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

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

The failure of the Government to take action to avoid dangerous climate change by refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, establish a national emissions trading scheme and cut Australia’s greenhouse pollution by 60 percent by 2050.

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—

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

The Howard government just does not get climate change, and the minister for the environment in question time plays word games knowing full well that Labor’s policy announcement today is to double the funding for the installation of solar power—a policy he has previously supported. This morning the Prime Minister said:

Many of the things that (Sir Nicholas Stern) is talking about are already our policies.

The question here is: what planet is the Prime Minister on? Sir Nicholas says: ratify the Kyoto protocol—the government says no; Labor says yes. Sir Nicholas says: cut greenhouse emissions by 60 per cent by 2050—the government says no; Labor says yes. Sir Nicholas says: establish an emissions trading scheme—the government says no; Labor says yes.

After 11 years in power it is about time the government got fair dinkum about climate change. Seven weeks ago we received the first instalment of the fourth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the findings of that report shook the world and received saturation coverage, including here in Australia. Called Climate change 2007: the physical science basis, it confirmed what we already knew, what many people were feeling—that is, that climate change is real and that it will hurt our economy, our environment and our children’s future. Using terms like ‘unequivocal’, it walked us through the bone-dry science and graphs and concluded that there was a very real possibility that within the next 100 years we could be living on a planet three to four degrees hotter than today.

On Good Friday coming, the second volume of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report will be released in Brussels. This volume is called Impacts, adaption and vulnerability. The first report gave us the skeleton outline of what to expect; Good Friday’s report will get to the heart of the matter. Impacts, adaption and vulnerability will take us to the centre of what is best described as a potential disaster, a centre made up of six billion or so human beings: families in China, India and Australia; nomads; city slickers; itinerant workers— people going about their daily lives but living under the shadow of impending and growing climate change. This report will show how the unfolding crisis will impact on the very vulnerable and on those of us who like to believe we are beyond such vulnerability. If the first volume was a shock to some, the second volume is likely to be a heartbreaker.

Before the report is released and the storm of climate change is upon us in earnest, it is vital to remember that the challenge of climate change is essentially a challenge to human initiative and will. For us in this place, that means political will. The first report made it clear that we still have the time and capacity to act in order to prevent the worst-case scenarios, that there is nothing inevitable about the outcome, and that is what gives this issue such and urgency and a necessary moral component. That moral component—moral imperative, in fact—is to build a sustainable future for our children and grandchildren.

The scientific consensus is clear on the scale of the challenge, and there is a growing consensus across Australia on the need for urgent action to reduce greenhouse emissions; for an emissions trading scheme; and for a portfolio approach to climate change which includes clean coal, renewable energy and energy efficiency—all part of Labor’s climate change policy suite. This consensus is increasingly shared by farmers, scientists, business people, clergy, mums and dads—people around the country, all wanting action and all despairing at the wasted opportunities.

This is the new politics, and Labor’s national climate change summit this Saturday is a symbol, and a practical one, of the new consensus that has emerged—a new politics, a national conversation on climate change. Of course, we would welcome the coalition joining with all of us as we confront this threat, but how can they? On the need for urgent action, their ranks are thick with those who still insist climate change is a left-wing green conspiracy. I look forward to the minister coming up and disassociating himself from the remarks of various members, including the member for Tangney, that have been made in the House on this issue. Not surprisingly, some of those who are most sceptical about climate change are also the most supportive of nuclear reactors.

The Howard government, having previously resisted emissions trading, finally initiated a task force to examine the possibility of a carbon emissions trading scheme, under the lash of appalling polls and a business community that is ready to up stakes and leave for good, that is disenchanted with the government’s approach to climate change and its failure to move vigorously to introduce a national emissions trading scheme.

The government started to talk about emissions trading but they still have not flicked a switch and agreed to establish a scheme. In question time today, we referred to the case of Global Renewables, one of Australia’s leading recycling companies, which on 27 March announced it was leaving Australia. The chairman of Global Renewables, Dr John White, stated very clearly:

When Australia does get serious about renewables, we will hopefully be able to come back.

It could not be much clearer than that: it is bye-bye to Global Renewables and other clean energy companies until we see a change of government and a real commitment to clean energy.

The coalition’s idea of a portfolio approach to energy is to insist that it is a nuclear future—a future some 15, 20 or 25 years away—or no future at all, and that only nuclear energy or coal can provide baseload power for the nation. The gas industry, described by the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources here at the dispatch box as ‘selfish and short-sighted’, is getting pretty tired of hearing that, I can assure the House. In fact, until the minister for the environment came upon the light bulbs idea recently, it is hard to think of any new idea on climate change from the Howard government.

Let’s not forget that the government has failed to introduce a single piece of legislation on climate change, and there is no climate change trigger in the environment legislation. I think the Treasurer today went out of his way not to actually utter the words. Then there were preposterous rhetorical extravagances when the minister for the environment simply said, ‘Australia leads the world on climate change.’ Does the minister mean to remind Australians that on a per capita basis of greenhouse emissions we are a world leader, that in terms of emissions we rank around 10th overall amongst nations and that we continue to increase emissions, which are expected to increase by 27 per cent by 2020, with no climate change strategy in place?

Notwithstanding any of this, the fact is that the Howard government have given Australia 11 years of denying the reality of climate change. Despite the fact that there were numerous reports pointing the way, they simply failed to act. Then, with the science and the community stacking up against them, they relinquished their approach of denial and replaced it with a strategy of minimising the impacts of global warming, while playing the game of political point scoring. But the community is over this behaviour. If the Prime Minister had taken a brief look at some of the submissions being made to the task group on emissions trading, he would have seen that the business community has also had a gutful. Westpac’s submission makes the point that the government’s failure to act has an impact on investor confidence, saying:

Business is … calling for greater clarity on how companies are strategically and tactically managing their response to the implications of, and exposure to, climate change.

BHP Billiton calls for not only an efficient, effective and equitable domestic Australian emissions trading scheme but one that also ‘facilitates the trading of emissions entitlements and reductions and the crediting of offsets developed or purchased in other countries, such as CDM or other project based credits,’ which sounds terribly like Kyoto and the CDMs that attach to that international agreement, the very agreement that we on this side of the House support, which the government regularly mocks.

The Prime Minister has been willing to play possum on climate change, but Australian business are not. They want to get on with it. They recognise that there are opportunities and that they need to be taken now. As Labor questioned and quizzed the Prime Minister and his ministers about why they ignored all the reports and the evidence that was building a frightening picture of climate change over the last 11 years, we received nothing of substance in this House. We queried the Howard government on their inaction—inaction that, in the light of the IPCC report, is best described as a dereliction of the government’s duty of care. We asked the Prime Minister, for example, to formally repudiate the statement of the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, in which he said, ‘I’m a sceptic of the connection between emissions and climate change.’ The Prime Minister said, ‘No, I will not formally repudiate it.’ On closer reflection it is clear that the Prime Minister was wide awake and that the subversion of the science and the scrambling of the message were the government’s approach to climate change.

The House would be well aware of the investigative work done by ABC’s Four Corners in 2006. That program and the subsequent investigations revealed the pressure that climate scientists were put under while working for CSIRO. So, if the coalition were not allowing CSIRO to do their work and give them frank and fearless scientifically based advice, the question is: who was advising them? The Howard government have had 11 long years to act with credibility, integrity and intelligence to address the outstanding issue of our time, but today’s newspapers are alive with one message that has been delivered by Nicholas Stern: action is cheaper than inaction, the time to act is now, the targets are critical and delay is not an option.

Over the next days and months we can expect the government to open up their wallets and spend big on climate change policies because the government have seen the polling. The government know the political risks. They know the political risks of an 11-year record of indifference, denial and inaction. They recognise that the public is angry and is ready for someone to stand up and say, ‘We will address climate change in a profound, sincere and appropriate way.’ The government have simply failed to do that.

The government here is all about protecting their political interests but not the national interests. In question time the Prime Minister made some remarks about the composition of the mandatory renewable energy scheme. As far as I understand it, I am not aware of any formal state government position either seeking the phasing out of mandatory renewable energy targets or saying that it is incompatible with emissions trading. But this is typical of the response of the government on an issue of this importance and moment. When countries in other parts of the world are clearly taking up the challenge to start producing energy from renewable sources, the government maintain their hostility and aversion to renewable energy. They just do not get it.

Let us be clear: a government full of climate change sceptics cannot deliver climate change solutions. Whatever responses the government may come up with from now until the election, their 11-year record of delay and inaction is imprinted on the minds of Australians—and rightly so, for the Howard government has never been fair dinkum about climate change. Labor has climate change solutions that will address this issue. Labor will bring the Australian people together to work our way through the challenge of climate change, and that is the difference between the two parties in this House. One has the solutions, recognises the seriousness of this issue and is prepared and willing to act resolutely and the other is not.

Today Labor announced a $50 million solar home power plan. This is a practical policy that will allow around 12,000 Australian households to install clean, green power over the next four years. Importantly, it is a plan that supports our local solar power industry, creating jobs and opening the gateway to one of the fastest growing and cleanest technologies in the world.

And this Saturday Labor will host the first national climate change summit in Australia because we are committed to open dialogue with the community, business and the scientific communities to build a national consensus as we tackle the reality of climate change. In the weeks and months ahead we will deliver solutions—solid policy—to enable this country to meet the climate change challenge, and to meet it with confidence. However difficult the future may be—however difficult climate change makes it—we will not run away from it. We will not ignore it and we will not play games with it like the Howard government has done. Labor is committed to being fair dinkum on climate change.

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

I have a number of inconvenient truths to share with the House. The first one relates to the Labor Party’s allegedly new solar rebate announced today, which was described as involving a doubling of the rebate. It was clear in question time that the member for Kingsford Smith did not know what the policy was, but I have since found a transcript of the policy, which I had obviously read earlier. I am reading from Mr Rudd’s transcript. It says:

... we’ll be providing $50 million to provide [subsidies] rebates of up to $4,000 for homes right across Australia ...

Well, the rebate maximum now is $4,000. So the rebate proposed is exactly the same. In fact, since the photovoltaic rebate program was put in place by the government it has provided $52 million to help householders, schools and community groups install solar systems on their roofs. The program expires on 30 June this year and the Prime Minister has publicly committed to extend it. So neither in the amount of money proposed nor in the rebate is there any doubling at all. What is so mystifying is that the member for Kingsford Smith asked the Australian people to trust him with the conduct of the campaign against climate change and he does not know what his own policies are. When taxed with that question, when challenged in question time, he sat there mute, clutching a piece of paper the contents of which he obviously did not know or understand. He did not utter a word.

The other inconvenient truth that the honourable member for Kingsford Smith has to recognise is that this global warming problem is a global problem. That is why it is called global warming. It is a problem that every country in the world and every citizen of the world faces. Whether a tonne of carbon dioxide goes into the atmosphere in Canberra, Shanghai or Novosibirsk it has the same effect. So we have to have a global agreement. And therein lies the fatal flaw for Kyoto, and the reason why everybody—from Sir Nicholas Stern and Tony Blair to everybody around the world, be they passionate proponents of an aggressive response to climate change or not—recognises that Kyoto cannot do the trick. Why? Because we know that without Kyoto we would have had a 41 per cent increase in global emissions; with it we get a 40 per cent increase—a one per cent decline.

The reality is that when you look at the Kyoto agreement you see that it is filled with a number of very serious flaws. I have mentioned the biggest one, which is that it does not involve the major emitters. It only involves 30 per cent of the world’s emitters. The United States is not a party; India is not a party; China is not a party. All the countries of the world—in particular, the big emitters—have got to be in it to make it work. So much is obvious, and that is why Australia is working creatively and actively with the major emitters, particularly through the AP6 program, to ensure that we have the programs, technologies and policies that enable us to meet the challenge and that enable us to ensure that countries like China and India, that deserve economic growth and that need development, will be able to get the energy they need without adding to the carbon in the atmosphere—to get the energy they need and slow the increase of carbon in the atmosphere from their emissions.

Let me go to a very important point. This is one of the most inconvenient truths for the opposition on this issue. They keep on saying that Australia has a very high level of carbon emissions per head of population, and relative to many other countries we do. Let me put this to the member for Kingsford Smith: I would say that the residents of Wentworth, my electorate, have a much lower level of carbon emissions per head of population than do the residents of Kingsford Smith. Why is that? Because Sydney airport is in the electorate of Kingsford Smith, where there are enormous amounts of emissions from jets landing and taking off. Or we could point to the member for Hunter and we could say that the constituents of the Hunter electorate have an even higher set of emissions per head of population because of all their power stations. If I were to make those points the member for Hunter would say, ‘Hang on, the citizens of Wentworth are using that electricity we generate in the Hunter Valley,’ and the member for Kingsford Smith would say: ‘Hang on, the citizens of Wentworth are getting on planes at Sydney airport and taking off overseas and coming back. You can’t just look at it constituency by constituency.’

That is exactly the same point with these narrow, country by country analyses. We are a large exporter of alumina and aluminium. It is a very, very energy intensive product. If we were to shut down our aluminium industry we would reduce our emissions dramatically and our emissions per head of population would be reduced. But would the world’s demand for aluminium be reduced? Not at all. In fact, arguably aluminium has a positive benefit in terms of energy efficiency because obviously anything built of aluminium is light and once you have created the aluminium it can be, in effect, perpetually recycled.

So this is the problem with these cheap, shallow points. The member for Kingsford Smith did not know, half an hour ago, what his own policy was. He could not answer the question. He was mute; struck dumb! He could only clutch the paper. The fact is that if we were to eliminate our aluminium industry we would reduce our CO emissions. But the aluminium would simply be made somewhere else. People would not stop wanting to use aluminium. People would not stop wanting to make vehicles and planes and containers out of aluminium. That would continue. All that would do is export the emissions.

The same is true with energy. A considerable amount of COis emitted as a consequence of our LNG industry—our gas industry. When we export gas, we are providing relatively low carbon fuels to other countries in the world. But quite a lot of CO is emitted here in Australia. Let us say we shut down that industry. Do we imagine that the nations of the world will suddenly stop using gas? They will just get it from somewhere else. Worse still, they would burn a great deal more coal—which, in most parts of the world, is a great deal dirtier in respect of its CO emissions than Australia’s coal.

Looking at Australia in this narrow way, in isolation, is as narrow-minded and ignorant as looking at one suburb, one electorate or one city in a country. It is a global problem and it needs global answers. How are we in Australia responding to the global challenge? Firstly, we will meet our Kyoto protocol target through our own efforts. We will not be buying bogus credits from eastern Europe.

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

Mr Garrett interjecting

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

The member for Kingsford Smith had 15 minutes.

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

We will not be investing in clean development mechanism investments because we are not part of Kyoto—this will be from our own efforts. I notice that the member for Kingsford Smith derides land clearing. Let me tell the member for Kingsford Smith that 20 per cent of CO emissions come from deforestation alone. As Sir Nicholas Stern said today in his speech at the Press Club, and as he said in his report, tackling deforestation is one of the greatest challenges that we face in dealing with global warming.

Yet one of the curious things about the Kyoto protocol—to which the Labor Party is so attached—is that many very knowledgeable people believe that the Kyoto protocol is actually promoting deforestation. Only a few weeks ago I received a letter from—and I had a meeting with—Michael Kennedy, Director of the Humane Society International, which works very closely at looking at the destruction of rainforests and natural habitats in South-East Asia. He wrote to me, and he consented to my quoting from this letter:

Nowhere else is the contradictory nature of the current UNFCC policy framework—

the Kyoto framework—

more evident than in large areas of the Indonesian and Malaysian forests.

He pointed out that, because of the anomalous way Kyoto deals with forestry and land clearing generally around the world, it in effect gives countries that want to buy clean development mechanism credits an incentive to plant biofuels—palm oil, for example, in tropical countries—and there is no disincentive to mow down vast areas of rainforests and destroy the peak forests which sequester so much carbon. He observed:

The Kyoto protocol, through this clean development mechanism funding, is effectively financing the industry that is contributing to massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.

That is the Kyoto protocol. That is the protocol that the member for Kingsford Smith wants us to sign.

Let me deal with another aspect of the clean development mechanism. The member for Kingsford Smith wrote an article in the Sydney Morning Herald extolling the virtues of carbon trading and the clean development mechanism. He reminded me of that character from the Austin Powers movies, talking about trillions and billions of dollars that could be won in carbon credits. He was so excited about it. There are billions of dollars going around the world in carbon credits, but let me tell the member for Kingsford Smith exactly what is happening. Thirty per cent of the projects under the clean development mechanism are in China and are for the purpose of eliminating a very active gas called HFC23, which has 14,000 times the potency of CO. HFC23 is a by-product of refrigerant gases.

It is so potent that, in most countries, it is simply not legal to emit it. But in China it apparently is. For a few million dollars you can install a scrubber, stop the gas from being emitted and then, by virtue of this mechanism that the member for Kingsford Smith is so enamoured of, you sell those credits—not for a few million dollars, not for a few hundred million dollars but for billions of Euros. This HFC23 scam is such a scandal that Michael Ward, of Stanford University, in a study that was published in the 8 February 2007 edition of Nature magazine, estimates that over €4 billion have been spent on these HFC23 credits in excess of the abatement cost—that is, in excess of the actual cost of reducing them.

If we had been part of Kyoto, if we had signed up to the Kyoto protocol, some of those billions of Euros would have been coming from Australia. Instead of Australian businesses investing in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions in Australia, taking action under the greenhouse-friendly program of the Australian Greenhouse Office, working with the Australian government, being part of MRET, being part of Solar Cities, being part of the Low Emissions Technology Development Fund and being part of our $2 billion program that has delivered real results, real achievements and led the world in the fight against climate change, we would have seen them sending their money off to China, where it would have gone to line the pockets of—who knows?—bankers, lawyers, governments or accountants. It would simply have been a nice little loophole in that billion dollar scheme—or trillion dollar scheme, according to the member for Kingsford Smith.

The member for Kingsford Smith says that we should have signed up to Kyoto—to what is clearly a fatally flawed mechanism—and been part of this scheme. The Australian government has done exactly the right thing in respect of putting a price on carbon. We have put a price on carbon. Of course we have. That is what subsidies do. That is what MRET does. When you give $100 million towards a clean coal project, as we did the other day, that is putting a price on carbon. That is subsidising it. We have worked in a very careful, targeted way. We have not rushed into an emissions trading scheme, and it is just as well we have not. The Europeans have made the most monstrous, incredibly expensive mistakes and, as we have seen from the material I have presented to the House, they have not only made errors in the design of their scheme but contributed to—not worked against but contributed to—global warming, to the destruction of the peat forests that sequester so much carbon. The Australian government deals with climate change practically, responsibly, and we act always in the best interests of Australia, recognising our global obligations but using practical measures to achieve substantial results.

Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In his argument today, the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources has certainly relied a lot on the term ‘inconvenient truth’. But I think the inconvenient truth and the rather sad truth that we have heard from the minister is that this is a minister who is now circled by people on the government benches who are in a state of denial about the seriousness of climate change or, at best, are very sceptical. This saddens me because the minister and I spent some together on the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Heritage, which made a number of very significant recommendations in the Sustainable cities report, one of which was picked up in the announcement made today by our shadow minister. If you do not believe me, Minister, let me quote a few of the words used by your colleagues about this very important global issue.

Senior ministers, like the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, are in an absolute state of denial about the seriousness of this issue. Can you believe that a senior minister of this government dismissed the Al Gore movie An Inconvenient Truth as ‘just entertainment’? The same minister said on a TV appearance: ‘Carbon dioxide levels go up and down and global warming comes and goes.’ No wonder he admitted on that same program, ‘I’m a sceptic of the connection between emissions and climate change.’ Is it any wonder with an attitude like that displayed by the minister for industry that we have had a government paralysed by inaction on the most serious issue facing not only our nation but the whole planet? In fact, public opinion is way ahead of this government and this minister.

The Stern report followed on from the showing of the movie An Inconvenient Truth. For the first time, I do not think anyone with any rational appraisal of the issue could ignore its very comprehensive analysis and the alarm bells that it rang. This morning I was very fortunate, along with my shadow minister, to have the opportunity to hear directly from Sir Nicholas Stern at the Press Club. I looked around the room and I could not see one government representative, one MP, at that talk—not even my good friend and colleague the member for McMillan. Sir Nicholas Stern reaffirmed today, in a very compelling way, that delay is costly not only in economic terms but also in terms of catastrophic consequences. He made the point that time is running out. He described climate change as the greatest market failure the world has ever seen. Something he said today really alarmed me. He said that, if we as a global community continue to deny this problem and do not take serious action, we face the possibility of a five-degree centigrade rise in temperature by the turn of the century.

That is just horrendous in terms of consequences. What does it mean? It means that species face extinction across the world. It means that we will have rising intensity of storms, fires, droughts, flooding and heatwaves—and the impact on people cannot be underestimated. We are already seeing in our Pacific neighbourhood the impact of rising sea levels on their fragile and vulnerable communities. As a nation with so much of our population on the coastal strip, the rise in sea levels can have catastrophic consequences for us as well. The cost of inaction will be a devastating environmental and economic outcome not just for our country but for the whole globe.

Despite what we now know and despite the science—which should not be contested by anybody and has in fact been reinforced by the most eminent scientists in the world in the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—this government continues to obfuscate the issues. We heard it today in question time. The Prime Minister said, ‘We didn’t ratify Kyoto because it would place us at a competitive disadvantage.’ Very soon thereafter, the Treasurer admitted, ‘But we are on the way to meeting the Kyoto targets.’ There is no logic at all in saying that we are going to meet the target but we are not prepared to ratify an international treaty that commits us, along with the rest of the world, to trying to address this growing and serious problem.

When we first signed up to Kyoto—and it was this government that first signed up to Kyoto—we then said that it was a win for the environment and a win for jobs. So I cannot for the life of me understand how we can now have a totally different attitude when it comes to ratifying the convention. I find quite amoral the argument that we should not ratify because developing countries like China and India are not compelled to reduce their emissions in this first round of the Kyoto protocol. In fact, China and India have ratified the Kyoto protocol.

If the rich nations of the world are now contributing 75 per cent of global emissions, surely that imposes a moral obligation on countries like Australia and the United States—which have stood aloof from ratification—to take the lead, particularly when you consider that the countries that are being spoken about as not pulling their weight are countries that are trying to lift their populations out of extreme poverty. That is why they are referred to as ‘developing nations’.

If every one of the 158 counties that have ratified took this narrow view expressed by the Prime Minister and the minister—that we should not ratify because China’s emissions are growing and India’s are growing—we would have no global or international vehicle. Despite its limitations—and I accept that the Kyoto protocol is an imperfect vehicle—it is an expression of the fact that the whole global community thinks that we have to work in a constructive and collaborative way to address this problem.

The third argument that you hear constantly from the Prime Minister and the minister against ratifying Kyoto is that there is a cost involved in doing that. He maintains that there is a cost in jobs and in international competitiveness. But he never tells you the other side of the equation: that there are opportunities forgone. As an MP who represents a coal-mining region, I am very mindful of the importance of balancing this with economic and employment outcomes. It can be done in a very meaningful way. We are trying to address that through a very large investment in clean coal technology that our leader announced.

What the Prime Minister and the minister hide is the fact that many companies are leaving our shores precisely because they do not think that the government is taking this issue seriously. In answer to a question raised by my colleague the member for Melbourne Ports about a company called Global Renewables, the Prime Minister seemed to imply in his reply that they had moved offshore only because they had a good investment opportunity and a good commercial deal. This is what John White, the Chairman of Global Renewables, said about why he was moving:

We—

Australia—

are 10 to 15 years behind Europe. When Australia does get serious about renewables we will hopefully be able to come back.

That is the reason he gave for them leaving. His is not the only company that has moved offshore. Its offshore move follows the move of the Danish company Vestas. It closed its wind turbine manufacturing plant in Tasmania last year. We all know that the Australian citizen Zhengrong Shi left our country. He used his intellectual capacity to develop solar technology, could not get it commercialised, moved to China and is now a leader in solar technology. We know that the Roaring 40s company shelved two Australian projects to concentrate on their business in China. When the Prime Minister talks about the costs associated with Kyoto, he never tells you about the opportunities forgone. Opportunities for the creation of new jobs in the renewable sector are immense. The Stern lecture today comes on top of the documentary movie An Inconvenient Truth and the Stern report. They are alarm calls; they are wake-up calls. We do not have much time. We need to take this issue seriously. (Time expired)

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

The member for Throsby is an articulate and talented politician—we just happen to disagree on a few things. I have worked with her on a number of committees in this House. I know the background of the member for Throsby when it comes to sustainable cities and sustainable strategies for the nation. However, to carry on from where the member for Throsby left off, the proposed 60 per cent cut in emissions in Australia would have this effect: petrol prices would increase by approximately 100 per cent. How would that go in the Hunter Valley? GDP growth would be 10.7 per cent lower. Real wages would be 20.8 per cent lower than they would be under a business-as-usual scenario. There would be a fall in oil and gas production of 60 per cent. Coal production, which the member for Throsby mentioned, would be down by 32 per cent. Electricity output would be down by 23 per cent. The agricultural industry, which is a major part of my electorate, is also projected to decline by 44 per cent relative to the reference case.

So who was right today? How would you like to have been the member for Kingsford Smith today, starting off with a complete shemozzle of a presentation of a policy? He announced a doubling of the subsidy. The subsidy is $4,000, and he has announced a $4,000 subsidy. What an embarrassment that would have been. There but for the grace of God go I; may that never happen to me. The first announcement of a Labor Party policy in an election year and what do they do? They get it wrong and are unable to answer the question. That is the worst thing that could happen to anybody. The member for Throsby showed the way on how the public and government interact with one another. Obviously, somebody made a mistake when they chose the spokesperson, because I really do not think that the member for Kingsford Smith gets the way that government works. That showed today. It was a bit of an embarrassment to see the member for Throsby present her case so well while the member for Kingsford Smith muddled through it.

It has been very important for me in the last few weeks to see this government responding to climate change in a way that responds to the workers in my seat, the seat of the member for Throsby and the seat of the member for Gippsland. There are 130,000 families across the nation that have something to do with coal. I would say to the community, which I know is listening to this debate, that if you do not work within a power station you probably know somebody, or know somebody who knows somebody else, who works in a power station. That is where the connection is. It affects an enormous number of people in our community.

Are we doing it better? Even before I arrived in this place for the third time, I was watching how the companies producing our electricity were cleaning up their own act over these last few years. Even before this enormous breakout of climate change argument, these coal companies and electricity power generators were cleaning up their act, and doing it very well. Now government has responded through HRL and our partnerships overseas. We put in another $100 million the other day for a coal gasification plant that will hopefully reduce emissions by 30 per cent. We are heading in the right direction all the time. As the Prime Minister said today, it is a providential resource. It is the same in New South Wales and the same in Queensland. We have been blessed with this huge resource; we will not as a nation turn our backs on that competitive advantage. We cannot and we will not, on the altar of climate change, walk away from the families that are so well employed in these industries. We will not walk away from you.

What was good about the HRL announcement? You might say: ‘It’s another $100 million. Big announcement, but it doesn’t count; it’s just your reaction to climate change. It’s no big issue.’ I tell you what: for the first time I am talking about the future of the Latrobe Valley and not the past. We are talking about the future development of the coal industry here, and not the past. We are talking about future generations.

It was great, when you were here the other day, Mr Deputy Speaker Causley, and I was speaking in the House, to celebrate our heritage in the production of coal, in growing the Latrobe Valley, in growing the Hunter and—

Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And the Illawarra.

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

the Illawarra, celebrating the history of our steel and the things we did in the past. But now we are talking about electricity production, and I am talking about future jobs, future generations and future opportunities in Latrobe Valley. How long have I waited to be able to talk about the future!

When you have a company like HRL and its partners come in and they are prepared to produce a new power station—400 megawatts baseload—it is very important. This is not about renewables. I am supportive of renewables; we even have a power station in Latrobe Valley that runs on rubbish. There will be people out there listening to this address thinking that I am running on rubbish, but I will tell you what: I am not. I am serious.

This is our first opportunity to grow jobs in Latrobe Valley. It is an area that has been really knocked about by change and by privatisation in the past. And now what are we doing? We are grabbing hold of the future. Climate change should not just mean that we are going to be oppressive and against people, that we are going to pull things down and that we are going stop things happening. No, climate change for the whole of the parliament should be an opportunity to project ourselves forward and say, as is outlined in the Sustainable Cities strategy: ‘What opportunities does climate change present to us? Where can we as a nation go into the future while addressing climate change and taking the benefits of how we might change a building or how we might change the way we use water?’

Haven’t I suffered enough and told this House how farmers in Gippsland particularly have been suffering through this terrible, erroneous, gut-wrenching drought that we have had since 1997? It is not new; we have had it since 1997. I am sure I mentioned to the House that we have now had an interim EC declaration, which means it is in the whole of Victoria. Water is a crucial issue. In this argument about climate change, why can’t we develop those things where Australia benefits, like through this new power plant in Latrobe Valley? Surely we will now benefit because of the argument.

You could say, ‘It was going to happen anyway; there would be new power stations,’ and, yes, the power stations that are on line today will roll off. But there is one point I want to make, and that is that the Labor Party has aligned itself with the Greens and preferenced against me in every election campaign that I have been in. This time I am saying to them: if you go down the road of the Greens in Victoria—who want to close down the Hazelwood Power Station and who call it dirty, the worst emitter and all the names under the sun—and align yourself with those Greens who want to close down a power station that supplies 20 per cent of Victoria’s needs, of course the workers are going to vote for people like me who are protecting them. Of course the workers in Latrobe Valley are going to vote for people who put them, their families, their generation and their kids first. If you are going to align yourselves with the Greens, who want to close down the Hazelwood Power Station and put restrictions on all the other power stations, they are not going to vote for you. That is why there is no Labor seat from Pakenham to Cann River and to the border—because we sent the message: we are going to protect you, we are going to protect your families and we are going to protect your jobs. And if you do not do that in Illawarra, if you do not stand up as a local member and say, ‘Listen, I am on your side’—

Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about protecting the planet?

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

Well, you can protect the planet, but I tell you: these people are real, they are local, and didn’t we say, after all, ‘All politics is local’? (Time expired)

Peter Andren (Calare, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The previous speaker spoke of coal and our minerals being providential, and certainly they have to this point been such. I know that only too well, with the western coalfields being part of my electorate. If we can clean coal it may continue to be providential; if we cannot, we are in a very deep hole. The providential power supply, I would suggest, is above us shining every day, and that is solar. It is also the source of our problems. It is the reason for the drought and the reason for global warming. But in our solar potential we have the means already to harness that energy power baseload that the PM says cannot be delivered by anything other than coal or nuclear.

We heard recently the news of the report that was commissioned by the coal cooperative research centre. That was repressed for almost 12 months until Rosslyn Beeby of the Canberra Times did such good work and exposed the fact that that report had been sat on. Why? Because it demonstrated so clearly that solar thermal was capable within seven years of being cost competitive with coal if indeed we put in the right emissions caps. Indeed Exxon Mobil is now suggesting that a carbon tax is the most transparent way—quite separately from any carbon trading, which they and others believe is so mired in commercial imperatives and so non-transparent—of ensuring that we do put proper caps on our emissions.

Clean coal and nuclear, on which the Prime Minister keeps insisting, are not the clean energy options. Indeed neither are remotely clean or green at this point. We cannot shut down coal immediately, but we can make that transition. The answer is not expanding uranium mining, and we should totally reject nuclear power. There are other options; for instance, the geothermal option. A briefing of scientists last week in my office pointed out that geothermal is viable now as a baseload supply and is located adjacent to our current mining areas right throughout this country. You could begin the transition from fossil fuel to at least a supplementary production of energy, given that we are not sure in any way that the clean coal technology and carbon sequestration is going to deliver us an option. What if we get to that point where it does not work and we have done nothing in the meantime to allow for any transition from coal to anything else?

We should not just jump into the nuclear option as the Prime Minister suggests that we should. Quite apart from everything else, there are enormous costs. The previous speaker spoke about the cost to our economy and the cost to our nation. The cost of the nuclear option around the world is one that is hugely supplemented from the public purse. There is no will from the private financial markets to support it in any significant way. We are told that solar thermal, for one, could be cost competitive with coal, especially with an emissions tax—which Exxon Mobil now supports. The PM answered the question I asked him about geothermal and solar thermal energy a couple of weeks ago by saying that all options are on the table. They are not. Massive investment is needed in solar, wind and geothermal. The kids of coalminers should be working in new, alternative energy developed alongside the existing mines.

The forward-thinking union officials whom I have spoken with in Lithgow and other places believe we must be moving down this path. On the rural front, we need to get far more serious about biofuels. Our targets for ethanol are voluntary; they should be mandated. Research by Malcolm Wegener from the University of Queensland, who met me this morning, says that the sugar industry can include cogeneration of electricity and the potential for bioplastics. What a massive environmental plus that would be if only we were serious about getting this industry up and running. (Time expired)

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take pleasure in joining the member for Wentworth and the member for McMillan in pushing the government’s case in this matter of public importance. Labor knows that ratifying the Kyoto protocol will not achieve anything in itself. Signing a piece of paper will not magically reduce carbon emissions, but what it will do in this country—and you heard the member for McMillan say what it would do to his electorate—is dramatically cut jobs in towns like Gladstone, in my electorate; Mackay; Blackwater; Biloela; Emerald; and in fact in the whole Central Queensland area.

Let me sketch an outline for you of what it would do in my area. Industries would pack up and move offshore. Thousands of jobs would be lost from the Central Queensland region, which is currently experiencing a boom. Families would be paying at least twice what they are paying now for their electricity, and fuel prices would go through the roof. The average Gladstone family could expect at least one job from each household to be lost, while the cost of essentials like power and fuel, as I said before, will skyrocket—all because the opposition wants this no-brainer, easy-sell, quick-fix solution to change, with a choke hold around the Central Queensland coal industry as the one and only benefit.

Bear in mind that the aluminium industry, and potentially the magnesium and nickel industries which may come to Gladstone in the near future, depends heavily on cheap coal-fired power. Central Queensland and Gladstone’s advantage is cheap coal-fired power. Destroy that and you destroy all the industries that are downstream from that. I noticed the member for Richmond in here before. This debate should be a salutary lesson to her, and I hope she is listening to this in her suite. Has she told the people of Richmond, for example, that wind energy, which a lot of her constituents favour, is four times more expensive than coal or that solar is six times more expensive than coal? Is she going to tell her constituents that we should be putting wind turbines on St Helena, west of Byron Bay? Or is she going to do what I have done: settle down and tell them truthfully face-to-face the consequences of what is going to happen if we do not do these things?

This is not speculation; it is straight out of the mouth of the opposition environment spokesman, the person who led this debate today. He is on the record as saying:

The coal industry needs to understand, and I think it does understand, that the automatic expression of the coal industry such as we have seen in the past, is a thing of the past.

I do not think the people of Gladstone would like to hear that. What about all the people down the line from the Surat Basin, where there are somewhere between six and nine coal mines? What about the Premier of Queensland, who has pledged to defend the Central Queensland coal industry? What about the Premier of Queensland, who has promised a railway line from Gladstone down to Toowoomba? All these things are at risk if you follow Labor’s line. Even former Queensland Labor Treasurer Keith DeLacey has come out against the opposition’s irresponsible policies by saying that they would ‘inflict enormous and unnecessary pain not only on the coal industry but on the entire economy’.

The second piece of scandalous Labor policy is their proposition to have a mandatory cut in emissions of 60 per cent. That is a massive cut and it would come at a massive cost. In fact, if Australia were to cease all economic activity, our global greenhouse gas emissions would drop by less than 0.1 of one per cent, and that would be replaced by outputs in China within 10 months.

So, before we start putting our hands on our chests and saying that we are going to follow this, let us have a good think about it. We should be working toward sequestration of gases, and we should be telling the people of Central Queensland the truth: we should be telling them that overseas countries that have ratified the treaty are not meeting their targets, and we should be telling them that the nonsense that Kim Beazley preached when he was in Gladstone— (Time expired)

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

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