Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is directed to the Prime Minister. Is it a fact that the Stern report shows the economic cost of inaction on climate change would be equivalent to the cost of both world wars and the Great Depression? Why hasn’t the government taken the urgent action required to substantially cut Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, given that we have a window of opportunity of just 15 years and given the impact on the economy and on jobs if we fail to act?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I just go back to something I said in answer to the first question asked of me. Sir Nicholas Stern is reported in the Sydney Morning Herald today as advocating a reduction of 30 per cent in greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2020. That would have a devastating effect on the Australian economy. It would cost thousands of jobs in the Australian coal industry. It would put back technological progress towards clean coal technology because of its impact on the operation of the Australian economy. Nobody argues or contests the challenge of climate change but what I do argue and contest is the kind of knee-jerk reaction advocated by the member for Lilley.

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Swan interjecting

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

Order! The member for Lilley has asked his question.

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If the member for Lilley wants to become a destroyer of the Australian coal industry, let him go and justify that. There is an idea that this country could achieve that kind of reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2020, which is a bare 13 years from now, but the economic dislocation, the level of unemployment and the damage that would be done to Australia’s competitive position is self-explanatory. It is imperative that we do not take action as a nation which puts us at an unfair disadvantage with the rest of the world. That kind of action would do that and, whilst there are quite a lot of things in Stern’s report and in his work that we agree with, we will take decisions in the national interest. History is littered with examples of nations having overreacted to presumed threats to their great long-term disadvantage.