John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

During the last sitting period a number of us here in parliament had conversations with religious leaders who were representing a range of faith communities in Australia. These conversations concerned the very important issue of climate change. On Thursday, 2 June 2011, I had the great pleasure of meeting with Sister Suzette Clarke, the social justice coordinator for the Sisters of Charity; Mr Steve Denenberg, the executive director of the Australian, Asian and New Zealand Union for Progressive Judaism; Dr Beth Heyde, a member of the Public Affairs Commission of the Anglican Church of Australia; Father Charles Rue, a Columban representative in Australia for Justice Peace and Integrity of Creation; and Ashok Jain, representing the Canberra Jain community.

These people were brought together by the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change committee. They have offered the following statement, which I will now read to the House on their behalf:

Climate change is an unprecedented moral and spiritual challenge, which can only be met with determined, immediate action.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I find members standing up the back of the House distracting me from this quality contribution.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! That is a frivolous point of order. I call the member for Reid.

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They continue:

Those who deny anthropogenic climate change are not accepting the connection established by nearly every reputable scientific organisation around the world between the emission of greenhouse gases and the heating of our global atmosphere.

To deny the science of this is to deny physics. We recognise that people find this difficult to hear. Political leaders, in particular, fear that the costs of change will be unpopular with the community and with powerful vested interests.

In this context we, as religious leaders, have a commitment to truth-telling. Human beings have no future on this planet if our moral sensibility remains too limited, if we continue to act in our short-term, narrow national self-interest, and fail to develop a broader awareness that our well-being is intimately connected with the health of our environment.

We urge society to have a grandchild mentality, that is to say, a way of thinking that weighs choices in the present against their potential cost to future generations.

We call upon the Australian community to also have concern for biodiversity and the integrity of all of the created order.

We urge Members of Parliament to provide bipartisan leadership, to inform and inspire the community, and not to be swayed by members of society who appear dedicated to their own short term advantage.

In the meantime, as religious people, we especially are concerned that those who have contributed least to climate change, people in the developing world, are being hit first and will be hit the hardest.

Given that Australia as a nation is relatively wealthy and our per capita emissions are among the highest on earth, we urge our leaders to respond fully to the call of developing nations for adaptation financing. This should be over and above existing overseas development assistance.

Regarding mitigation, ARRCC proposes a range of policies aimed at reducing Australia's emissions as rapidly as possible. Included in these are:

We support a carbon price as a necessary mechanism if Australia is to move forward towards an ecologically sustainable future.

There should be insistence that emissions reductions happen at home and not via off-set credits overseas and there should be no exemptions for polluters.

Further, we support the climate commission's proposal that the monitoring and development of a pricing mechanism should become the responsibility of independently created umpires.

We are aware of the costs this imposes on large sections of Australian society, however not paying those costs now will lead to far greater costs later.

We urge politicians of all persuasions to provide the Australian public with bold leadership. This is the critical decade for climate action, and not the time for political point-scoring.

The ecological limits of the Earth are not negotiable, and we treat responsible action in relation to these limits as "unrealistic" at our own peril.

I could not agree more with the ARRCC. They have spoken in this House tonight— (Time expired)

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Before calling the honourable member for Wright, it has been drawn to my attention that the Minister for Indigenous Health is not appropriately attired. I would ask him to consider his attire and come back to the chamber in the fullness of time.

The member for Lingiari then left the chamber.