Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Following question time today we can look forward to a very interesting year in Australian politics. This year we will see a battle for ideas for the nation’s future. We are going to see a battle for a vision for the country’s future. We are going to see a battle for policies for the country’s future, and that is a battle for which the Labor Party now stands ready. The battleground on which we are going to engage this fight is one which centres around our two sets of values regarding the way we want to shape this country’s future.

Our view is this in a nutshell: we have to build long-term prosperity without throwing the fair go out the back door and we have to build long-term prosperity and take action on climate change and water. That is our core set of values as we approach the events of this year. There is an alternative view, which is the government’s view, which sees these things as a zero sum game—that is, either you have prosperity or you have these other things. What they say in fact on prosperity is: you do not have to build prosperity; it somehow mysteriously just happens. They also say that if you are going to have prosperity then, as a consequence, you have got to ratchet back and ultimately sacrifice the fair go that is part of the Australian social contract.

So let us be crystal clear about the two paths which lie ahead of us—our approach and theirs—because therein the choice will be made later this year. When it comes to the whole question of long-term prosperity, let us be clear-cut about this. Our approach is that we must invest in the nation’s future. There is a bogus debate about the economy, a bogus debate which has been kicking around in this chamber for more years than I can remember. It somehow assumes that there is a lack of consensus on the fundamentals of macroeconomic policy: the fundamentals of how monetary policy should be conducted in this country and the independence of the Reserve Bank and inflation targeting. There is a lack of consensus, they say, on the question of an appropriate setting for fiscal policy when it comes to achieving a budget balance across the economic cycle. They argue these things as if some consensus is lacking.

Our argument in response is very simple: consensus was achieved on these questions a long time ago. Do not take our word for it. Read the Boyer lectures of Ian Macfarlane, the former Governor of the Reserve Bank. He said it in black and white. Read Saul Eslake, the ANZ Bank’s chief economist. Read the others. The consensus on their part about the consensus across the political divide on these core questions of macroeconomic policy is well set. Where there is no consensus is on what the appropriate settings should be for the reform of the labour market, on how we invest in the future of human capital in this country and on how we deal with the rest of what is called the microeconomic reform agenda for Australia.

Our view is pretty basic. It says: (1) we have had declining productivity growth in this country for several years now; and (2) across those years and preceding those years we have also had declining real investment in higher education and flat investment in other forms of investment by the federal government in education. When you put those two sets of data together, the case becomes compelling. The reason we have declining productivity growth in Australia is that the government, over the last decade, have simply kissed goodbye their responsibilities when it comes to turbocharging our people for Australia’s future—investing in their skills. Therein lies the key difference.

It is not just that productivity growth has been falling. It is not just that the government’s performance on human capital investment has been pathetic at best. It is that, over that period of time, the dramatic nature of these two events has been masked by one thing, and it is called the resources boom. The resources boom in recent years has led to so many truckloads of money rolling in the back door of this economy and into the public financial coffers of this country that it has effectively masked this government being asleep at the wheel on the core question of economic reform.

In our party’s history in government in this country we have been a proud party of economic reform, from the first wave of economic reform in the 1980s and 1990s, following the internationalisation of the Australian economy and appropriate deregulation. From the mid-1990s on, again, there were achievements in the implementation of national competition policy. But since those two great waves of reform and the great yield to national productivity growth which they produced, we have had a government effectively asleep at the reform wheel.

Now we come to the need for a third wave of reform, a reform which goes to the heart of our need to invest in our workforce skills for the future. We call it an education revolution. We have put forward a program whereby we intend to invest significantly in the future needs of the workforce. We want to invest more when it comes to Australia’s future workforce—starting from early childhood, continuing through the schools and through vocational education and training, moving on to the universities and into research and development and on to the highest forms of research science. If we invest the quantum and the quality of our investment there then we will set ourselves up for a long-term prosperity dividend for the country once the resources boom is over. What do we all know? Resources booms come to an end. The government have had literally tens of billions of dollars—and, according to Saul Eslake, hundreds of billions of dollars—flow into the public coffers as a result of the extraordinary resources boom. But have they used this money to invest in our long-term productive potential? No, they have not.

In terms of investment initiatives by the government across the education spectrum, either in education or in infrastructure, can we point to a single, substantial national investment initiative to turbocharge us for the future? We cannot. The story is clear. It is one which rests on the numbers. There is declining productivity growth because, at best, we have had flat performance when it comes to investing in our people’s future. And all that time money has been rolling in the back door and has not been used for these productive investment purposes. That is what we have to say on the economy. That is our message on the economy. For us, education now becomes a core part of the economic debate. It is the engine room of the economy. It is also, for us in the Labor movement, the engine room of equity.

We also believe we must invest in our future when it comes to climate change. On the issue of climate change, the message that came from the government in today’s question time, at the beginning of 2007, leaves most of us gobsmacked. We have the citadel of scepticism when it comes to climate change. In the statement made by the Prime Minister in question time today—the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia, which has a large economy and 20 million people facing one of the great challenges of our civilisation and certainly of this country’s settled history—he said:

... the jury is still out on the degree of connection.

It is not just the Prime Minister who says that. The industry minister says that he is sceptical about the existence of any connection whatsoever. But what is absolutely stunning is this bloke sitting at the table, the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources. On day 1 on the job as environment minister he took to the dispatch box and said that he also proudly wears the badge of a climate change sceptic.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That’s not true.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When you look at the Hansard and see what you had to say on that, Minister, I think you will be soberly surprised. I draw the environment minister’s attention to this document by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It is called Summary for policymakers. It came out last Friday. I would encourage all those who read the Hansard and all those participating in this debate today to read this 22-page document carefully.

On the question of the connection, I draw the minister’s attention—and I would like him to respond to this when we get to his response to the MPI—to a clear statement on page 3, which says:

The understanding of anthropogenic warming and cooling influences on climate has improved since the Third Assessment Report—

that was about five or six years ago—

leading to very high confidence7 that the globally averaged net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming ...

Going to the footnote, what is ‘very high confidence’ defined as? ‘Very high confidence’ means:

... at least a 9 out of 10 chance of being correct ...

This is the document from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This is the one in which how many Australian scientists participated, Minister? We were briefed the other day that, I think, some 40 to 42 Australian scientists participated. This is the document in which the international community is seeking to frame a consensus for responding to this global challenge of climate change, yet we have the three responsible ministers of this government today saying to the nation through the parliament, ‘We are still climate change sceptics.’ Minister, I would ask you sincerely on behalf of the nation to reconsider that position.

When you look at the rest of what the minister had to say most recently—that we can easily cope with a metre sea rise; it is an interesting proposition—to the shadow minister’s question as to whether he would increase the mandatory renewable energy target, it was duck and weave from central casting. On the question that we put earlier to the Prime Minister about the submission that cabinet considered on a national carbon trading scheme back in August 2003, suddenly the Prime Minister—he whose memory never slips—had a memory lapse. That was in the vicinity of 3½ years ago. A cabinet submission was put to the cabinet of the government of this country to do something then on carbon emissions and what did they do? They did nothing.

Why then do we have this sudden flurry of activity—at least at an apparent and public political level—on the part of this government on climate change? One thing has happened and it is simply this: the opinion polls have shifted. The surest barometer of this Prime Minister’s engagement with the serious political questions which face this country and the policy challenges which we face in the future is that, when the opinion polls turn, John Howard runs big-time after them. The science has been in for a long time. The only thing that has changed is the opinion polls—hence a flurry of apparent political activity. My challenge again is this: how can a government full of climate change sceptics be part of this nation’s climate change solution? Water cannot be dealt with effectively in the long term unless we are dealing with climate change.

When we raised the matter of the blame game last year by reference to the report on the blame game between the Commonwealth and the states on the future of health funding, we received ridicule from the other side of the table in the House of Representatives. Since then, the opinion polls have turned and, once again, there is a flurry of apparent activity on the government’s part on the question of the blame game. But it still, as evidenced today in the environment minister’s response, adds up to a continuing attempt to evade responsibility on the key question of water as well.

In the year ahead, we intend to put forward, as we have begun to on education, a positive plan for the nation’s future dealing with the education revolution, dealing with the decline in productivity growth, dealing with the needs of human capital investment and dealing with the real challenge of climate change and the associated challenge of water—dealing with ending the blame game. These are all about investing in our future. That is our positive message to the Australian people for this year ahead.

I said before, however, that there is another part to the message. It is this: you can still build long-term prosperity without throwing the fair go out the back door. This government has said that, when it comes to prosperity, the only way you can do it is to ratchet back the working conditions and wages of Australia’s working families. What we have with their workplace laws is a clear-cut statement of what is demonstrably unfair in the minds and hearts of working Australians right across this country. Our message to the Australian people is that we intend to restore the balance when it comes to fairness. We intend to be in the business of investing in this country’s future and we look forward to advancing this debate in this election year. We will join this battle. We intend to put ideas forward in this battle because we intend to provide a plan for the future against a government still anchored in the past. We intend, in the events of this year, to prevail and to provide victory for the Labor Party at the upcoming election.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The balance I seek to restore immediately is the balance of accuracy. The Leader of the Opposition has misrepresented my remarks on AM not once, but twice. This is what I said:

... you have to bear in mind that most of our coastal population lives on the east coast of Australia and because of the geology or the [topography] of the east coast, you know, much of that is adequately elevated to deal with a one-metre sea rise.

I went on to say:

It’s a big factor. It’s something that we are working on, we’re working on with the CSIRO ... working with the Greenhouse Office ... it essentially requires a change in planning standards over the next few decades so that as new properties are developed they are either set back or adequately protected to ensure that they’re not impacted by storm surges.

That transcript was available to the Leader of the Opposition. I was incorrect a moment ago; he misrepresented those remarks three times—twice to the Prime Minister and just here a moment ago. As far as climate change is concerned, the questions that really need to be answered are for the opposition and, in particular, for my neighbour, the member for Kingsford Smith. The Labor Party’s climate change policy, as they have stated, involves essentially two propositions. The first is to ratify the Kyoto protocol. We all recognise that ratifying the Kyoto protocol by itself will not result in Australia emitting any less greenhouse gases because we are already on track to meet our Kyoto target. It will not have, in and of itself, any effect on the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

But the second part of their proposition is to have a mandatory cut in emissions of 60 per cent by 2050. This is a very substantial cut and it would obviously have a very large cost. It is a reasonable inquiry to ask what the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow environment minister believe that cost would be. That gentleman journalist David Speers endeavoured to interrogate the member for Kingsford Smith yesterday, many times. He asked, ‘Are these industries, coal and the like, going to have to pay something?’ The member for Kingsford Smith said, ‘I don’t think anyone can skirt the issue,’ and then proceeded to skirt it. He said, ‘I don’t expect to start answering hypotheticals about where or where burdens may or may not fall.’ Mr Speers returned to the fray and asked, ‘Should we all expect to be paying more as part of the solution?’ He got no joy from the member for Kingsford Smith, who said: ‘I don’t think we need to get into a sort of scare game of saying to people that prices will go up by X tomorrow.’

Undaunted, Mr Speers went back and asked, ‘Shouldn’t there also be some raw information for people to look at when we’re talking about carbon trading and what it’s going to cost us?’ The member for Kingsford Smith replied, ‘Yes, there should be, and we’ll certainly continue to develop and build policy as we go forward.’ One last time this indefatigable journalist asked the question again, ‘Do you think people are prepared to pay more?’ The member for Kingsford Smith responded, ‘We don’t really know what pay more means.’

There it is. That is all we have been able to find out about the economic basis, the costs, the consequences of the key part of their climate change policy. Either they do not know what it will cost or what the consequences are, or if they do they are not prepared to share them with the people they are asking to elect them into government.

There is also their rationale given for ratifying the Kyoto protocol. The member for Kingsford Smith said, ‘Our policy is to ratify the Kyoto protocol so we get into that international game.’ In an article in the Sun Herald on 4 February he said:

... it would draw Australia back into the international fold, it would create jobs, it would give us the entry price into the greatest debate of our time and it would give the nation some much-needed moral authority.

What the member for Kingsford Smith overlooks is that the Australian government is actively engaged in the international debate on climate change—actively and constructively. The head of the Australian Greenhouse Office in fact is co-chairing the new international talks on post-Kyoto approaches for a long-term cooperative action on climate change on the global basis that all of us know is the only way greenhouse gases can effectively be reduced. We have set up the AP6, a coalition of the largest emitters—the United States, Japan, China, India and others—to work together to build the technologies for all countries, but in particular those big developing countries who need more energy. It is fine to say to the Chinese, ‘You should clean up your act.’ But they are entitled to say: ‘Our emissions per capita are a fraction of yours. Most of the carbon that is up there, you in the developed world put there.’ So there is an issue of equity. But the fact is that, unless they are part of the solution, and unless the United States is part of the solution, everything that we do—and we have done much and we will do more—will be in vain in terms of slowing global warming.

But think of the complete absurdity of the opposition’s position on this: the proposition that we need to ratify Kyoto in order to have a place in the international debate. The United States has not ratified the Kyoto protocol. Does anyone imagine that there can be any international debate, any international agreement on emissions or climate change, without the participation, the active involvement, of the United States?

The reality is that this is a solution that must be global. Our policy, our commitment, is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Australia—and we have done so. By 2010 we will have eliminated from our emissions 87 million tonnes of greenhouse gases, the equivalent of the emissions of the entire transport sector. That is a direct result of the whole suite of programs—$2 billion worth over a decade—that the Australian government has committed to practical measures to reduce greenhouse gases.

But most important is the need to deal with the consequences of climate change in our own country. While we have to mitigate climate change—we must do that and we are doing that—we recognise, from the fourth assessment report and many other reports, as I said in question time, that the consequences of global warming, the reality of global warming, is going to continue for many decades. That is why, with respect, this indictment of anyone who expresses a degree of scepticism is absurd. I should say that in every speech I have given I have said that climate change is a fact, global warming is a fact, and it is contributed to or largely caused by human activities. I do not know whether that makes me a sceptic or not, but I would hate anybody to say that I unquestionably accepted or refused to question accepted opinions. The key thing always, particularly in scientific matters, is to have an open and questioning mind. The point of view that the opposition presents as the right posture is that of some uncritical acceptance of a dogma. That is the worst way to deal with Australia’s challenges. We have to have all of the options on the table—and indeed we do.

Consider the so-called climate summit that Labor is proposing to have. The Leader of the Opposition said, ‘We want to have all the ideas on the table,’ and immediately a journalist said, ‘What about nuclear power?’ ‘Oh, no, we won’t accept that; that’s not on the table.’ So you can only have an idea if it is one that fits in with the rigid dogma of the opposition. The water challenge in Australia is the gravest challenge we face. The biggest consequence and the clearest manifestation of climate change—which means, for most of Australia, hotter and drier times—will be water scarcity. Not only is there likely to be less precipitation because of changes in the frontal systems that traditionally deliver the bulk of the spring and water rains in southern Australia but greater heat means more evaporation and transpiration and hence less run-off. We are all familiar, and have been for a very long time, with the sorts of figures which we have seen from Perth, where over a decade or so we have had a 21 per cent decline in rainfall and a 64 per cent decline in stream flow. It is that stream flow which is important. Relatively small declines in rainfall can result in enormous declines in water availability.

Recognising that, the Howard government has committed to water reform and to tackling Australia’s water challenges in a way that no federal government in our history ever has before. The National Water Initiative was a first, bringing all the governments of Australia together to agree on a framework for sustainable water management and water reform. Previously, historically and constitutionally, water management has been entirely in the hands of the states. It was not something that Commonwealth governments became involved in—at least, not in any systematic way. That has now changed completely. John Howard is and has been, as Paul Kelly described him in the Australian, prescient on water; farsighted on water. He set the measures in place to restore our rivers to sustainable levels and set the agreement in place. Then, only 10 days ago, he announced the most important policy on water management in our nation’s history.

If you go back more than 100 years, you will find that even before we became a nation Australians said that the Murray and the other interstate rivers should be under Commonwealth jurisdiction. It made sense. As Sir Josiah Symon said at the 1898 Constitutional Convention, ‘In the name of all that is federal, surely this should be a federal matter.’ It was not; that was not what they agreed. But it was common sense. Plainly, as the Prime Minister said, if you have four states with different interests then they are in the position of competitors and they cannot effectively manage the Murray-Darling Basin. The Prime Minister has sought a reference and we have already seen the New South Wales Premier saying he will refer his powers. We have seen very positive remarks from the premiers of Victoria and Queensland, and I believe that the Premier of South Australia, after further discussion, will join with the other states and refer those powers to the Commonwealth. What we will then have will be a governance and management structure for the Murray-Darling Basin which enables it to be run as one whole.

This is the bread basket, the food basket, of Australia. This is where 80 per cent of our irrigated agriculture can be found. This is where, depending on whose statistics you accept, somewhere between 40 per cent and 50 per cent of all our agricultural output can be found. And it is under enormous stress as a consequence of drought and as a consequence of overallocation and water mismanagement over many years. And this will not be an easy problem to deal with. But John Howard, the Prime Minister, has taken that on and committed $10 billion over a decade to deal with these problems of overallocation.

Around Australia, both sides of politics—including the member for Kingsford Smith, including his leader, including premiers, including scientists, including business leaders—have welcomed this far-sighted move. That is planning for the future; that is a commitment to the future. And it stands in stark contrast to the lack of detail and the knee-jerk slogans that we hear from the Labor Party. They talk about policies but have no idea what they will cost; they talk about signing the Kyoto protocol and have no justification for it beyond saying that it will get us into an international debate—or an international game, depending on the style of the reference—in which we are already playing, and have done for many years, a leading part. We are dealing with climate change through practical measures. We are dealing with water problems through practical measures. We are leading to ensure that Australia’s water future is a sustainable and a secure one. (Time expired)

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Here we are on the first day of parliament for this year and one thing has never been clearer than after question time today: the best days of the Howard government are behind it. Anybody watching question time today would have seen that clearly on display. These are the days of uncertainty and drift in the Howard government; these are the days when the challenges for the next 10 years that this nation needs to grasp and deal with are being ignored. Those challenges are clear. We need now to be building the next wave of economic prosperity in this country. That is what is going to matter for the next 10 years, and that is why the Leader of the Opposition has been talking about the need for an education revolution and of making the Australian people the most highly skilled in our region so that we can compete with the world. These are the days where for the next 10 years we finally have to resolve the blame game in this country. We need to stop the waste, the buck-passing and the cost shifting that happen when the states and the federal government fight. That is why the Leader of the Opposition has been taking the lead on ending the blame game, including in the vital area of water.

The challenge for the next 10 years includes getting our major cities right, dealing with the need for infrastructure development, dealing with problems of congestion and livability. The people of our cities know that these needs are pressing, and we have to get the shape of our cities right for the next 10 years. We have to deal with the question of climate change. And we have to get the balance for Australian families right and the balance in our workplaces right. We need to restore the balance so that there is fairness between employers and employees, but we also have to get the balance right for working families between the time and energy spent at work and the time and energy spent with their families.

It is to these two issues—the issue of climate change and the issue of the balance for Australian families—that I particularly want to direct my remarks. Climate change and the unfairness of the Howard government’s conduct in relation to working Australians were the themes of question time today, and these are the issues that I want to direct my remarks to, because no two issues more clearly show the days of uncertainty and drift for the Howard government and more clearly demonstrate that its best days are behind it.

Let us come to the issue of climate change, with the new Minister for the Environment and Water Resources at the table: the man who, with much flourish, took on the challenges of the environment and water for the Howard government. At the end of question time today, the new minister had three problems. He had a problem with sea water, he had a problem with sceptics and, at the end of question time today, he had a problem with being taken seriously—and that is the most difficult question of all for him to resolve.

On his problem with sea water, he claims to have been misrepresented. But let me read precisely what he said on radio on 3 February. It is here. We know he was phoning a friend before, but let me clarify for him, in case there is any doubt, exactly what he said. He said:

There’s a lot of very exaggerated claims and you have to bear in mind that most of our coastal population lives on the east coast of Australia and because of the geology or the [topography] of the east coast, you know, much of that is adequately elevated to deal with a one-metre sea rise.

The minister at the table thinks that the ocean is like a giant indoor swimming pool and that, as long as there is a metre difference between the edge of the pool and where the water is, it does not matter if the water comes up a metre. I am no geologist—I would find it difficult to tell a diamond from a piece of granite—but let me tell you this: the ocean is not a dirty great swimming pool with a hard edge; the coast erodes. So, when the water goes up, you get erosion. And that is why a metre increase in sea levels, for anybody with a modicum of common sense, is a very big problem for our coastal cities, not the least of which is Sydney. Just because your house is a metre above where the sea is now does not mean you would be safe, Minister. Just have a little think about it. Get a scientist down from the CSIRO, and they will be able to explain it to you better than I can—but, really, anybody ought to be able to work that out.

And then the minister has a problem with sceptics. He is trying to rebadge the word ‘sceptic’ because he knows that the Howard government is full of climate change sceptics, so now he is pretending that the word ‘sceptic’ in that context means someone who thinks and questions. But we all know that, in the climate change debate, a climate change sceptic is actually someone who says that there is no global warming. They are deniers. They are people who believe that the current things that we are seeing are just a result of natural weather patterns. If you are a climate change sceptic and you believe it is just the weather then you are a do-nothing person, because nothing can be done about the weather. That is what a climate change sceptic is—someone who does not want to do anything—and that is what your government is full of. Redefining the word ‘sceptic’ is not going to fix that problem for you. You have a problem with sea water and a problem with sceptics.

You went on to say, ‘Sceptics are people who question dogma.’ The problem for you is that, with your government full of climate change sceptics, you are actually the people with the worst dogma, because you are the people who say, ‘The only way of dealing with all of this is to have nuclear energy.’ The Prime Minister was at the dispatch box today saying, ‘It’s the greenest and cleanest and safest,’ and all the rest of it. Has anybody ever heard of solar waste? Has anybody ever heard of wind power waste? How is it that nuclear energy is cleaner and greener and safer than solar energy or wind power energy? It is just absurd. The worst pieces of dogma come from the Howard government.

You have a problem, Minister, with sea water, sceptics and being taken seriously. The parliament, including your own side, was laughing at you today. The Treasurer was laughing at you. The Leader of the House was trying to get you to sit down.

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

The member for Lalor will address her comments through the chair.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker. I saw the Treasurer laughing today. You might have observed it yourself, Mr Deputy Speaker—I know you are an observant man. You might have seen the Leader of the House seek to have the minister at the table sit down. After the performance today, he is no longer a person who can be taken seriously.

I turn to the other issue in question time today which once again demonstrates the days of drift and uncertainty for the Howard government—that is, the issue of industrial relations and particularly the issue of Tristar. There was the Prime Minister at the dispatch box today basically trying to pretend to the world—whilst he got angry and a little bit rattled—that everything was all right. Everything is not all right for those workers, who are sitting in an empty factory, not being able to get their redundancy entitlements.

We asked the Prime Minister today: what did you do about it before it was in the headlines in Sydney? What did you do about it before Alan Jones was on the case? What did you do about it when it was Labor raising it in the parliament and workers writing to you? The truth is that, before it was in the headlines, this government did nothing—absolutely nothing—and the Prime Minister today at the dispatch box could only refer to those things that have been done since it became a public issue.

Even then, at the dispatch box today, the Prime Minister continued the confusion. On the one hand, the Howard government say this conduct is not about Work Choices and it is not illegal. The Prime Minister said that. The minister said that to the Tristar workers. Then, as political cover, they instruct the Office of Workplace Services to investigate it. Well, they only get to investigate things if they are illegal—if they are breaches of laws or awards or agreements. How do these things add up? They are trying to put the political fix in, trying to look like they are responding.

On industrial relations, this is what we will see this year. We will see that if a worker can become a headline, a human headline, they will get some attention from the Howard government, because the Howard government is interested in addressing its political hurt, not the hurt of Australian working families. But we will not see any changes of substance to the industrial relations laws. The Howard government will not do that. When we come to the next election and we are talking about the issues for the next 10 years, one of the biggest of them will be how we ensure that working families in this country are treated decently when they are at work and that they are able to balance up the demands of work and family life, and it will only be Labor who has the answers on those questions. (Time expired)

Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Twelve years ago an opposition leader came into this parliament and made the case in an eloquent speech for a change of government. That was John Howard’s ‘five minutes of economic sunshine’ speech. It was a speech that went right to the heart of the credibility of the Keating government and the fact that the Australian people had lost confidence in them, and it struck right at the heart of the economic management of the Keating government.

Sadly, I do not think many of us who heard the speech from the Leader of the Opposition today will remember it next week, let alone in 12 years time. There was minimal mention of how Labor would manage the economy better than the government. It seems that, when it comes to management of the economy, the ALP cannot fault the government. It seems that on management of the economy and national security, the two foundations on which any Australian government must rest, the Labor Party have failed to make any case for how they would improve things for the welfare of the Australian people.

We have heard a bit about how Labor have decided on a new approach, to actually engage in the economic debate, and there are a whole lot of buzzwords: ‘investment’, ‘productivity’, ‘a turbocharged economy’. But at the centre of it there is one problem meaning the Labor Party can never be the better managers of the economy in Australia, and that is the trade union movement. It is almost paradoxical that, as membership of trade unions has declined in the workforce so that only about 20 per cent of the workforce hold a union ticket and about 16 per cent of the workforce in the private sector hold a union membership, the stranglehold of the trade union movement has become stronger over the parliamentary Labor Party.

I guarantee we will not hear a lot over the next eight or nine months from the Labor Party on the position of the Australian Education Union, for example, on values in schools, on reporting and on having literacy and numeracy standards. I guarantee we will not hear a lot about the approach the Nursing Federation take on health policy. But have no doubt that in the background these will be critical considerations for the Labor Party and the way they address policy.

You only have to look at the government’s Work Choices policy. Anyone who knows the most basic thing about economics knows that one of the ways of unlocking labour productivity is to have increased flexibility in the workplace. Labor even came to this realisation when they were last in government and they moved partly this way, but they could not go the whole way because the ACTU and the trade union movement prevented it. When the Labor Party talk about productivity, there is one aspect of productivity that they cannot address, and that is the labour market and flexibility. What we have seen with Work Choices, contrary to what was stated, has been higher pay, more jobs and fewer strikes—exactly the opposite of what the Labor Party said.

Looking at the Australian economy today, unemployment is at 4.6 per cent. It is the lowest level since November 1976. We had low inflation in the most recent quarter. We have an economy which has been growing for 16 years. We have seen wages increase by 17.9 per cent in real terms since the Howard government was elected in March 1996. We have seen interest rates much lower. You can pick any one of the interest rates that operated while the Labor Party were in—interest rates now are lower than the 10 per cent they were when they left government, lower than the 12.75 per cent average over their 13 years in power and lower than the peak 17 per cent home mortgage rate which was reached when Paul Keating was last Treasurer.

Most of the case by the Leader of the Opposition for a change of government was based on climate change and water. No fair-minded person could say that the government does not have a strong plan on climate change. We have spent $2 billion on measures which have reduced greenhouse emissions and reduced the greenhouse intensity of the Australian economy. No fair-minded person could say that the Australian government does not have a very strong plan on water. We had the announcement most recently of a $10 billion package for the Murray-Darling addressing the infrastructure and also addressing the purchase of water rights. We have a climate change plan—so does Labor; ours is better. We have a water plan—so does Labor; ours is better. The difference in approach is that the government acts and the Labor Party talks. The Labor Party solution to climate change is to have a summit—an old favourite of Bob Hawke.

Looking at the specific issue of climate change, projections released in November 2005 show that Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions for the upcoming period, 2008-12, will be 108 per cent of the 1990 levels. That is our Kyoto target. That is what we committed to at the conference in 1997. We will have reduced emissions by 85 million tonnes by 2010. As the minister at the dispatch box, Mr Turnbull, said, this is equivalent to all of the emissions from the entire Australian transport sector. Had the Australian government not taken action, emissions would be 123 per cent above the 1990 levels; they are now 108 per cent. During the 20 years from 1990 to 2010 the economy will have doubled while the greenhouse intensity of the economy will have fallen by 43 per cent.

The government has also had a number of initiatives to be on the front foot on climate change. The Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate incorporates a number of the major emitters, which Kyoto does not. The weakness of Kyoto is that China, India and other developing countries are not part of it. This initiative also looks at technological solutions to address the whole issue of climate change. The message on Kyoto is that the Australian government, the Howard government, has acted and is on track with its Kyoto targets. The government takes this issue seriously, and it always has.

The issue of water is especially prominent. We have had two severe droughts in the last five years. Last month there was the announcement of a $10 billion national water plan. This has been very well received in South Australia, and it has been well received by my constituents. I am disappointed that the Premier of South Australia has thought that an independent commission would be a better model. He cited the Reserve Bank of Australia as a preferred model. However, I know that the Reserve Bank take their decisions on the Australian economy as an aggregate. The advantage for South Australia with the federal government having a say is that South Australia has 23 members in the federal parliament and, in my experience, they have always been strong advocates for issues which concern South Australia, such as the wine industry, the car industry and the Murray. One of the problems concerning water has been the lack of investment in infrastructure. This is something that the Leader of the Opposition knows a bit about. We have never heard the full story of why the Wolffdene Dam in Queensland was not built and what role the Leader of the Opposition had in that. He was the policy tsar of the Goss government when it made the decision not to build that dam, which has now led to Brisbane’s current problems.

This is a very important MPI. It was an opportunity for the Leader of the Opposition to make his case for a change of government, but he has squibbed it. If you look at the different governments in Australia in 1949, 1972, 1975, 1983 and 1996, you will see governments that were not managing the economy or national security. Those governments lost the confidence of the Australian people. The feeling I get from my constituents is that they view this government as a strong manager of the economy. They broadly agree with us on national security. Those are the two foundations for any Australian government. The Labor Party have no proposals to do them better. They have not made their case. (Time expired)

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The environment is an important issue, and I am pleased to be able to speak on it in this matter of public importance debate. However, I am disappointed that the two spokespeople for the government are from the Liberal Party. I would have thought that, as this debate concerns a very important part of Australia, the Deputy Prime Minister or someone from the National Party who actually lives in the Murray-Darling Basin would have been represented. But, given their history on this and other issues, I can see why the Liberals have ruled them out.

I congratulate the member for Wentworth on his appointment to the ministry, and I wish him well. Although he did not say anything new today, I listened to what he said and thought that there was a lot of promise in it. He made mention of sceptics. I am a sceptic. I am sceptical about the history and performance of this government on water issues. The Prime Minister announced a $10 billion, 10-year, 10-point plan. I think it is commendable because, for once, the borders of our states are being looked at as impediments to water reform.

Let us have a look at what we have done in terms of water over the last decade or so. The MPI mentions a ‘coherent strategy’. The Prime Minister’s plan is 10 days old. The New South Wales National Party is talking about inland diversions of water, with the Barnard River being diverted into the system. We have a coherent strategy? The Minister for the Environment and Water Resources and the Prime Minister are talking about capping the groundwater and surface water systems within the Murray-Darling Basin. The National Party is suggesting that, rather than spend the $3 billion to take care of the overallocation problem, we pour some water into the basin from the Barnard River. If we are talking about a 10-point plan, we need to be a little coherent about what the strategy is. Only some months ago, when the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources was a parliamentary secretary, he and the Business Council of Australia talked about using pricing policy to divert water from the Murray-Darling Basin to Sydney. They proposed using pricing policy, market mechanisms, to drive farmers’ water back to Sydney to sell it to a higher value use. This is apparently the coherent strategy that the minister is referring to.

The MPI talks about a fair go for all Australians. Let us have a look at that in terms of water policy and what has happened in relation to it in recent years. The Prime Minister spent some time talking about the need to look at sustainability within the Murray-Darling Basin and the overallocation of water carried out by the states. I am like a cracked record on that matter in this parliament. Obviously the issue of overallocation has to be looked at, but let us see where it has been looked at. Irrigators in the Namoi Valley came together and agreed with the state government that there was an overallocation of this resource and that, for there to be a move to sustainability, certain adjustments had to be made.

The Commonwealth came into that process as well, and I commended the Commonwealth at the time, because at last there was a strategy where the Commonwealth and the states were working together to overcome an overallocation problem—and that problem was no fault of anybody. Mr Deputy Speaker Causley, given your history on the issue of water resources you would remember this very well—and I would have loved to have heard you speak in this debate today; maybe you will on another occasion. The Commonwealth and the states together developed a package to compensate people for the loss of their entitlement, because they were losing a capital asset for the greater good of the nation. That is exactly what the Prime Minister is talking about—looking to the future, looking at sustainability, looking at the water resources as a whole within various aquifers or rivers in terms of the totality of the Murray-Darling Basin.

Now what has happened? What is the Commonwealth strategy? When the money for loss of entitlement has been allocated by the states, by the Commonwealth and by the irrigators, the Commonwealth is going to tax the recipients of that money as if it were income in the year of receipt. About three months ago, when the minister was parliamentary secretary, he told me that this was all under control. If anybody really cares about individuals that are going to be impacted by changes in natural resource management policy—and I think there have to be changes—it is about time the government demonstrates that it is serious. The Prime Minister and the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, who is at the table, cannot wander around Australia saying: ‘We are here to take care of overallocation—there will be money to look after that. Don’t worry about it, irrigators—there will be money to look after that,’ when, in the six valleys in New South Wales, not only the Namoi Valley, you have this system in place where up to 47 per cent of the compensation receipts that they get to move to sustainability—the goal—are going to be treated as taxation.

Let us look at the history of this matter, at issues such as climate change and carbon sequestration. A task force was set up recently to look at how market mechanisms may be established. The agricultural sector was left out; it was just not there. Doesn’t the minister or the Prime Minister understand the role of organic matter in humus in soils, how that can be used as a natural sink, how that can be used not only in the carbon debate but in the soil health debate, water infiltration rates—a whole range of issues? The farmer is left out. Where were the National Party? They were not to be seen. The farmers were left out of the debate. I think that is an absolute disgrace.

Let us look back to the 1995 COAG processes. The situation was similar to what the Prime Minister is talking about now. The states and the Commonwealth came together, designed a strategy for the future and had as the mechanism of control the national competition payments for water reform. When these promises are being made about the next 10 years, let us look at what happened in the last 10 years: $4.6 billion in competition payments was handed from the Commonwealth to the states without real reform of water at all. There were intergovernmental agreements, a national action plan on water quality and salinity and catchment blueprints. There were documents coming out of the proverbial and money was handed over. The Prime Minister was saying, ‘We will have $3 billion to hand over to the farmers, the irrigators, if they agree to the cutbacks.’ Did he say they were going to be taxed at 47 per cent on that money? No, I have not heard that. Let us look at what the past has reaped in water reform. In that COAG process, the state and the Commonwealth were joint signatories. We were being told again that there was money on the table, and nothing happened. The Commonwealth was complicit in handing the money to the states without demanding that the property rights that were in the original agreement be recognised. The property right initiatives in that agreement have never been recognised.

The new minister will go out to the farming community and say: ‘Trust us on this—there is money on the table. We can take care of a lot of the problems and you will get half the savings back.’ I have seen the letter from the Prime Minister to the premiers. There is a lot of fine print in relation to farm dams that the farming community want to know about. What does the fine print mean? What about diversions and the impact that they will have?

Then there is the issue of agroforestry. What happened to the debate on salinity of a few years ago, where the demands were for more trees? Now we have this document saying that, if trees are grown, that will impact the totality of the cap within the system; therefore there will have to be adjustments within that process. Then you have got the National Party in New South Wales saying: ‘No, we will pump water in. Don’t worry about it. There is no problem—just add water.’ In terms of a coherent strategy that is fair to all those concerned, to those who live in inland Australia, we really need to make this a bit clearer than it has been made today. (Time expired)

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

I understand the debate we are having today is on water and climate change. The most prominent person in the world at present on the issue of climate change is undoubtedly Al Gore, who is making the greatest noise on this issue. I have just completed an ethanol tour of the Americas. In Canada, the United States and Brazil, his name is everywhere; his position is ubiquitous. So let us look for a moment at Mr Gore and what he is saying. In his book An Inconvenient Truth, the first solution that he puts up is ethanol. When I entered America the hotel I was staying in had the latest addition of Newsweek magazine. It purports to be a little bit more intellectual than Time magazine in the United States, but the two magazines are like Tweedledee and Tweedledum. On the first page of solutions, the first item listed is ethanol.

President Bush gave his State of the Union speech last year and again this year. What did he talk about in his State of the Union message? Last year, a big part of his speech was on ethanol, and this year again a big part of his speech was on ethanol. We do not have to race around and beat our breasts and throw ourselves on the floor—we know what the answer is. I cannot speak with authority on ethanol from grain. Mr Gore, in his book, says that there is a 27 per cent reduction in CO if you use ethanol.

We have had a dreadful situation—we have had all this water in North Queensland. I think that the government is slowly coming to the realisation that we cannot hold on to this wonderful land that God has given us if it is empty and we are not using it. We say to other countries, ‘We’re not going to use it but you’re not going to be allowed to use it.’ Who would think that it was a fair thing for our nearest neighbour, which has 80 million of their 200 million population going to bed hungry every night? Who would say that that was a fair thing? What American mother would say: ‘I should sacrifice my son for these people who never settled this land’? They did not use it; it was just a wasteland that was not being used.’

You can fly from Cairns to Broome, as I have done on a number of occasions, and you will see no sign of human habitation—and yet you have flown over three-quarters of the nation’s water resources. It is all in the north, where we have 300 million megalitres; the rest of Australia has 100 million megalitres. The Murray-Darling, where we are trying to do all of Australia’s farming, has only 22 million megalitres.

What the hell are we doing? There are 300 million megalitres of water up in the Gulf country and in the north-west of Australia—in the Ord, the Daly and the Fitzroy. Why aren’t we touching these areas? There is a tiny little dot in the Ord; that is all we are using.

All of the great people in this nation—including Edward Theodore and John McEwen, whose photos are up on my wall—have said that this nation will not survive unless we settle these areas. Quite frankly, if you take out the golden boomerang, and a little dot around Perth and Darwin, there is no-one living in that country. The population of 85 per cent of the continent is 680,000. There is nobody there. The Australian government and the Australian people should read anything these great men—these thinkers, these great dominant forces in Australia—said.

Australia is unique in the advanced farming countries of the world. We are the only country not looking at ethanol. Canada announced when I was there that they were compulsorily moving to five per cent ethanol. Every single bowser in Canada will have a minimum of five per cent. A lot of people who know what they are talking about in this place already know that in the United States five per cent of fuel is ethanol. It is five per cent by law, but the way the laws work out mean is that it is 10 per cent in most states.

The United States President is no friend of Al Gore’s and Al Gore is no friend of his, but both sides of the political debate in the United States have no doubt which way we should be going. The President of the United States said that 75 per cent of our oil imports from the Middle East will be replaced by hydrogen and electric.

What is the cheapest way to get hydrogen? The cheapest way to get hydrogen is from ethanol. But I think that is far away, and even the President would agree that that is far away. Electricity has a part to play—electric cars in the middle of the cities—but once you get to the outer suburbs it has no role to play.

So effectively the President is saying that 75 per cent of our Middle Eastern oil will be replaced by ethanol coming from corn, but also from cellulose. Dadini assert absolutely that their plant is working commercially and successfully converting fibre material—grass, sawdust, bagasse from cane; all of those things—into ethanol now. It has some bugs; it is not for sale at this stage but over the next two or three years you will be able to go and buy a plant off the shelf, and at any plant they will convert your sawdust into ethanol to put into your motorcar.

I think the House should look at some of the figures. I plead with those in the House to look at some of the figures, if you are serious about CO. I am one of the sceptics on global warming that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition was talking about. I have read Al Gore’s book from cover to cover five times, and I have read all of the material that I can lay my hands on—including Tim Flannery’s book here in Australia—and material from the other side, and there is no doubt that there is a massive increase in CO, in my opinion as a result of human intervention.

One of the most eminent scientists in this country, Dr Joe Baker—the founder of the Australian Institute of Marine Science and short-listed for a Nobel Prize—says that, on the evidence, the ocean may well be cooling, not warming. But even if you read Gore’s book you will find that it is very equivocal on the evidence. It is very equivocal but I think all of us agree that there is a massive increase in CO and that we should be addressing the problem.

How do you address the problem? I was mines and energy minister in Queensland but I had responsibilities in that area well before I was minister. We were moving to put all of the government houses—government had 27 per cent of the houses in Queensland at the time—under solar hot water. Forty per cent of domestic usage is the heating of water, so you cut 30 to 40 per cent of electricity demand immediately—and that solution is available to us at the moment.

But in the transport regime nobody in the world is seriously talking about 10 per cent any more; they are talking about replacing oil—the more expensive, more carcinogenic fuel and the more politically difficult fuel because it is causing wars in the world—with ethanol. Ours is the only government that is not doing this. In the Americas there are 600 million people now driving their cars on ethanol, but here in Australia we still have not moved on this.

I look at the vast water resources. We have had problems in the last 10 years because in agriculture there is nothing we can compete on. Clearly, all of the other countries are subsidising their agriculture. The OECD average subsidy is 49 per cent. How can we compete? We have no subsidies and no tariff protection; how can we compete against countries that have an average subsidy of 49 per cent—though some of them are above average?

So what I am saying to the House is that the answers are there in ethanol. In Northern Australia you have the landmass, you have the water and you have the sunshine. As Australians, God has been good to us. We have been given those resources and those resources are massively deteriorating. We have a dreadful natural cycle of erosion; it has nothing to do with man. We have a natural cycle of erosion in Northern Australia and I do not have time now to talk about that. To quote the deputy head of the NHT, the greatest environmental holocaust in Australian history is the prickly acacia tree, which has wiped out six million hectares of native flora and fauna in the last 20 to 30 years. But, if we control our river banks and look after them and put irrigated pasture on them to protect them and stop those weeds getting away, we will be husbanding the resources of Australia.

In conclusion, there are 134 million megalitres of water just in the gulf alone. If we take just seven per cent of that water and apply it to the land, it will irrigate five per cent of the 40 million hectares which exist in the Gulf of Carpentaria. This five per cent of landmass is two million hectares, and this will meet all of Australia’s petrol needs forever. (Time expired)

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

Order! The time allotted for this discussion has now expired.