingsford Smith have just dismissed anybody who has a view on climate change that is contrary to theirs. I would like to be part of the debate. The member for Kingsford Smith did not offer anything today, nothing new—nothing, nought, nada. All he did was present again the same policies that would devastate—

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Reconciliation and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have the policy.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Kingsford Smith has had his 10 minutes.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, you made the same presentations that would devastate Latrobe Valley, which you know is dear to my heart—and yours, I am sure—and place huge cost burdens on Australian business without regard to the consequence of that at all. It is just a pipe dream—it is just: ‘This is what we should be doing regardless of the consequences.’ I do not think your speech is a fair, reasonable and honourable representation of our responsibility to our constituents.

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Reconciliation and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is $85 million there.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Kingsford Smith is warned!

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is a bit unfair, Mr Deputy Speaker Causley; he should be given an opportunity. On a day like today we get an opportunity to debate the issues. We have a senior journalist in Melbourne—you can say whatever you like about Andrew Bolt but he does his homework. And he has done his homework on Al Gore’s movie and he has come up with 10 points that really should be discussed. I do not have time in my 10 minutes to go through them all, but people should have a reasoned look at them.

Recently, Minister Ian Campbell outlined what Australia has done on global warming. Broadly, the government has accepted that there is an issue that needs to be addressed. The government has pumped $32 million into further global climate change research in an effort to inform good policy decisions and reasoned measures. We know that our scientists are among the world’s best and are making a major contribution to this work. Regarding international policy, however, Australia is punching well above its weight. We are co-chairing the United Nations talks on future climate change action as well as being a leading member of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. I inform the House that the Minister for the Environment and Heritage is flying to Zurich this evening as a member of a select number of countries that have been invited to participate in the G8 dialogue on climate change, clean energy and sustainable development.

Australia is delivering real results on climate change. We are one of only four industrialised countries on track to meet its targets by 2010. We will stop 85 million tonnes of greenhouse gases going into the air. That is the equivalent of taking 14 million cars, trucks and buses off our roads. I disagree with the member for Kingsford Smith because the facts are that Australia is not a major contributor to global greenhouse emissions. Individually, with a small population and coal based energy source, you say we are high output. We contribute 1.4 per cent of global emissions.

Our expertise and constructive approach to addressing the challenges of climate change is internationally recognised. We know that combating greenhouse effects is one of the big challenges we have in the future, so we are investing more than $1 billion to develop climate friendly energy technologies across a spectrum. These include solar, with the announcement last week of the very first solar city trial going ahead in Adelaide. In my part of the world the Howard government has announced a clean coal pilot plant in the Latrobe Valley. That is all positive. On Monday this week I was involved in a community roundtable—I wish you had been there—on wind farms. That included local government, wind energy industry people, planning industry people, community groups and non-government organisations. Representatives began working towards a national code for wind energy installations.

Wind farms have been a controversial issue in my electorate of McMillan and I take this opportunity to inform the House that despite what some Victorian state government ministers are saying I am not anti wind farm, I am not anti renewables. I fully support the Howard government’s investment in alternative energy technologies but I back the need for local government planning jurisdictions so that people in my local communities, particularly Bald Hills and Foster North, get a fair go. Local governments should have a say and it should not be withdrawn and taken back to state government to do whatever they like with that beautiful pristine area of Gippsland. People like to have a say about what goes on in their backyard. All politics is local. I also support the right technology-wrong place argument and emphasise my passion to protect critically endangered wildlife and the sensitive coastal regions of Gippsland.

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Reconciliation and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is this an election speech?

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Kingsford Smith will be removed if he does not obey the chair.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I refer to the comments made by the Prime Minister in the House yesterday around the recent Al Gore movie, An Inconvenient Truth:

The argument over climate change is not whether there is a threat posed by climate change; there seems to be broad agreement on that, although there is a lot of legitimate debate about the speed of that change and the nature of the threat, and I do not think it is right to say that there is total unanimity about that in the scientific community.

The action initiatives I outlined are not just a knee-jerk reaction to the current world climate change debate; they are about making sure Australia works towards being energy and water efficient. In relation to water, I acknowledge the hard work and dedication of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who has the vitality and the important job—(Time expired)

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On a hectare of cane land each year about 150 tonnes of biomass are produced, most of which are from carbon dioxide taken out of the atmosphere. Every hectare takes out 73 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The bagasse can be burnt to produce energy and the sugar can be used to produce ethanol. Every hectare produces about 13 or 14 tonnes of sugar, each tonne of which will produce 600 litres of ethanol. Of our 400 million tonnes about 300 million tonnes come from power stations and about 75 million tonnes from transport. Simply switching our fuel stream over to a renewable fuel stream will effectively take away 74 million tonnes. I find it incredible that we should be talking about this when the answer is right there with ethanol. Of course, South America is already there, and the United States have declared unequivocally that that is where they are going.

I was the Minister for Mines and Energy in Queensland. I was surprised to find out that almost half of the electricity usage in a house comes from heating water. Throughout Australia we have a huge amount of sunshine to heat our water. So if we change as many of the hot water systems in our houses in Queensland and throughout Australia as we can to solar hot water systems then as much as 10 per cent, maybe even 15 per cent, of our requirements from our power stations will be removed. We need to look at solar hot water systems and moving to the ethanol alternative with our motor vehicles.

There are two other issues that need to be addressed. One is the planting of trees. Right across North Queensland there are almost no trees whatsoever except an introduced species, a weed tree. It does not grow very much, I can assure you, but it is enough to wreck our flora and fauna. An area of six million—arguably seven million—hectares of native flora and fauna has been destroyed by this particular tree. It does not take in much carbon dioxide. It does not grow much—just enough to wreck our native flora and fauna. If some of those areas are put under trees then you will have (a) your timber taking CO away, (b) your solar hot water taking CO away and (c) your transport sector being replaced with ethanol taking CO away.

We would be producing well below the amount of CO that was being produced before Europeans came to this country. It amazes me that people in this place are not aware of the ecological history of their own country. When Captain Cook came along the coastline, he said almost the whole coastline was on fire. When Logan Jack, the famous explorer, moved out from Cooktown, he counted 11 Aboriginal fires—they farmed with fire—before breakfast camp. So before about 10 o’clock in the morning he had already seen 11. In three weeks, moving into the interior of North Queensland, the only time he remarked about the Aboriginal fires was when he said they had gone a whole six hours, nearly half a day, without seeing an Aboriginal fire, indicating that there were no Aborigines living in that area. Our First Australians farmed with fire.

On a station property that I just bought in the Gulf Country, where they did not used to farm with fire, a natural fire started, went for 850 kilometres and took out every single tree. A massive amount of CO was being produced naturally every year in Australia through fires. Those fires do not occur now. In that area of 850 kilometres, in the last 30 years there have probably been 1,000 fire breaks. On our station alone there would have been four or five fire breaks that fire would have had to break through, and it simply would not have broken through. Also, the body of grass has been reduced because the watering points have enabled a massive increase in our kangaroo population and, to some degree, our cattle population. CO was being produced naturally in massive quantities long before Europeans arrived here. We might say we want to go back to the natural condition, but human beings, the First Australians, were producing massive amounts of CO through fires.

Let us turn to the answers, which I think any sensible person would look at. One is simply solar hot water systems. I think one house in five in Queensland was a housing commission or government house. The Queensland government could have moved with massive sales, which would have enabled our manufacturers of solar hot water systems to move on massive economies of scale, which would have meant very cheap hot water systems. Simply putting a very simple device on every government or housing commission home, or whatever they call them now, would have enabled us to cut out, I would estimate—and I have not done the figures in detail over recent years—possibly as much as 10 per cent, certainly around seven per cent, of our entire electricity requirements in Queensland, and I am sure that would also apply in the other states. If we planted a large amount of area under trees in Australia and we moved to the ethanol alternative then Australia would probably be producing less CO than it was producing before Europeans arrived and settled in this country.

I put those things before the House and reiterate that each year every hectare of land under cane—which produces, I think, half, maybe two-thirds, of Australia’s ethanol—produces 150 tonnes of biomass. So if there are a million hectares out there then you have 150 million tonnes of biomass that is being taken, and most of that biomass is created by taking CO out of the atmosphere. We move into highly technical areas with how much of that recycles and how much does not, but we absolutely know that, at 600 litres per tonne of sugar, from that we would produce about 13 tonnes of sugar. The House can work out for itself how much petrol equivalent is produced from a hectare of cane.

If you burn petrol, CO goes up in the atmosphere. If you burn ethanol, CO goes up in the atmosphere. But one hell of a difference is that with sugarcane it comes back down again. An officer did a very silly thing with CO, and I think he regrets what he did there. He did the figures for ethanol on the basis of grain and he did not do it on the basis of sugarcane. He said that we ploughed six times a year and cultivated—put the steel through the ground—six times a year. Mr Deputy Speaker Causley, you are well aware that now that we do not burn we only put the steel through the ground once every six years; not six times every year.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The discussion is concluded.