Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This afternoon I would like to raise the issue of air pollution in Sydney's West. I want to refer not to what is often referred to as air pollution—we often hear this as carbon dioxide. I want to refer to particulate matter, because particulate matter is killing people in Western Sydney today.

Particulate matter is a pollutant. It is the fine, microscopic dust that we see in the atmosphere. It comes from diesel trucks, it comes from wood fires and it comes from our industry. Particulate matter is measured in two specific ways. One is what is called PM10, which is the coarse particulate matter; the other is called PM2.5, which is fine particulate matter. That fine particulate matter, PM2.5, is considered more hazardous to health. The World Health Organization has actually classified this as a carcinogen. We know that it causes lung disease. It causes lung cancer. We know that it causes heart disease. We know that it causes children's asthma. We also know that the World Health Organization tells us that there is no safe threshold for this and we should be doing everything we possibly can to lower the levels of particulate matter in our cities.

One of the great concerns about Western Sydney is its specific topographical nature, as it is built in a basin and so the air pollution collects for many days. Over the last few years we have seen mistaken policies such as the carbon tax. People think, 'Oh, I am doing this wonderful thing for the environment,' when all they have actually done with those types of taxes is to push up electricity prices. This has caused people in Western Sydney to substitute turning on their electric heater at night for going out and burning wood.

For the first time ever I can remember, there are ads on Sydney radio from companies advertising to sell wood. If you drive around Western Sydney, every petrol station has piles of wood for sale. It is simple. If people cannot afford to heat their homes because we have driven electricity prices so high—and there were some 30,000 people in New South Wales who had their power cut off because electricity has been driven so high—they look for alternatives to heat their homes. We are seeing more and more wood burned in Western Sydney. It is that wood smoke that is actually the biggest source of PM2.5—the fine particulate matter. In fact, residential wood heating, according to government studies, is almost 50 per cent of that particulate matter. What we see if we look at the monitoring stations that we have—even though they have been inadequately spread and not covering enough territory—is that our monitoring stations in Liverpool have shown a sharp and remarkable increase in fine particulate matter in Western Sydney and Liverpool. The question is what we are doing about this.

We on all sides of the parliament should make sure that we get electricity prices low. Any so-called renewable energy policy that drives up the price of electricity actually worsens air pollution in our cities. And, when I say it worsens our pollution, it worsens air pollution that kills people. It is that serious.

We in this government are taking action to try to resolve this issue of air pollution in Western Sydney. Our government has put forward $8.88 million to carry out research into air quality, green spaces and biodiversity. We are running a thing called the Clean Air and Urban Landscapes Hub.

Next Thursday, 20 August, at 5.30 pm at the Hilda M Davis Senior Citizens Centre in Liverpool, I will be hosting a forum with clean air champion Professor Peter Raynor where we will look at the role that air quality monitoring can play in Western Sydney. This research will help to identify the best policy options for reducing atmospheric particulate matter. We will do this in collaboration with experts, the industry and community. This forum is open to all the public in Western Sydney.

We need to think about the unintended consequences of our policies. Policies that the Labor Party is proposing, such as a 50 per cent renewable energy target, although they might fill some hearts with warmth and joy, will push up electricity prices. They will result in more people burning wood in Western Sydney, result in greater pollution and result in death. It is that serious. We need to do everything we can to lower electricity prices in Western Sydney, and we need to keep a close eye on our air pollution levels.