Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Amendment Bill 2009, which seems strangely overshadowed by the details presented by the foreign minister. Obviously, the Kokoda region has a significant place in the Australian psyche because of the role it played in changing the course of history back in World War II and because so many Australians from the Prime Minister down have made the pilgrimage to look at the defence of Northern Australia that took place on the Kokoda track in World War II.

I echo the concerns expressed by the foreign minister in terms of the nine people who are missing. When we heard the news today in question time, obviously, so many of us thought of the people we know who had done that trek. So many of us know someone who could have been in that plane. It was particularly shocking to hear the news. As I said, I am speaking on the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Amendment Bill, but my prayers are certainly with the families of those nine missing people.

This bill before the House is another step in my long struggle to look after my great-grandchildren. I should point out that I will return to this goal later in my talk. It is also a part of the ALP’s struggle to look after my great-grandchildren. The bill before the House deals with the voluntary transfer of reporting obligations of facilities currently caught by the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007, the NGER Act, over to the new provisions outlined in the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

The legislation before the House particularly has relevance for entities such as a coalmine that is run by a contract mining company. With my background in the mining sector, I am very aware of how often that happens. The people that do the exploration may on-sell that exploration permit to a minerals development licence, to another company, and then maybe an international company or a large Australian company will take over the process and even outsource that. An APESMA document that came across my desk the other day talked about the number of mining companies up in Queensland, say, where they are not necessarily employed by the company that owns the mine but instead the business has been outsourced, such as the Coppabella Mine, which is outsourced to Roche Highwall Mining Pty Ltd, or Thiess, which operate in the Burton Mine, the Collinsville, the Foxleigh, the Oaky Creek open cut and the South Walker Creek. There are numerous examples where this happens. It also happens in the oil and gas industry, especially with pipeline operations where sometimes the running of the entity is outsourced to another commercial entity.

Under this legislation all reporting and record-keeping obligations and compliance measures under the NGER Act will be formalised by the introduction of the reporting transfer certificate concept, or the RTC concept. It is good to have a couple of TLAs, or three-letter acronyms, thrown into the House. I know there is a real shortage of acronyms in this House, so I am happy to be able to contribute a couple more. The RTC concept will be a short-term measure until the introduction of the CPRS and RTCs will be cancelled on 30 June 2011. They will be replaced by the liability transfer certificates, or the LTCs. Sunsetting the RTCs is important as, while they do not attract any financial ability, under the CPRS legislation LTCs will attract financial liability.

Obviously, all good governments, all sensible governments, avoid red tape. The legislation before the chamber will reduce administration and economic costs on industry because there will be consistency in the terminology, the concepts and the rules between the existing NGER Act and the future reporting arrangements.

It is all very well to stand here in the chamber and discuss sensible climate change legislation, but I feel it is a bit like ensuring that the table settings are just perfect on the last night of the Titanic. Why? Because there is obviously something else happening. If we look to the Titanic as a metaphor—and I note that all the people in this chamber are well read, learned and literarily inclined, so I am going to look at—

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I’ve read that book; it’s a good book.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will take that interjection. I am going to look to the Titanic, which is a wonderful metaphor for what we are discussing tonight in legislation. In a way the Titanic personifies human folly or the hubris of humanity. I turn to a poem by Thomas Hardy, who is probably better known as an author than a poet. It is one of my favourite poems. It is called The Convergence of the Twain, which he wrote a year after the sinking of the Titanic, and it was the verse contained in the anniversary booklet which was handed out at the service when people gathered together to commemorate the loss of lives on the Titanic one year on. It is quite a long poem, so I will not quote the entire poem. I know the minister would be keen to have poetry read in the chamber. It is a villanelle; it is quite a strange poem. To set the scene, some fish are talking at the bottom of the ocean at the wreck of the Titanic and they are saying, ‘What the hell is this doing down here?’ Hardy wrote:

Jewels in joy designed

To ravish the sensuous mind

Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

Dim moon-eyed fishes near

Gaze at the gilded gear

And query: ‘What does this vaingloriousness down here?’…

Well: while was fashioning

This creature of cleaving wing,

The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

Prepared a sinister mate

For her - so gaily great -

A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate.

And as the smart ship grew

In stature, grace, and hue,

In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

Alien they seemed to be:

No mortal eye could see

The intimate welding of their later history …

That is what we are talking about here: the world, civilization, has progressed over the last 5,000 years or so. We are coming up to a time where we have evolved; we have developed industry; we have developed so many wonderful things; technology has advanced us—the world wide web et cetera. But we are now coming up to a crunch time similar to when they were creating the Titanic, which at the time was celebrated as the pinnacle of human endeavour—unsinkable—where humanity had triumphed over the sea; humanity had triumphed over Neptune. Obviously, things did not turn out so great for the Titanic.

I see that the member for O’Connor is in the chamber, so perhaps I could have gone with a slightly different metaphor rather than something literary.

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Secker interjecting

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I could perhaps have gone with a less literary metaphor which might have been the metaphor of being at the Christmas party where you have Uncle Harry loading the shotgun in the corner. That brings me back to my original introduction where I talked about my great-grandchildren, this legislation before the chamber and my struggle now to look after them later. I said ‘my great-grandchildren’ but I do not have any grandchildren; I have a four-year-old child and a seven-month-old child, so I am a little bit off having grandchildren yet. But this legislation before the chamber is very significant in dealing with climate change. When we try to address climate change and do what we can to change it, who is standing in the way? Who is standing in the way of these endeavours?

Let us have a look at an article by Phillip Coorey in the Brisbane Times entitled ‘Abbott foray will highlight tussle within Coalition’. It is from May 25—a little bit out of date. It says:

Tony Abbott is not crazy enough to believe that he will ever lead the Liberal Party, a prospect he fleetingly embraced after the last election before pulling out of the leadership race.

…            …            …

Due for publication in late July, Abbott’s manifesto will recognise that all new Oppositions need to do some soul-searching to rediscover what they believe in and where they want to go before being fit to return to government.

…            …            …

Abbott’s foray—

that is, the book he has recently published—

will highlight the never-ending tussle within the Coalition over whether to adopt a moderate or conservative approach to policy. The wrestling has been a hallmark of Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership.

This returns me to my question of who is standing in the way. Obviously, the people standing in the way of trying to address the possible ravages of climate change are those opposite, and the question is: what do they stand for? Is it policy or is it politics? I could have quoted from an article by Phillip Coorey, which was quoted in question time today, in which he cited an opposition MP who said:

We were staring at an electoral abyss. We had to pretend we cared.

That is in the context of the opposition addressing climate change and bringing in a cap-and-trade scheme or whatever they seem to have grasped fleetingly today in their party room.

So what do the opposition stand for on climate change? Because it is important to establish what they are in favour of. To quote a great singer—it might have been John Cougar Mellencamp—from the eighties or nineties:

You’ve got to stand for something, or you’re gonna fall for anything.

When we are talking about the Liberal Party, it is interesting to try and ascertain what they are interested in. Obviously, the Leader of the Liberal Party was interested in climate change. He obviously took the fight up in the cabinet room, explaining that change is a reality. He is not one of the sceptics at all. He believed that climate change was occurring; he believed the science. He is not one of those who have been questioning it. But in talking to the Liberal Party now it seems that politics has triumphed over policy—and I am talking about the real part of the coalition, which is the Liberal Party not the National Party. I am not sure what the views of the National Party are. I come from Queensland where the airwaves have been dominated by Barnaby Joyce and what he represents, which I have not quite grasped.

When we look at the history of government in Australia and the tough decisions that have been made in tough times, we see that we turn to the Labor Party for leadership. For three out of four years since Federation, the Liberal Party or the conservative parties have been in power. But when we look at what they have done, they have really benefited from the decisions of the Labor Party. I do not think we could go so far as to call them a parasite; that would be stretching it a bit. Maybe it would be more appropriate to call them an epiphyte, or, if we look at the National Party— (Time expired)

Debate interrupted.