Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts. Will the minister inform the House about the dangers of reckless spending on environmental schemes with dubious scientific backing?

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

I thank the member for Throsby for the question. Labor is the party of responsible spending and quality investments in the future. This disciplined approach is central to our five-point plan to fight inflation. We have already begun cutting wasteful spending from the previous era, and we are identifying further substantial cuts beyond the $10 billion of savings we have already announced. But, under the member for Wentworth and the Liberals, across a range of programs it was raining money—literally! When Australian families needed restraint from their government and downward pressure on inflation, the member for Wentworth in particular was treating the public purse with disdain. We know that, a few weeks before the last federal election, he was advised reluctantly by his department to spend at most $2 million investigating supposed rain-making technologies.

This supposed environmental project, called ATLANT, being promoted by a newly formed company called Australian Rain Corporation, was presented to the National Water Commission in August last year, just three months before the federal election. The ATLANT technology, you will be pleased to learn, Mr Speaker, proposed creating a high density of negative ions at ground level, on the assumption that this cloud of ions would float into the atmosphere and enhance cloud formation and therefore rainfall. Unfortunately for the commercial backers of this scheme, evidence presented to the commission cast a serious scientific cloud over their claims. To quote from the scientific review of this negative ion technology:

In our view there is not convincing evidence that the ATLANT technology operates as believed by its proponents, and independent scientific measurements quite a long time ago cast doubt in particular upon the reality of the vertical ion wind.

I have to say that, as a lay scientist I am inclined to agree with that view. They went on to say:

Despite explicit questioning, we have not seen any experimental evidence to support the ATLANT viewpoint. Since this is the presumed way in which the technology operates, this is an important omission.

In addition, the company relied on untranslated documents in the Russian language to back their case! Despite these reservations and a considerable language barrier, and no doubt under some ministerial pressure, the commission reluctantly agreed to conduct further trials and recommended Commonwealth funding of $2 million for this purpose. I would have thought $2 million was a stretch, but the former minister for the environment knew better. He overrode the $2 million and instead sought prime ministerial approval of $10 million of taxpayers’ money to be spent on this project—a ministerial tick-off of $10 million two days into the last federal election. This was a 500 per cent increase in funding for a pet project at ministerial whim. It was simply reckless spending. And with inflation at a 16-year high it shatters whatever claims to competency this opposition and this member have.

The member for Wentworth told working families that they were ‘overdramatising’ rate rises. It reminds me of one of my favourite songs, with a slight pun in it: ‘That was a fraction too much fiction.’ The member for Wentworth was a cabinet minister in a government that gave families interest rate rise after interest rate rise in three years—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The minister will resume his seat. The member for North Sydney.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I just ask the minister to table the song sheet and save us the rhetoric—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! That is not a point of order The Member will resume his seat.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. On a number of occasions again today we have had frivolous points of order. You asked that that be drawn to your attention at the time that it was done. I am doing so.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I already indicated to the member for North Sydney that it was not a point of order. It probably was the most frivolous of the points of order today. The others were attempts at trying to enter into debate. The minister has the call.

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

In relation to the point of order taken by the member for North Sydney—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I suggest that the minister just ignore it.

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

All I can say is that perhaps it was not a pun—perhaps there is a fraction too much friction over there. I will conclude by saying that theirs was a government that gave families interest rate rise after interest rate rise in three years and delivered the highest underlying inflation in 16 years. Under the Liberals it was raining money. And in this case the member for Wentworth was the irresponsible rainmaker.