Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources. I refer to the minister’s comments on 3 February:

There’s a lot of very exaggerated claims ... and because of the geology or the [topography] of the east coast ... much of that is adequately elevated to deal with a one-metre sea rise.

Will the minister confirm that University of Sydney research shows that rising sea levels could lead to erosion extending—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. That question was asked yesterday and fully answered by the minister concerned so it is out of order.

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

The member for Kingsford Smith is still asking his question, and I ask him to continue.

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Will the minister confirm that University of Sydney research shows that rising sea levels could lead to erosion extending up to 70 metres inland from the promenade at Bondi Beach?

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

I am impressed that the member for Kingsford Smith has so quickly picked up the techniques of the Leader of the Opposition that he too is misrepresenting the remarks that I made on AM, which, for honourable members who are interested in reading them, are set out relevantly, in full, in my speech on the MPI yesterday. What I said was that much of the east coast—not most of it, not all of it; much of it—is adequately elevated. The fact is that I went on to say that the response to rising sea levels—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Order! The minister will be heard, and I will deal with anyone who continues to interject.

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

I went on to say that the response to rising sea levels will require both planning measures and engineering measures. It can be adapted to in some cases. There are a range of measures that will be used to deal with rising sea levels—and, of course, as I mentioned in the AM interview, the consequent storm surges, because it is not simply a question of the sea level rising but of the consequent storm surges.

This is the strategy of the opposition: they are seeking to create a massive scare campaign. We are talking about, at the higher limit, a sea-level rise of 58 centimetres over 100 years; at the lower level, 18 centimetres. In the course of the last century, we have had a rise in sea level in Australia of 20 centimetres already, so rising sea levels are not new. We have dealt with them. We have adapted to them.

We are working closely with state and local government. Indeed, the National Resource Management Ministerial Council in November 2006 agreed to fund a first-pass national coast vulnerability assessment to be coordinated by the Australian Greenhouse Office. The Australian Greenhouse Office, the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO have published extensively on rising sea level issues. There is an immense amount of literature out there on it. The techniques for dealing with it are very well known. Local councils up and down the coast—on the east coast, the west coast, in South Australia and all around Australia—are aware of this issue and adopting planning measures to handle it. Those measures will no doubt be recalibrated and adjusted as better science becomes available.

But it is no answer to the challenge of climate change to be frightening the Australian people—to be out trying to panic the Australian people—with threats of a massive Al Gore style, The Day after Tomorrow style inundation. That is a scare campaign. It is calculated to do enormous damage to public confidence. I would say this to the member for Kingsford Smith: I do not believe that the constituents of the electorate of Griffith, or the constituents of any other electorate on Australia’s coast, will thank him for this sort of panicked scare campaign. What the member for Kingsford Smith has left out of his question is: what do you do about it? We are aware of it. We are dealing with it. Labor is full of scare—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

I again remind members that when a minister has been called to give an answer he will be heard.