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

Tonight I would like to talk about the subject of carbon pollution and the importance of us reducing our emissions of carbon pollution.

When I say 'carbon pollution' I am not talking about CO2. I am not talking about the bubbles that we have in our champagne, and I am not talking about when we have a glass of sparkling mineral water—that carbon pollution. The carbon pollution I am referring to is real carbon pollution—the dust and the dirt in our atmosphere that comes from diesel emissions, from wood fires and from our roads. That is the real carbon pollution I am talking about.

There was a paper released in November 2013, entitled Summary for policy makers of the health-risk assessments of air pollution in Australia. It was by Associate Professor Geoff Morgan, Dr Richard Broome and Professor Bin Jalaludin. They concluded that particulate matter air pollution—real carbon pollution—in our major cities is costing us health-wise. From their calculations, in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth—just four cities—the deaths in those four Australian cities from real carbon pollution particulate matter is 1,590 a year. That is more than the road toll.

In addition to those deaths, there were 2,070 cardiovascular hospital admissions. There were approximately 120 additional emergency department attendances for childhood asthma, a further 530 pneumonia and acute bronchitis hospital admissions for all ages and 1,130 respiratory admissions of children aged between zero and 14 years. Those are the current effects of real carbon pollution particulate matter in just four cities in Australia today.

We are training our guns on the wrong target. The benefit that we are getting from the Paris climate talks and our reductions of emissions of carbon dioxide is that, even if every single nation abides by its promise, between 2016 and 2030, we will get a reduction in temperatures by the year 2100 of 0.05 of one degree Celsius. That is one-twentieth of one degree. That is what spending billions and trillions of dollars will get us.

What could we get if instead we said the real problem of carbon pollution is particulate matter and we reduced that? The calculations have been done by the three learned professors. If we were able to get from where we are now, at around eight micrograms per cubic metre, to just six micrograms per cubic metre, we would save 540 people in this country every single year. Those are 540 fewer deaths. There would be 940 additional reductions in the annual admissions of people with cardiovascular disease in hospitals. There would be an additional reduction of 735 hospital admissions for people with bronchitis and a further 994 fewer hospital emergencies relating to respiratory diseases for kids.

We are aiming our guns at the wrong target. Aiming our guns at CO2 rather than particulate matter is a policy that is resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Australians every single year. There are hundreds, if not thousands more hospital admissions. We need to rethink what we are doing. If I had my pick, I would much rather have several hundred Australians alive and many fewer hospitals admissions than I would a reduction of global temperatures of 0.05 at the end of the century. We need to do a rethink. By training our guns at the wrong target, we are costing Australian lives today. (Time expired)