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

I welcome this opportunity to make some further remarks to the inquiry into Sustainability for survival: creating a climate for change: inquiry into a sustainability charter, a report of the Standing Committee on Environment and Heritage. In doing so, I wish to perhaps put in greater detail and context the reasons that this inquiry came about. On 12 September 2005, the House environment committee tabled the Sustainable cities inquiry. At present, the committee, the parliament and the nation still await a response from the government to this report.

In the recommendations of Sustainable cities, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Heritage, under the heading ‘Governance and policy frameworks—developing a national approach’, recommended that the Australian government ‘establish an Australian sustainability charter that sets key national targets across a number of areas, including water, transport, energy, building design and planning’ and ‘encourage a Council of Australian Governments agreement to the charter and its key targets’. Further, the committee recommended:

... that all new relevant Australian Government policy proposals be evaluated as to whether they would impact on urban sustainability and if so, be assessed against the Australian Sustainability Charter and the COAG agreed sustainability targets.

Further, the committee went on to recommend that:

... the Australian Government establish an independent Australian Sustainability Commission headed by a National Sustainability Commissioner ...

It is a little disappointing, when we meet here two years later, to indicate that there has not been a response to those recommendations and the recommendations in toto of the sustainable cities inquiry. In that report, at 3.85, it says:

The committee urges in the strongest possible manner that these recommendations be implemented in totality in the shortest possible timeframe. The time is right and as a nation we need to make the right decisions.

That was two years ago. In the absence of any decisions, that is still the case.

Given that the committee was of a view, what was to be the next step? The next step of course is this inquiry into a sustainable charter, and the committee’s report Sustainability for survival: creating a climate for change. Regrettably, this inquiry arose out of the committee using to the fullest the devices that are allowed by the standing orders. Remember, primarily the way that a committee gets a reference is to have it referred by a minister, a member of the executive. Given that there had not been a response within the time frame to the committee’s report, back on 16 February 2006 the committee resolved under the provisions of standing order 215(c) to undertake an inquiry into a sustainability charter. How did it do that? The standing orders allow that we can adopt a matter arising from a study of a departmental annual report referred to the committee. So the device that was used in the motion to make this reference was that, in the 2004-05 Department of the Environment and Heritage annual report, there was a reference made to a ‘policy approach required to achieve a sustainable Australia’. So, arising out of a report that started in the 40th Parliament, the first public discussions with the community by way of hearings and visits having been in January 2004, two years later after having reported to the parliament—a nearly six-month delay in having any response to that report—the committee decided to go the further step to flesh out what was required of a sustainability charter.

I think that the House committee can be pleased with the report that they have tabled and with the recommendations they have made. It is interesting—in the context of the debate that goes on about matters to do with the environment, matters to do with sustainability and, to the extent that they overarch, matters to do with climate change—that the committee make no apology that they have suggested that the sustainability charter should be aspirational in nature but that it should overarch the technical work that would go into ensuring that there were definite goals that had to be achieved. That has been the intent of the committee right through.

Remember, this is a journey that started in the 40th Parliament. We are now towards the end of the 41st Parliament. The House environment committee, with a number of people being members of that committee, has indicated bipartisan support for the recommendations of both reports that the government needs to show leadership.

Further, we have acknowledged that in the Australian federal system, under the national leadership of the federal government, we require that the federal government embrace the hopes and aspirations of the state government. In fact, this is a problem which needs to be tackled by all—local government, the wider community, industry groups, people, families—under any configuration. There is some discussion, and the chair in his foreword to the report we are discussing today, Sustainability for survival: creating a climate for change, indicated that economic matters have to be taken into consideration and some people might be baulking at those because they think that there is an economic cost. He went on to say that people had to understand that we need to look at what the economic cost is if we do not take action.

But we should also remember that there are plenty of people that think that there can be productivity dividends as a result of the work that would lead to sustainability. I quote from the original sustainable cities inquiry, where Marcus Spiller, the past President of the Planning Institute of Australia, said:

The fact is that, if we had sustainable cities, there would be a significant productivity dividend to the country. In other words, GDP would be greater, other things being equal, if we had better functioning and efficient cities.

So there is the potential, the opportunity—and it is an opportunity that is lost if we see a government like the Howard government not respond to these recommendations. This is an issue where we must ensure that, when we see agreement by parliamentarians across the chamber in this case, executive government does not ignore that body of work. Often it really distresses me that those who by virtue of their membership of this parliament become executive members of government should, once they become executive members of government, turn their backs on the workings of the parliament. This exercise about sustainability is an example of the potential for an Australian parliament to reach out to the community that we represent and to come up with solutions that are valid and that will be successful if put in place.

I want to say something to all those people over these two inquiries who have given of their time, given of their good advice and entered into the discussions, because not of all of them can be satisfied by the deliberations of the committee; that is not the nature of it. These committees have tried to make sure that, by this bipartisan decision to agree with a framework, we go forward. But how are we going to encourage people to front up yet again if government ignores this process? I hope that, when we see whichever government is in place after the election, either the Howard government will have a conversion on the road to Damascus or a Rudd led Labor government will see that these types of exercises are very important. I, for one, look forward to working with Minister Garrett and Mr Rudd’s other ministers in a holistic approach by a Rudd Labor government on the issues that are raised and seeing the sustainability charter being successfully implemented by cooperation across all future governments. (Time expired)

Duncan Kerr (Denison, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In responding to the report Sustainability for survival: creating a climate for change, perhaps I might acknowledge the significant contribution of both the Chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Heritage, the Hon. Mal Washer, and the member for Scullin, who has performed an estimable task not just during this committee but, I understand from corridor conversation, in his nearly 20 years as a continuing member of the environment committee—and he will achieve that 20-year milestone if this parliament extends to its longest possible term. When we reflect upon this document, it is important to recognise that it is simply a recognition that the environmental footprint imposed upon Australia has been most heavy in those parts of urban settlement along the eastern coast, along the coastal zones, and that the vast majority of Australians live in cities. It is also where the greatest environmental pressures and demands are placed. Failure to deal in a comprehensive and cross-portfolio way with those pressures and demands is to condemn most of our other long-term aspirations—including those relating to climate change, clean water and energy efficiency—to failure.

When the committee set upon its task early in this parliament and developed its report for sustainable cities, it did so in a way that recognised the fundamental importance of this area of policy for future governments. I do think it is somewhat sad that the current Minister for the Environment and Water Resoucres, Minister Turnbull, who played a very constructive and engaged role as a member of the committee and made some considerable intellectual input into its framing and its strategies, has not responded to the publication of the committee’s report since it was brought down some two years ago. As the member for Scullin has pointed out, we still await a response from the government in relation to this landmark report.

That has led to the further report to the parliament from the charter inquiry, which was tabled just recently. In that regard, the starting point of recommendation is that, in the next parliament, whoever is to be Minister for the Environment and Water Resources introduce a bill for an act to establish a statutory national sustainability commission headed by a sustainability commissioner. I am not certain of the reason for the current minister not having progressed his thinking in relation to this report. It may be that he is thwarted by his cabinet colleagues. That seems to me to be a likely scenario, given the government’s head-in-the-sand approach in relation to a whole range of other environmental issues. It may be that the minister is overwhelmed with his own political survival, with a lot of other pressures that have come upon him in relation to climate change and, more latterly, the debate about a pulp mill in Tasmania, and he has not focused his formidable intellectual talent on the sustainability of our cities. But, whatever is the motivating reason, it is unfortunate that we have not reached a point where the government has put on the table its response to one of the most significant reports of a parliamentary committee that has been generated from the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Heritage in the 20 years that the member for Scullin has been a member of this committee and in the 20 years that I have served as a member of this parliament.

There can be no real progress on the major issues that affect our environment in this country unless we address in an effective, comprehensive and coordinated way the issues that the sustainability charter would have us address. You need only go in brief to the issues referred to in this report to recognise the nature of the issues that are arrayed before us as we live in our urban environment. We need to address the built environment, including the cost of construction, land utilisation, building materials, energy utilisation and energy efficiency. We need to deal with the supply of water to our cities, the use of waterways and their maintenance; discharge and reduction; and the reduction of energy use with the distribution and maintenance of its supply. We need to look at energy as a provider of all the services that we rely on for the household comfort we take for granted, in order to make certain that we draw down less on unsustainable yields and abate greenhouse emissions and that we build together a framework that allows us to join with other nations in dealing with the challenges of climate change.

We need to look at transport—not just the emissions of motor vehicles but also our road systems, our public transport provision—and at making certain that cities become liveable. Without that, we simply do not have an effective response to one of the key ingredients of our contribution to global warming. We need to look at the economics of our administration of our cities, the management of our waste streams, and we also have to look at the health impacts of our planning for urban living.

These are integrated, comprehensive issues that we shy away from to our great detriment. This committee had the foresight to put forward the recommendations that it did in its last report. It did so with a degree of delight and it recognised with a degree of delight when a former member of this committee became the minister for the environment. In fact, if members care to look at the photograph that is on the wall in relation to this committee, we deliberately invited the minister, as a former member of this committee, to take part in that photograph simply because it recognised the contribution he had made. But that contribution stopped when he became a member of the executive. For two years, we simply had silence on one of the most significant of those challenges that Australia faces. Alongside the skills crisis and the education crisis, we have this crisis of inaction in responding to a principal report of the House of Representatives on an issue that ought to be at the forefront of every member’s mind because every member shares a common interest in making certain that the success of our community is not lost as we fail to grapple with the overarching and interlinked challenges of what is an increasingly unsustainable form of urban design and an unsustainable form of ignorance of the challenges that we face in building a better and more sustainable framework for future policy.

With those few remarks I am content to simply put this document on the record. Plainly it will not be implemented by this government in the current parliament. The government has had ample time to respond, to put down the building blocks of what it might have seen as a sustainability charter. The work is to be left to future parliaments. I am happy to yield the balance of my time to the incoming minister for the environment, who I trust will give greater priority to the need to develop the charter that is recommended by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Heritage and place it where it should be—at the centre of Australian government policymaking.

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

I certainly want to add to the remarks of the member for Denison and assure him that we will indeed give due attention to the matter of a sustainability charter and recognise that there has been a significant lack of action on the part of the government and notorious tardiness in dealing with this very important matter.

I want to thank the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Heritage and its chair, the member for Moore, and the deputy chair, the member for Throsby, for the committee’s bipartisan report on its inquiry into a sustainability charter, Sustainability for survival: creating a climate for change. This report has two principal recommendations. The first is the establishment of a statutory national sustainability commission headed by a sustainability commissioner.

The roles of the commission as set out in the report include: preparation of a sustainability charter, evaluation of progress towards goals and targets, reporting on this to both houses of parliament and conducting inquiries into sustainability matters. The committee suggests the minister should head the office of the national sustainability commission and be an independent statutory officer. The second principal recommendation is to establish an aspirational national sustainability charter with objectives and milestones containing ‘a supplementary technical implementation agreement containing targets’—and we think this is a very important recommendation. The committee suggested the national sustainability charter should at a minimum cover the following sectors: the built environment, water, energy, transport, ecological footprint, economics, waste, social equity and health, and community engagement and education.

Labor will look very closely at the recommendations of the House environment committee. But I am pleased to say that the broad thrust of the committee’s recommendations is consistent with ALP policy, which also proposes the establishment of a national sustainability charter, commission and commissioner. Labor will certainly be outlining this position in more detail in the lead-up to the election.

Labor has a proud record in sustainability policy, best illustrated by the Hawke-Keating Labor government’s national strategy for ecologically sustainable development. The development of this strategy followed on from the 1987 report of the World Commission on Sustainable Development entitled Our common future, which also was known as the Bruntland report, named after its chairman.

Australia’s national strategy for ecologically sustainable development under the Hawke-Keating government was almost certainly the first example of a country preparing a national strategy for its sustainable development, and that was pioneering policy in those times. Australia under the previous Labor government was leading the world in this area—and I really do mean leading the world—using those words and giving those words their proper meaning. Subsequently, various UN conferences on sustainable development required all countries to prepare national sustainable development strategies.

Unfortunately, the Howard government abandoned the Hawke-Keating government’s pioneering effort to develop and implement a national sustainable development strategy—and that was a great, great pity, because that early promise and that early momentum came to nought once the Howard government was elected.

Australia’s unique and priceless natural environment and resources are under enormous pressure from climate change now. And after 11 years of neglect, mismanagement and tardiness by the Howard government on nearly all of Australia’s indicators of environmental health, we continue to go backwards. It has been noted before but it must be emphasised when we speak on these matters that Australia’s biodiversity has declined in the past decade. Notwithstanding that investment from the Natural Heritage Trust, notwithstanding the fact that the community has rightly applied itself to the issue of conserving and protecting the environment, we still have a decline in our biodiversity—with terrestrial bird and mammal species listed as extinct, endangered or vulnerable rising by some 41 per cent between 1995 and 2005. These are terrible statistics. In 2000 about 5.7 million hectares were assessed as having a high potential to develop dryland salinity and about one-quarter of our surface water management areas as being close to or exceeding sustainable extraction limits. This represents a significant policy failure on the part of the Howard government with a clear lack of strategic priority focus and no national targets or performance indicators—which is the Howard government’s approach. So there is real merit in this proposal from the committee for a national sustainability commission, and a Rudd Labor government would, if elected, adopt a comprehensive policy for the protection and conservation of our natural environment.

I note that this report builds on the excellent bipartisan work of the House environment committee and in particular their previous inquiry into sustainable cities. It is a true disgrace that the Howard government still has not responded to the Sustainable cities report more than two years after its release. The environment minister was an enthusiastic contributor to this landmark report, but he has failed to respond to the report as minister. We were told in Senate estimates in February this year that the environment department had prepared a response to the report but was awaiting the minister’s approval. Seven months later the minister still has not released the government’s report.

If there was ever a test for Minister Turnbull and his capacity to act, this was it. He was an enthusiastic member of the committee and then as minister he has done absolutely nothing about it. This was a highly significant report because it was bipartisan in its advice, two years in the making, where the sustainable future of our cities was considered.

When the Standing Committee on Environment and Heritage tabled its findings on its inquiry into sustainable cities, it called for concerted national action and for the Australian government to assume a leadership role—that was the quotation—but we are still waiting for the Howard government to assume that leadership role. Clearly, at this point, new leadership is required. If the Howard government will not take the necessary action and provide that leadership, it is time for new leadership to develop a more sustainable Australia.

I note that in question time today a number of questions were put to the government, including to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, about climate change spending and about the policies of the government in responding to this most important issue which we now face. It is a fact, as report after report indicates—with some clarity and I think some pungency—that the urgent need for us to respond nationally to the likely impacts our natural environment will face as a consequence of climate change is ever more evident. Yet it remains a fact that the government, in its time in office, has spent twice as much on advertising as it has on climate change programs. In relation to climate change programs, it has now significantly underspent.

We have had inquiries conducted by the parliament with some producing significant bipartisan recommendations—particularly the inquiry into sustainable cities, which went to the heart of Australians living sustainably on the continent. With the majority of Australians living in capital cities or suburbs, many on the east coast of Australia, in urban and suburban conurbations, there is a desperate need for national leadership and an implementation of sustainability principles in planning and the way in which we manage our cities. Here we had a set of bipartisan recommendations. The coalition, the Labor Party, the Democrats and the Greens, every single party in the parliament, signed on to this particular report and its recommendations. Yet Minister Turnbull does not have the capacity to act. That speaks volumes for the emphasis this government gives to sustainability and looking after the environment. That speaks volumes when we consider the report before us today—Sustainability for survival: Creating a climate for changeby the Standing Committee on Environment and Heritage on its inquiry into a sustainability charter. The government just does not take the environment seriously.

So long as we have a government that is willing to spend twice as much on government advertising as on climate change programs, then we get a clear sense of where this government’s priorities lie. There is now an urgent need for us to develop a national approach to figuring through the right mechanisms, means and ways of ensuring that we get this country onto a sustainable footing and that we manage the challenge of climate change. In particular, a national sustainability commissioner, who is able to look at a range of measures, evaluate progress towards goals and targets and assess whether or not taxpayers’ money is being put to good use, seems to be an eminently worthwhile and important suggestion. We certainly do feel that in the area of leadership, in addressing climate change and in responding to the important and critical environment challenges that we have, this government’s failure to take into account the work that is done in the parliament on reports of this kind and its treatment of the recommendations of earlier committees with contempt and lack of action are the surest signs that it is neither prepared nor willing to take the issue of the environment seriously. A Rudd Labor government, if elected, would take the environment seriously and would work robustly to address the issues raised in this particular report.

Debate (on motion by Mrs Irwin) adjourned.