Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts. How is dangerous climate change predicted to affect Australia’s coastal zone environment and how is the government responding to these predicted impacts?

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order in relation to questions to ministers. Under the standing orders the question must relate to something that the minister has in his administration. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts is not the minister for climate change and nor is he the minister assisting the minister for climate change. He has no responsibility for it.

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

The member for Mayo raises a point of order which depends on my expert knowledge of the administrative orders under which ministers are appointed. Earlier in this parliament, some 18 months ago, I did refer to that document because this was something in prospect. I suppose I should be charitable to the member for Mayo as this was an issue even before he was a member. I would think that if the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts had a whole list of legislation and agencies that are within his portfolio responsibilities, and without being precise, I would have thought that matters to do with the coastal zone—environment protection matters—would be within those portfolio duties. I would think that on that basis the question is in order.

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

Mr Speaker—

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

I call the Leader of the House—

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is he taking a point of order?

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

The member for O’Connor will resume his seat. I will decide who I will give the call to, and behaviour like that will get the treatment that other occupants of the chair have adopted in similar circumstances, which is selective blindness. The Leader of the House, on the point of order.

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

Mr Speaker, I speak to the point of order. The Prime Minister, in the ministerial arrangements read out at 2 pm when parliament began today, indicated that because the Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change and Water is absent from question time, being at a climate change conference, the Minister for the Environment is representing him here during this question time.

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

The Leader of the House has assisted in one way but I maintain that, like the question yesterday, the question today, in that it goes to the way in which the climate change prospect can affect environmental matters, would have been in order even barring the ministerial arrangements making it clear. The member for O’Connor on a further point of order?

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, under standing order 100 ‘Rules for questions’, item (b) states:

A question fully answered must not be asked again.

I refer you to the Prime Minister’s answer previously and to his 10-page answer yesterday on this very matter.

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

Good try, but there is no point of order.

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

I think that most people listening to parliament today will recognise that, firstly, climate change is an environmental issue and, secondly, we take the environment very seriously in this House, unlike those on the other side. I thank the member for Makin for his question. From Bondi to Broome, Australians love the coast—we are familiar with the statistic that about 80 per cent of the population lives in the coastal zone. The important report that the Prime Minister referred to today from the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Climate, Water, Environment and the Arts entitled Managing our Coastal Zone in a Changing Climate: the time to act is now does bring home the real impact that climate change will have on this part of Australia that is much loved by all of us. I want to compliment that committee and the chair, the member for Throsby, for their very good work.

This coastal inquiry report notes that small rises in sea level can cause disproportionately large impacts. The report includes an alarming statistic that approximately 711,000 addresses are within three kilometres of the coast and less than six metres above sea level. It is important for us to realise that sea level rise is only one of the impacts that climate change can have on the coast—it interacts with other changes like the daily climate, increases in storm tides and flooding from heavy rainfall. It is the way that those impacts work together and trigger other changes that is cause for concern. It is a chain reaction of impacts and it is identified in this important report. I give one example: in the World Heritage listed Kakadu National Park, which I have responsibility for, the extensive lowland wetlands are particularly vulnerable. As the sea level rises the salinity in these wetlands will also rise.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Order! The minister has the call; he should be heard in silence.

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

As the sea level rises the salinity in these wetlands will also rise. Some 80 per cent of the freshwater wetlands are predicted to convert to saline, while salt will contaminate the fresh groundwater system. It is also the case that the human impacts identified for the coastal zone are also serious and costly, and the Prime Minister highlighted them previously: 900 coastal buildings, together with harbour and port facilities, are vulnerable to sea level rise in the Northern Territory. There are a quarter of a million vulnerable coastal buildings in Queensland, and our greatest recreation and tourism assets, our beaches, are also vulnerable, with the Department of Climate Change predicting that by 2100 sandy beaches could recede by up to 88 metres. That is a significant prediction.

The Australian government takes these risks seriously. Under Caring for our Country, we are protecting and rehabilitating coastal habitats through the $100 million Caring for our Coasts coast care program. This is an unprecedented injection of funds into the coastal environment. We are also reducing harmful run-off into the Great Barrier Reef and working with farmers to improve land management practices through our $200 million unparalleled investment in this national icon, and through Minister Wong’s portfolio there is an additional $25 million through Caring for our Coasts to help prepare coastal communities for the impact of climate change.

The government will carefully consider the findings of this coastal inquiry and will be providing a response. We initiated this inquiry as a first step to developing a national coastal policy. That is what this country now needs. The report confirms the need and the importance of federal leadership, and it is a responsibility that Labor accepts. The fact is that none of these actions I have outlined would have taken place if there had not been a change of government in 2007. While the science shows that we are tracking to the higher end of climate change predictions, the coalition is heading in the opposite direction. Just this morning Senator Abetz was in no hurry to act on coastal erosion. He said:

That is something that is going to have to be taken into account for future planning but, having said that, I assume it’s not going to be happening overnight, so we’ve still got some time.

Senator Abetz reminds me of Steve Miller’s song:

Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping

into the future …

whereas here—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members—Sing it! Sing it!

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

Here you go!

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

Order! The minister will ignore the taunts. The minister will respond to the question.

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

The lack of public policy rigour on the other side of the House means they are easily distracted. The member for Warringah this morning on Sky, asked about this particular coastal inquiry report and that the sea level had risen along the New South Wales coast by more than 20 centimetres, said to reporters:

Has anyone noticed it? No, they haven’t.

The answer is that people are noticing this, and it is extraordinary that the member, a serious contender on the front bench, could have a position like this.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

We have got interjection after interjection coming from the other side of the House as they are exposed in their total incapacity to recognise the seriousness of this challenge, which has just been confirmed in an inquiry that has been brought down by a House of Representatives standing committee. The member for Gippsland is relaxed about the CPRS legislation: ‘I believe we’ve got time to wait.’ The coalition just do not seem interested in the impacts on the farming sector, on urban communities running out of the water, on coastal communities who are vulnerable to sea level change. They want to delay. They want to do nothing. For the coalition, all that we can say is: the Australian coast is a good place to stick your head in the sand.