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 government’s failure, over eleven years, to take genuine action to address climate change.

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

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

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

This government, across all its tiers and factions, from the Prime Minister down, lacks the expertise and the conviction to take serious action on climate change. When it comes to climate change, we have seen a whole-of-government failure across the whole front bench. I ask the House: what has the Treasurer ever done to address climate change? Eleven federal budgets have not once mentioned climate change. I ask the House: what about the foreign minister mocking, first, Kyoto and then, this year, calling aspirational targets a political stunt? I ask the House: what about the Minister for Environment and Water Resources opposite?—many words but very little action. And, of course, senior figures across the government and a number of backbenchers believe, incredibly, that humans are not causing climate change at all.

This is a tired government—a government with only enough energy and ideas to protect its back; a government which, when it comes to addressing climate change, has shown itself incapable of rising to the challenge.

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

This is the same song.

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

This is summed up by the Treasurer’s comment on 25 July—I invite the minister, who is making comments across the dispatch box, to listen to this—when he said, ‘I am focused on the election and not much else.’ This government sniffed the electorate mood and decided to dress itself in a climate change makeover. But the cracks constantly appear in the makeover. The most recent breakout is a report from the members for Solomon, Tangney, Hughes and Lindsay who said, amongst other things:

Another problem with the view that it is anthropogenic greenhouse gases that have caused warming is that warming has also been observed on Mars, Jupiter, Triton, Pluto, Neptune and others.

This report from these government members, in an age when climate change is a recognised significant issue, will go down as one of the most incredible and remarkable pieces of fanciful reporting in this parliament. Climate change is about other generations; it is not about other planets. Back here on planet Earth we see a government that literally wants to blame everyone for its lack of action on climate change, and whose constant refrain, and the refrain from the minister, is that developing countries need to get on board when we ourselves refuse to take the climate change express. It is the coalition script, and it is becoming very familiar to us. Listen to the routine:

Climate change is a serious issue. It is a global problem and the solution will also have to be global. The cost of adjustment must be distributed fairly evenly among developing economies as well as developed ones. We have a comprehensive national response to limit our greenhouse gas emissions.

That was the Prime Minister speaking on 28 August 1996. Eleven years later the language is still the same but the challenge of climate change, such as the ongoing melting of the west Antarctic iceshelf, is even more pressing. From a public forum on global warming organised by the Australian Financial Review comes this quote:

... the growing international recognition of Australia’s efforts to combat global warming and an acknowledgement that we quickly become a world leader in developing the innovative domestic actions needed to deliver a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

Sound familiar? The Minister for the Environment and Water Resources opposite is prone to using the expressions ‘leader’ and ‘world leader’ when he talks about the Howard government and climate change. In fact, in the House during a recent matter of public importance he managed to use the term ‘world leader’ 10 times. I will come back to that in a minute. The speaker in question here is actually the former environment minister once removed, Senator Hill, speaking some seven years ago.

With the Howard government the song remains the same. These are junk words; they are not worth the paper that they are written on. Speaking on 24 May 2007, Minister Turnbull produced 10 ‘leading the world’ quotes in one MPI. For example, he said:

The Australian government is leading the world in climate change policies.

I remind the minister that Australia is actually ranked 14th in the latest Ernst & Young renewable energy country attractiveness index. That is based on a score for our national renewable energy market and it puts us behind countries that include Canada, Greece and Ireland. As Australians would know, we are the sunniest continent on earth. There is nowhere better suited for solar power, yet we are ranked 14th in the world on renewables, behind the United Kingdom—not the sunniest place on earth—which is in fifth place.

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

Is their power from solar, by the way?

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

Order! The member for Flinders!

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

There are 174 countries heading in one direction who have ratified the Kyoto protocol and there is Australia heading in the opposite direction. The minister said in that same MPI:

We are leading the world on energy efficiency.

The National Framework on Energy Efficiency was established in 2004. There has been very little action since. The lights are off; no-one is home. We do not lead on energy efficiency in cars; we do not lead in planes; we do not lead in kitting out our homes; we do not lead in commercial buildings or in virtually any other area. The minister said:

We have also been a world leader in changing the standards for stand-by power ...

Will the government now support Labor’s policy of a 10-star appliance rating system and greenhouse and energy minimum standards?

When the cliches fail to take root—and after 11 years of recycled lines and cliches it is not surprising that they have not taken root—then the government simply goes for spin. The recent APEC meeting is a very good case in point. Labor welcomed the APEC deliberations. We welcomed the attention given to climate change, but careful scrutiny of the declaration reveals that, again, the action and the words produced by the Prime Minister and the government do not match what was agreed at APEC itself. The Prime Minister claims that the APEC Sydney declaration was an important milestone. That is very wide of the mark. In fact, the Prime Minister set his own benchmark for the APEC meeting when he said:

The Sydney Summit will be one of the most important international gatherings of Leaders to discuss climate change since the 1992 Rio Conference.

But, at the end of the day, there was no substantial international agreement. The result fell well short of the Prime Minister’s hype.

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

Mr Hunt interjecting

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

The member for Flinders will have an opportunity if he is lucky.

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

He may not get many more opportunities.

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

We do not need any contribution from the member for Kingsford Smith either.

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

In fact, the declaration reads:

We agree to work to achieve a common understanding on a long-term aspirational global emissions ... goal ...

Under the Howard government and with the Prime Minister’s extremely clever and cunning use of words, the agreement to achieve a common understanding—the agreement to look at something—has actually become the agreement on the need for a ‘long-term aspirational global emissions reduction goal’. The Prime Minister repeated it in question time today. Doubtless he will repeat it again. But no such agreement was made.

At the most recent United Nations climate change meeting in Geneva, one very similar agreement was made—one, incidentally, which set a figure for emissions reductions. That is something which the Sydney declaration did not do. China was present at this Geneva meeting and it was agreed that global emissions of greenhouse gases need to peak in the next 10 to 15 years and be reduced to very low levels, well below half the levels in 2000, by the middle of the 21st century. The Sydney declaration, instead, was high on aspiration but low on delivery.

Additionally, at the G8 meeting earlier this year we had the UK, the US, China, Russia, Canada, Japan and other countries—and the Plus Five group—reiterating the need to engage major emitting economies on how best to address the challenge of climate change, to continue to meet with high-level representatives of these and other major energy consuming and greenhouse gas emitting countries and to consider the necessary components for successfully combating climate change. The dialogue will support the UN climate process and report back to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

That was the rub in the Sydney declaration, and the minister and others opposite well know it. What was clear and what came out of the Sydney declaration was that it is the UNFCCC that will be the pathway by which a global emissions treaty is negotiated. The Prime Minister was at pains to lessen the anticipation of that and has spoken disparagingly about it in the past. But, in fact, that was the case, and it was made very clear by the Chinese Premier on a number of occasions.

We had the so-called aspirational goals, the aspirational targets that the foreign affairs minister says is code for a political stunt. What hypocrisy! Labor has said all along that we ought to have targets here and we ought to support targets globally. That is the pathway to reducing emissions internationally. The countries of the world and the people of Australian know it. We are in good company. The Australian Business Roundtable on Climate Change has shown that a 60 per cent cut in emissions can be achieved without strong impacts on economic growth —in fact, whilst maintaining economic growth. News Ltd has set a target of being carbon neutral by 2010. Recently the Australian Business and Climate Group, BP, Rio Tinto, Anglo Coal, Santos and many others stated a long-term aspirational goal for reducing greenhouse gases is essential. It cannot be any clearer. Neither can the support from major corporate bodies in this country be any clearer. Yet still the minister and the Prime Minister on the other side of the House push the government line that to have an aspirational target or a target of any kind for this country would be damaging to our economy.

We have said all along that UNFCCC and building on the Kyoto protocol was the right path, and in fact the Sydney declaration confirms this. The government has forgotten, I think, that it actually did once have a target, and I am looking forward to the minister confirming this. I wonder if he is aware of the Liberal Party’s 1989 document A fair go for the environment, which was signed off by Andrew Peacock. I refer to the Senate Hansard of 6 December 1989 and a speech by Chris Puplick, who said:

Let me remind you, Mr Acting Deputy President, that it was the commitment given by the coalition parties to work for a 20 per cent targeted reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2000 ...

Eighteen long years later we are faced with the charade on the other side of the House. The government is running a line that Australia should not have a target to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Where are we heading when the government is so tired and is forced into such contortions that it cannot do anything other than defend the lack of a target here in Australia, which is Labor policy, and promote the idea of a target in other parts of the world?

Here is an inconvenient truth: during this term of parliament alone the Howard government will spend about the same amount on advertising—about $850 million—as it has on climate change since 1996, about $867 million. That is called spending priorities and recognising the importance of an issue like climate change! The greenhouse gas emissions in the minister’s own department have risen by some 14 per cent. They are not my words; they are the figures from the minister’s department’s annual report. Then there is the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, the AP6. On closer examination, the AP6 really appears to be an AP2. There is barely any money committed to it and it is a drop in the ocean compared with the Kyoto $6 billion generated under the clean development mechanism that the minister likes to constantly criticise. Some $2 million has been spent and most of it, it seems, on administration.

The absolute bare truth in the climate change debate is simply this: the Howard government has had 11 years to take resolute action on climate change and it has done no such thing. It denies, it runs sceptical lines and then it tries spin. The fact is that it has spent millions—not billions—on climate change. It has spent less than 0.05 per cent of the annual federal budget. That is about $5 a year for every man, woman and child in Australia.

The government’s problems on climate change are systemic. They cannot bring themselves to accept that we should ratify Kyoto and sit at the table and influence the negotia-tions. They cannot bring themselves to accept that a target is a perfectly reasonable public policy position to have. And some of them cannot bring themselves to accept the fact that, yes, we have created green-house gas emissions that are contributing to global warming and that global warming will produce significant impacts on our economy, our environment and our society. We need to take some responsibility for this right here in Australia right now in 2007. That is the bottom line in this debate.

I advise the House that Labor is ready, willing and able to tackle dangerous climate change. There are things a Rudd Labor government would do. We would restore Australia’s international leadership on climate change, immediately ratify Kyoto and provide $150 million within the aid budget to assist our Pacific neighbours to adapt to climate change. We would develop a carbon market and reform our institutions. We would lead by example. We would drive a clean energy renewable revolution. We would increase the mandatory renewable energy target, now languishing under this government—the renewable industry has to go overseas. We would be fair dinkum about climate change. We would meet the climate change challenge—something that a tired, 11-year-old Howard government has no possibility whatsoever of doing.

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

That was yet again another rant from the parallel universe occupied by the member for Kingsford Smith, one in which he gives the House one misrepresentation, one falsehood, after another—for example, the proposition that the government has said ‘targets of any kind are damaging’. How absurd. We are working towards a target right now—our Kyoto target, which is 108 per cent of 1990 emissions. That is a target and we are committed to it and we are on track to meet it. The reality is that we are on track to meet it whereas many countries that have ratified Kyoto will miss their Kyoto targets, and by very large margins.

We have been delighted today by an address from the Prime Minister of Canada, Mr Harper. The Canadian government, at best estimates today, is likely to miss its Kyoto target from its own domestic actions by around 40 per cent. Our harshest critics in the Climate Institute suggest we may miss our Kyoto target by one or two per cent. We will not miss it; we will meet it. But that gives you the scale of the divergence between us. This is the parallel universe that the member for Kingsford Smith lives in. He berates Australia, runs down his own country—a nation which is going to meet its Kyoto target, which is on track to meet it, through its own domestic efforts—and extols countries that are going to miss their targets by very wide margins. The Canadian government recently estimated that the cost of domestic action to purchase international credits to comply with its Kyoto obligations would produce a crash in GDP of 6½ per cent, with a one-year net loss of national economic activity in the range of $Can51 billion in 2008. New Zealand, a much smaller economy, is also going to miss its target by domestic measures alone, and its Treasury estimates the cost of purchasing credits at $NZ567 million. Let us not kid ourselves—we have committed ourselves to a target, we are on track to meet it. Most countries that have ratified Kyoto will not meet their targets.

The member for Kingsford Smith was scornful of what was achieved at APEC. The member for Kingsford Smith’s approach to the international climate change negotiations is not only dangerous and ill informed; it is manifestly contrary to Australia’s best interest. The reality is that there has been a divergence between the developed countries, known in the Kyoto protocol language as annex 1 countries, and the developing countries, which include a number of industrial giants like China, India, South Korea, Singapore and all of the Middle East—so it includes a wide range of countries—which collectively account for the bulk of global emissions.

But more importantly they account for the vast bulk of the growth in emissions—and the divergence is that, in Kyoto, there is an assumption that the obligation to reduce emissions will only fall on developed countries, annex 1 countries. It is stated in the protocol that in subsequent commitment periods—that is, after the commitment period of 2008-12—only the annex 1 countries will bear obligations. The melancholy truth—be it convenient or inconvenient, I know not; but it is true—is that we cannot achieve the massive reductions that we need in global greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century unless there is action from all of the emitting countries, certainly all of the major emitting countries. If we were to proceed on the basis that China and India do not have to make any reductions in emissions, do not have to make any commitments to reduce emissions and do not have to set any goals of their own in the next commitment period, we simply will not get there.

There is a very good table in the emissions trading task group report which shows very graphically what the result would be of the developed world reducing its emissions by 2050 by 50 per cent—which would be a very significant reduction, I am sure everyone would agree—but with the developing world continuing business as usual. That would result in total global emissions being around twice what they are today. As we know, most scientists are calling for a reduction in emissions to 50 per cent or thereabouts of 1990 levels by 2050—hence the Japanese target of 50 per cent by 2050, which was echoed and supported by the Canadians and, of course, was commented on favourably in the G8 communique and referred to in the Sydney declaration.

The breakthrough that occurred in Sydney—and it was a vital breakthrough—was that, for the first time, developing countries, in particular China, agreed that they would work towards a long-term global emissions reduction goal. There has been enormous resistance to that effort to date. This is the first time that has been achieved. But the vital part is that, once you agree on a global goal—take your pick: 50 per cent by 2050 or the Japanese target if you like—then it follows as night follows day that the developing world, in particular the big industrial developing countries like China and India, will have to make reductions. In other words, you have taken the first step to getting real about an environmentally effective reduction in global emissions. Of course, the problem with Kyoto—and it is typical of the member for Kingsford Smith, who is so obsessed with spin and sloganising, that he regards Kyoto as a sacrament, not an international treaty—

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

Just ratify it!

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

He says, ‘Just ratify it.’ He has never read it. The problem with Kyoto is that it does not provide an environmentally effective outcome. Kyoto may be amended, and we hope it will be. We will be part of that. We want to amend Kyoto. We want to have an environmentally effective treaty. But the treaty we have at the moment is not environmentally effective, and that is demonstrated by the fact that its achievement will be a reduction not in the total amount of emissions but in the growth of emissions—from 41 per cent over the period to 40 per cent. That is what Kyoto will achieve. It has not worked. You can say it was a first attempt, you can give it points for trying, but we have to do so much better than that—and what we have achieved with the Sydney declaration is the first big step. We will roll on from this meeting in Sydney to the meeting in Washington, where we will have the biggest emitters in the world together—the top 15 emitters, who represent 85-odd per cent of global emissions. What is the commitment there? What is the aim there—and, of course, that has been made a lot easier thanks to the Sydney declaration: the aim is to work towards a global goal and then, having done that, work towards agreement on who is going to do what and how we are going to make it all stack up. Reaching that realisation is so important; without it, we cannot achieve the massive industrial and technological transformation that we need to achieve a reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions.

The honourable member for Kingsford Smith claims the government has done nothing. He keeps on saying we have done nothing. But let us look at some of the things we have done. We will meet our Kyoto target; most of the countries that have ratified Kyoto will not. What about forestry? The Global Initiative on Forests and Climate has put the forestry agenda at the top of the climate change debate for the first time. Deforestation in general and avoided deforestation in particular had been almost entirely negotiated in the Kyoto protocol process and widely acknowledged as being a failing of Kyoto. It is Australia that has led the way in putting that on top of the agenda. Thanks to our cooperation with Brazil, Indonesia, the US, Japan and many other countries around the world, we know that when we come to Bali we will have a new international arrangement which will ensure that forestry is treated properly.

Why is forestry so important? Global emissions from deforestation account for 20 per cent of total emissions. If we reforest we can do something about it now. We can take action right here, right now. We do not have to wait for the development of new technologies. The technology we need, we have. We are setting up a global system of forest and carbon monitoring which will work with like-minded countries around the world. What will that enable us to do? It will enable us to connect for the first time the vast pools of money, the billions of dollars, available for carbon dioxide abatement with sustainable forestry practices in the developing world.

There is a very good example of that in the Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership, which the Minister for Foreign Affairs and his Indonesian counterpart signed, and the President of Indonesia and I witnessed the signing of, in Sydney on Sunday. That initiative will result in the abatement of 700 million tonnes of CO emissions—more than our total emissions—through preserving 70,000 hectares of Indonesian peat land forests, reflooding 200,000 hectares of dried peat land and planting up to 100 million new trees on rehabilitated peat land. That is practical action on the ground.

This global initiative on forestry is a world-leading effort. It can be described in no other way, other than by the member for Kingsford Smith, who, when it was announced, sneered and said, ‘It’s a modest effort.’ That is one world-leading effort, without any question. In his contribution, the member for Kingsford Smith talked about energy efficiency. No doubt because he had to rush into the chamber and could not get all his notes together, he lost the page that referred to Australia being the first country in the world to move to phase out inefficient incandescent lighting. That has been a high priority for everybody committed to energy efficiency for some time. But it took Australia to take the leadership and move to phase out inefficient lighting. Australia was the first country in the world to do it. That was not mentioned by the member for Kingsford Smith. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story—that is his motto.

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

Europe and America are going to follow you.

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

We are being followed around the world, and the phase-out of incandescent lighting is called the Australian lighting initiative. If that is not leadership, what is? 

Let me go to one further area of international leadership. I have talked about forestry, I have talked about energy efficiency and I have talked about the Sydney declaration, making that enormous breakthrough where we get China, the biggest country in the world and certainly the largest emitter in the world, agreeing to work towards setting a global goal. That is an incredible breakthrough, a vital breakthrough. We know that energy efficiency will deliver great results. We know that forestry should—if we are able to make it all happen on a large enough scale—deliver considerable abatement. But longer term we know that we have to have a world where all or almost all of our energy comes from zero-emissions sources. Whichever way you slice or dice the figures, we know that by 2050 our goal should be to have all of our electricity and most of our terrestrial transport energy at least coming from zero-emissions sources, be it clean coal, be it renewables, be it geothermal, be it nuclear—whatever it is—and it will be different all around the world. Every country will have a different mix and a different range of solutions. Those solutions and those technologies are canvassed in our paper in the Sydney declaration. We are leading the way in the most critical of those technologies. There is none more critical than clean coal.

I am very devoted to solar energy, and I notice the member for Kingsford Smith is always very keen on it. I have many solar panels in my own house. The government has doubled the solar rebate. We are funding the largest solar power station in the world at Mildura. So at every level the government is very committed to solar. But we know and the world knows and the International Energy Agency knows that the biggest technological contributor to a reduction in CO emissions is likely to be clean coal. Why is that? Coal is a widespread, cheap fuel. Countries like China and India have massive resources of their own. They will be using it for a very long time. We are the world leader in developing clean coal technology. And, above all, we are working closely and creatively with the Chinese government. The CSIRO is establishing, in partnership with the Chinese government, a post-combustion capture and storage plant outside Beijing. This is the key to the puzzle. If we are able to retrofit every coal-fired power station in China with post-combustion capture and storage, we will have made an enormous contribution to a cleaner world. (Time expired)

Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It seems yet again today we have heard the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources talk a lot about leadership. Again and again he talked about that. When it comes to issues relating to the environment, just do it, Minister: ratify Kyoto. You could have saved us 15 minutes. You could have got up and said: ‘That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to ratify Kyoto.’ That is what we have been saying for a long time. That is what we want to hear—not constant waffling about leadership, Minister.

I fully support the member for Kingsford Smith’s remarks regarding the Howard government’s 11 years of inaction on climate change. There is no doubt—and it is something that we on this side of the chamber have long acknowledged—that climate change is one of the greatest challenges that we face as a nation. Federal Labor has long believed that climate change is not just an environmental issue; indeed, it is at the core of the challenges we face to secure Australia’s future prosperity and job security. The fact is that, without a comprehensive plan to tackle climate change, this country does not have a comprehensive plan for our future. It is that simple. It is that straightforward. But this is an issue that the Howard government do not understand or want to understand. They are not focused on the major challenges that we confront as a nation. The time for debate is over and the time for spin that we hear from the government is over. What is left now is action. That is what a Rudd Labor government will deliver—action on climate change.

The Howard government has walked away from so many of its responsibilities. One of the greatest examples of this is the government’s lack of responsibility and lack of action over the past 11 years in relation to climate change. The fact is that both the Liberal and National parties have never been serious about climate change. They have always been climate change sceptics and in total denial about the very urgent need for action in relation to climate change. Those that sit opposite have in fact sat on their hands to the extent that they have often ignored the issue or indeed attacked those who are prepared to stand up and say, ‘We demand action; we need to have it.’ While the need for real action, for real leadership, has become obvious to even the biggest sceptics, this current government has still done nothing.

Throughout this country, people are extremely concerned about the effects of climate change, whether it be at a local, national or international level. Their concerns are both environmental and economic. We as a nation need to do more, and Australians deserve leadership from their federal government on this issue. It is often quite hard to believe that many years ago Australia was a leading international voice on the environment and the threat of climate change. It is hard to believe that many years ago we had an international reputation envied around the world. Federal Labor is committed to restoring our international credibility on this issue. A Rudd Labor government will immediately ratify the Kyoto protocol because we understand how important it is. As we saw recently at the APEC summit, Chinese Premier Hu said that the Kyoto protocol is ‘the most authoritative, universal and comprehensive international framework’ for tackling climate change. This begs the question: why has the current Australian government not come to the same conclusion?

Why have they not reached that point? The simple truth of the matter is that, despite their very recent public posturing and the many statements made today by the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, the Howard government still do not take the threat of climate change seriously—and their scepticism will be to the detriment of our future generations. If the Howard government truly took this issue seriously, we would have seen action. We would have seen them ratifying Kyoto, setting emissions targets and actually having the decency and honesty to admit that they were wrong to be sceptical of the science of climate change to begin with.

It is only now that the Howard government have started talking a little bit about climate change, and they are doing it now because everybody else in the country has been talking about it for years, and they are talking about it louder and louder, right throughout the nation. So it has suddenly dawned on the Howard government that this is a major issue. Indeed, this is a major issue in this year’s federal election, so now the government are starting to talk about it a little bit. But the true mark of this government and their attitude towards climate change is not the very recent public statements we have heard; their true attitude is that of the past 11 years when we saw nothing.

There were no words and no action—just derision and ridicule for all those in the community who have long taken the threat of climate change very seriously. As evidence of this attitude, we need to look no further than the recent dissenting report from Howard government members expressing scepticism about the science of climate change which was presented to parliament merely weeks ago. These government members exposed exactly what their leader believes: that climate change has no basis in fact and that no attention should be paid to dealing with this issue.

The only solution we have seen from this government is a plan for 25 nuclear reactors across the country to be operational in 15 years time. We on this side of the chamber, as well as the Australian public, know that if your only plan for climate change will come online in 15 years time then you do not have a plan at all. That is the reality of it. Of course, federal Labor is totally opposed to the building of nuclear power plants anywhere in this country.

Let us have a look at what we have got from this government. We have seen no real, serious attempts at renewable sources of energy, no serious attempts to provide incentives to businesses, no serious investment in future technologies. We have not seen anything serious from them at all. Federal Labor has long acknowledged that the cost of inaction far outweighs the cost of action when it comes to climate change. It is vitally important that we see this action not just from an environmental view but also from an economic one, because this inaction really does endanger our future prosperity and our job creation capacity. The longer we delay our action, the more it will cost us.

This is of great concern to many people in my electorate of Richmond for a whole variety of reasons, one of which is the huge tourism industry, which I will come to in a minute. The potential of rising sea levels due to the lack of action on climate change is a major threat to our entire coastal region, associated businesses and our local economy. With the real threat of rising sea levels, many locals are rightly concerned about the future existence of any coastal areas at all. In the electorate of Richmond, from Tweed Heads to Lennox Head, the worry for many people is that our region will not exist and will be lost to the sea in future years.

Indeed, Mr Deputy Speaker Causley, your electorate of Page and the neighbouring areas are in a beautiful coastal region of our country. I know many people there have expressed similar concerns about whether that will indeed be lost to the sea as well. I echo the words of my colleague the member for Hindmarsh who, when speaking in this House not long ago about his concerns about rising sea levels and the effect on his area, said that it is one thing to lose your seat to your opponent, but it would be horrendous to lose it to the sea. That certainly is a sentiment that is echoed in my electorate.

Within our nation, our tourism industry alone employs more than half a million Australians. That is a huge amount. As I have said, in my electorate of Richmond, many people are concerned about the costs of inaction. Over 1.5 million people visit Byron Bay per year. That is what sustains the local economy around that area. So there are concerns about rising sea levels and a concern that many people raise with me, which is that of the migratory patterns of whales being less predictable due to changing sea temperatures. That is an issue that people raise with me all the time and, again, it is directly related to many years of inaction by the Howard government when it comes to climate change.

As I said, many locals approach me. I have had many environmental forums in my electorate and I speak to locals all the time. The issue that they raise is climate change. They want to see actions taken for the future of our region, our country and internationally—and that is exactly what a Rudd Labor government will provide. As well as immediately ratifying Kyoto, federal Labor will offer Australian families $10,000 interest-free loans for solar panels, water tanks, and investing in clean, renewable energy such as wind, solar and geothermal technologies. Very importantly, federal Labor will develop an emissions trading scheme to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent by 2050.

We need to move beyond the aspirational targets in the Sydney declaration that came out of APEC. We need to move to practical national and global targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As we have heard, the Prime Minister’s own foreign minister has made remarks about aspirational targets just being a code for a political stunt. The future of our country and our planet needs and deserves a lot better than just political stunts. When the foreign minister speaks of aspirational targets, I, all of us on this side of the House and most Australians understand what that means. It means that the government are, yet again, doing nothing. That is what we have seen time and time again.

In 2006 we saw the wide-ranging effects of climate change in the Stern report. What did the government do in the face of all of that evidence? Yet again, it did nothing. Climate change threatens our tourism industry and our agricultural industry as well. Those two industries combined bring in about $50 billion in export earnings each year, so the economic effects as well as the environmental effects will be absolutely disastrous if we do not see some real action on climate change.

When it comes down to it, the fact is that we desperately need to act now—immed-iately. And the only way that that is going to happen is with Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister. Then—and only then—will Australia have a Prime Minister who understands climate change, acknowledges climate change and is committed to addressing climate change. And only under a Rudd Labor government will we have a Prime Minister who will act decisively on the massive environmental challenge that climate change poses for us.

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

Climate change is real. It is significant and it is profound. But if you were the Leader of the Opposition and you were speaking to the leader of the free world, believing that this was an important issue and, in your own words, ‘one of the great moral issues’, would you imagine that you might raise climate change—just once—with the American President? In a 45-minute meeting—three-quarters of an hour—and with the chance to range across the great issues of the world, the chance to prove his mettle and with such an important issue, the head of the Labor Party in this parliament could not even raise it with President Bush.

If I am wrong, come in and deny it: that is the message to the Leader of the Opposition. If I am wrong, let the member for Kingsford Smith come in and deny that, faced with the chance to raise climate change directly with President Bush during negotiations on one of the most important international agreements on this topic, the Leader of the Opposition said nothing. If you want to know the difference between John Howard as Prime Minister and Kevin Rudd it is this: John Howard would never, ever have squibbed the chance to raise something important in such an important meeting, and the Leader of the Opposition squibbed it. He had a chance to raise climate change. It was so important to him that he spent all his time talking about what a great job the ALP had done in creating the alliance with the US.

It is slightly absurd when the opposition pretend that they believe this is an important issue and the very person who aspires to be the leader of this country does not have the courage to raise it with the leader of the free world. It was a golden opportunity at a golden time. Maybe he forgot, maybe it was a case of being too drunk to remember, but my feeling is that on this occasion he was absolutely sober. What happened? He did not raise climate change with the leader of the free world. The challenge is here: come in and deny it and say expressly and clearly that in the 45-minute meeting the Leader of the Opposition did raise climate change. He has not done that; he has lost that opportunity. He had a unique chance to do so. He had an opportunity to let every member of the ALP know that their leader cared so much about this issue but he could not even be bothered, or did not have the courage, to raise it with President Bush when given a unique opportunity to do so. This is about leadership; it is also about leaders, because you would never, ever see John Howard squib or miss a fundamentally important opportunity such as this, but we saw Kevin Rudd falter at a critical moment.

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

The member will refer to members by their title.

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

The Leader of the Opposition failed to deal with the issue and failed to take steps when he had a chance. What I want to do is compare the three great silences on the opposition side on this issue with the three great practical and international steps which this government has taken. Firstly, I mentioned the failure by the Leader of the Opposition to deal with President Bush. Secondly, there has been a total silence from the member for Kingsford Smith on one of the great challenges—that is, the growth of emissions in the developing world. We have a profound responsibility in the developed world, but emissions in the developing world are far and away the source of growth of emissions in our world today. If you want to solve the problem, you have to deal with that. We have at the moment from Europe the leakage of carbon from aluminium, steel or cement going to the Middle East, China, India or other sources of alternative production, because they are currently excluded from any obligations under the existing international regime. The result is that the very idea which they seek to promote is being undercut by a fundamental flaw in a mechanism. That is a silence which has been propounded by our friends in the opposition.

The third silence relates to the slaughter of global rainforests which comes about from a perverse incentive under the Kyoto system. Let us hear now from the member for Adelaide whether she thinks it is acceptable that this slaughter of global rainforests continues, with the emission of eight billion tonnes of CO a year, or six billion tonnes of CO once you factor in reforestation, because that is a direct consequence of the system which the member for Adelaide, the member for Kingsford Smith and the Leader of the Opposition support. We think there is a fundamental flaw and that this slaughter of global rainforests is not something which is worthwhile or acceptable. It is something which we have moved to address but which they will see propounded, extended and carried on.

Against that background, what have we as a government sought to do? There have been three great actions. The first and most recent is the Sydney declaration. The Sydney declaration is no minor activity. It brings together China, Russia, the United States, Indonesia, Japan, Canada, as well as Australia—13 developing countries in all. Most fundamentally, it recognises not just the need for a global aspirational target—in other words, something towards which we will all work—but the role of all parties in working to achieve that. So the developing world are acknowledging—China and others—that they too have responsibilities to achieve this outcome, and to do it together with the United States is fundamentally important. What was created in Sydney was one of the two indispensable foundation stones for a new global agreement. I repeat: it was one of the two indispensable foundation stones for a new global agreement.

There are currently 40 billion tonnes of CO emitted every year. Australia emits about 560 million of those tonnes, or 1.4 to 1.5 per cent. Without a global agreement which brings in the developing world, the United States and the developed world, all actions we take at home are irrelevant. They are necessary but they will be irrelevant without that agreement. The Sydney declaration provides one of the two foundation stones. First, there has been the partnership between the US and Europe which was formed at Heiligendamm during the G8 meeting in Germany. Second, there had to be a precursor agreement between the US and the Asia-Pacific, China in particular, and there could never be a global agreement without that foundation stone. That is what the Prime Minister, the foreign minister, the Australian negotiators and the minister for the environment all worked towards. They worked assiduously and they knew that there would be no global outcome without this second foundation stone. That is what Sydney represents—nothing less than one of the two indispensable foundation stones for a great global agreement. Without this, there will be no further outcome, so it is a fundamental step along the way.

The second of the great achievements we have had along the way concerns forests. Australia has put reforestation and the ending of deforestation on the international scene in a way that no other developed country has. We put together the Global Initiative on Forests and Climate. We put together the $200 million deposit, which is Australia’s initial contribution. We announced on the weekend a $100 million overall partnership, of which we are initially putting in $30 million aimed at working towards 700 million tonnes of CO capture and abatement of CO emissions in Kalimantan on the island of Borneo, Indonesia. This one project alone will save more than a year’s worth of Australia’s emissions. It is good for biodiversity in Indonesia, it is good for the communities in Kalimantan and it is fundamental to savings of CO. How many other countries in the world have put together a project that does that. But that pales into insignificance compared with the declaration about reforestation contained within the Sydney declaration—1.4 billion tonnes of carbon, over five billion tonnes of CO.

When you look at the difference between the two sides, what you see is a failure to even raise the issue with President Bush, a failure to speak up on the destruction of the rainforest and all of the CO that comes from that—eight billion tonnes a year or six billion tonnes net—compared with leading the world and laying one of the foundation stones in relation to the Sydney declaration, which is a precursor to a great global agreement; the most profound and significant action in preserving rainforest in Kalimantan; and, leading and putting together a global initiative on forests and climate that will be the precursor to saving up to half of the world’s three billion tonnes a year of CO. For those reasons we are proud of our record. (Time expired)

Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to support the matter of public importance introduced by the member for Kingsford Smith. I recognise the government’s failure over 11 years to take genuine action to address climate change. Federal Labor has repeatedly called for this government to take climate change seriously and to show leadership in the fight against global warming. Yet, after 11 years, it is clear that this government has failed to get the message. In fact, it is becoming increasingly clear that this government either does not believe in climate change or does not see it as being important at all. There is growing evidence that the Liberal Party as a whole does not see this issue as being important or does not believe in it at all, a fact that was demonstrated several weeks ago when we saw the dissenting report from some of the Liberal backbenchers disputing whether or not climate change was an important issue. And it is a fact that I again had a chance to see in my local area just last week.

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

Do you think Mr Rudd should have raised it with Bush?

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

Order! The parliamentary secretary had his opportunity to speak.

Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A local debate was organised last week so that residents of my electorate could come out to hear what their candidates thought about climate change and what they propose government should be doing to address it. I, the Greens and the Democrats attended the debate. It was interesting—and further evidence that apparently this is not important to many members of the Liberal Party—that not only did the Liberal candidate not attend the debate but also apparently they could not find anyone in the South Australian Liberal Party to attend in her place. Not only did we not have any South Australian federal Liberal members, we did not have any South Australian federal Liberal candidates. Instead, they decided to fly across the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs to represent the Liberal Party at this local debate in the electorate of Adelaide. From this we can deduce that they have decided to pull out the big guns—although I do not think that is likely to be the case; I think they had a hard time finding anyone from the South Australian Liberal Party who cared enough about climate change to come and tell the constituents from Adelaide what they proposed to do about it.

This is yet another example that this government and the Liberal Party do not see climate change as important. In contrast, climate change is the biggest environmental, economic and moral issue of our time. This is something that we have argued again and again within this place. Federal Labor has a concrete plan to tackle climate change at a number of levels—at the international, national and local community levels. It is only under a Rudd Labor government that Australia will be able to make the impact that is required to make a real difference.

On many occasions in this parliament, I have expressed my dismay at this government’s lack of action and I have outlined a number of measures where they have missed opportunities to address this crucial issue. Today I do not propose to do that again. Instead I would like to outline our alternative—our policies to address climate change at the international, national and local levels. At an international level, most importantly, Labor is committing to immediately ratifying the Kyoto protocol. The world already has a functioning carbon trading scheme in place and Australia has been left behind. We would rectify this. Also, Labor has plans when it comes to aid expenditure. Federal Labor is committed to working with Australia’s neighbours to develop and implement climate change adaptation plans to minimise the impacts on our region. This will include an increase in aid expenditure of $150 million over three years to fund initiatives in our region. At a national level we have plans for carbon emission targets, for substantially increasing the mandatory renewable energy target and for introducing an emissions trading scheme. We have announced our $500 million green car partnership and we have made a number of announcements about clean coal initiatives. We have also made announcements on energy efficiencies.

At a local level the Labor Party has committed to helping households by providing 200,000 homeowners with low interest loans of up to $10,000 to install a range of energy and water efficiency measures themselves. The member for Kingsford Smith was with me in Adelaide when we made announcements about solar homes and plans to make Australian homes go solar. We have a plan on this side of the House. (Time expired)

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this matter of pubic importance on climate change. I note the point made very well by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs that the Leader of the Opposition, when speaking with the President of the United States, somehow forgot—or did not have the courage—to raise the issue of climate change. I think it is the latter: he did not have the courage. He does not have what it takes to lead this country. When you look at the opposition strategy on climate change, you have to ask: is it a strategy based on science? I think not. Is it a strategy based on what is good for this country? I think not. Is it a strategy based on what is good for the environment? I think not. It is a strategy based on what is good for the Leader of the Opposition. It is a strategy based on what Hawker Brittontells him. ‘It is environment day today,’ says Hawker Britton, so out comes the puppet—the Leader of the Opposition—with the union leaders pulling the strings, mouthing the words on climate change. It is climate change on Monday and it is something else on Tuesday. On Wednesday it is probably productivity again, although we know he is pretty weak on productivity. It is pretty clear that he is as weak on climate change as he is on productivity growth, because any leader worth their salt, given the opportunity to raise an issue that is of real importance to them—and not just an issue that is being masqueraded as of importance—has a responsibility to discuss that issue. The Leader of the Opposition did not. He failed the test. He has failed the sincerity test. He has shown what we all know—that he is nothing but a facade. He is a cardboard cut-out. He does not have the gumption to represent this country on the world stage and he has proved it.

We have heard again and again from the Labor Party in the brief time since the APEC summit that the arrangement that was arrived at was somehow a non-event. We have an agreement which was signed by 21 countries—representing some three billion consumers, 40 per cent of the world population and more than 50 per cent of global GDP—and the agreement entered into by that forum is somehow a nonevent!

Clearly it shows how unready they are to govern when they do not understand the simple fact that major world agreements evolve—you move in regular, perhaps sometimes small, steps. This is not a small step but a large step. It is in fact a historic agreement of some 21 countries and locks in aspirational global goals for emissions reductions. The Sydney declaration is the first time that major economies such as China, the United States and the Russian Federation have agreed to specific APEC-wide aspirational goals, which will focus on a number of things. Firstly, they will focus on a reduction in energy intensity of some 25 per cent. That is something we do not hear about from the opposition. We do not hear that, when we talk about climate change and the emission of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases, it is not just an emissions argument; it is very much an energy consumption argument. If we cut our energy consumption and if we increase our energy efficiency, as a result of that we reduce our emissions of CO.

We have the Australian Labor Party under the leadership of that well-known and weak puppet, the Leader of the Opposition, going around chortling on about CO emissions. But as important as the issue of CO emissions is the issue of energy efficiency. This government has taken the lead on energy efficiency. This government has taken the lead in relation to incandescent lighting to reduce our demands on energy. We do not hear the Leader of the Opposition calling on Australians to change the way they behave to save the planet; he is merely chortling on about a simplistic and populist line dictated to him by Hawker Britton in the weak way he does. He is saying: ‘We’re going to reduce our CO consumption. We’re not really going to tell you the way that it is going to be done, but we’re going to speak the populist line, because that’s what I’m instructed to do by my media minders. I just speak the words, but I’m not willing to put in place the sorts of policies’—as this government has done—‘that will put Australia on the road to reducing its CO emissions, further improving its position in relation to greenhouse emission.’ The APEC declaration was a very important declaration. It was a landmark event. The Leader of the Opposition has been left trailing in our wake. (Time expired)

Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

(Mr Jenkins)—Order! The time allotted for this discussion has now expired.