Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts representing the Minister for Climate Change and Water. What scientific advice is informing the government’s action on water management in the face of climate change, and what other non-specific advice is currently being offered to the Australian people?

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 Hindmarsh for his question. I know he has a strong interest in these issues. The government is relying on the best local and international expertise to inform its action on water management in the face of climate change. We have considered reports from the International Panel on Climate Change, CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology—the experts from Australian and overseas institutions who consider and report on these matters. We have seen the lowest inflows in history into the Murray River in the two years leading up to November 2007, when the Liberal Party were in government, which was 43 per cent lower than previous historic lows. The more recent CSIRO sustainable yield project has found that actual inflows over the last 10 years, in five out of the eight southern Murray-Darling Basin catchment areas, are close to or worse than the worst case projections for climate change for 2030. The message has been consistent for many years. In 2002 the Australian Greenhouse Office noted:

The regions already affected by reductions in rainfall and streamflow, mainly due to natural climate variability, would be placed under even more stress by further decline in rainfall as a consequence of global warming.

So there is a very, very sound body of evidence that has accumulated over many years, and it indicates that climate change is having, and will continue to have, an impact on rainfall in the Murray-Darling Basin and in southern Australia.

Despite these clear advices, on this question we now have the Leader of the Opposition claiming that recent above average national rainfall is proof positive that climate change impacts in the Murray-Darling Basin are not real. The Leader of the Opposition confirmed this view on ABC radio Adelaide today when he referred to the annual Australian climate statement of 2007:

Climate change and the changes in temperature in recent years and the people who argue about it arguably have made and do make a contribution to it ... but it is not the cause of what we have got at the moment.

That is what he said. He went on to say:

In fact I notice the Australian climate statement from the meteorologists points out that average annual mean rainfall has been slightly more than average recently—25 millimetres.

The very same statement that the Leader of the Opposition quoted from also notes that south-east Australia has now missed out on the equivalent of an average year’s rainfall over the past 11 years. In other words, there has been less rainfall in the south. But it seems that the opposition’s position now is: it is raining in the tropical north; therefore, climate change has had no effect on the Murray-Darling Basin in the south. This is a policy detour that takes us through the efforts of Sir Joh. With slightly more rain in the north, and record low rain in the south, we have got the Leader of the Opposition channelling Sir Joh and gerrymandering rainfall down to the southern basin.

Mr Speaker, I ask you: when will the Leader of the Opposition stop appropriating unrelated rainfall figures to assert that the Murray-Darling is unaffected by climate change? On Lateline on Monday night the Leader of the Opposition had two positions in two minutes. Today he was given the opportunity to clarify his remarks, and the only answer he had to this very serious problem was to gerrymander Australia’s rainfall. I ask the opposition leader where he is getting his advice from on climate change. He will not take the advice of the CSIRO. He will not take the advice of the Bureau of Meteorology. He does not believe the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I suspect he is taking his advice from climate change sceptics in his own party. It is time that the opposition leader stop denying dangerous climate change.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I would ask if the minister could table the song sheet from which he was reading.

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

If the member is asking for the tabling of documents: was the minister quoting from documents?

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

Yes.

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

Were the documents confidential?

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

Yes.