Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As nations start to gather in Marrakesh to decide the global rules towards achieving net zero emissions, it is timely that Australia is set to ratify the Paris Agreement. There are some positives in the fact that, while we are lagging the world, we will be one of nearly 200 countries to do so. Either way, the agreement comes into force from Friday. But I am concerned that we think that that fact means Australia's work is done. In fact, our work as a nation will only just begin because, while the agreement sets new targets for us—and even though they are not particularly ambitious targets—the conclusion I have reached after listening to many experts as part of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties hearings is that we do not actually have a way of achieving even those targets that we have set ourselves.

Let us first talk about the new targets. Australia has set an emissions reduction target of 26 per cent to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. According to the national interest assessment, this will halve Australia's per capita emissions compared with 2005 levels and stacks up well against other developed countries. However, evidence heard by the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties indicates those targets were set without analysis of what our highest possible ambition could be. Essentially, the targets are not consistent with a necessary, proportional and reasonable contribution by Australia to keeping global warming below two degrees.

The original Climate Change Authority report recommended a 46 to 65 per cent reduction. This government has gone for about half that. Our target is weaker than many other countries, including the US, the EU, Canada and New Zealand. The UK has agreed to reduce emissions by 57 per cent by 2030 and the Canadian government is introducing a national carbon price floor. Dr Luke Kemp, a lecturer in international relations and environmental policy at the ANU, explained to the committee that, if most other countries followed the Australian approach, global warming would exceed three to four per cent. So I do think that some question remains about whether we are doing our fair share. There is a bigger question: does Australia have the policies and legislation in place to deliver on the Paris Agreement commitments—unambitious as they are? Overwhelmingly, the credible experts say 'not yet'. Even the Department of the Environment and Energy indicates that there is no specific modelling to analyse or give confidence that the existing policies will meet the targets.

Too often this government uses our achievement of the Kyoto protocol targets as proof that Australia will meet future targets. Former environment minister Greg Hunt routinely said things like, 'We are one of the few countries in the world to have met and beaten our first round of Kyoto targets and we will do the same with our second round of targets.' However, what that statement conveniently ignores is that the overachievement of Kyoto targets was thanks to clever and, some would say, manipulative negotiating at the start of the Kyoto discussions. The then environment minister Robert Hill insisted that Australia be given special treatment, which meant that our target would be based on 1990 emissions, which was an extraordinarily high base.

The Howard government knew that because the land-clearing practice in Queensland was in full swing in the lead-up to 1990 and had already sharply declined between 1990 and 1970, Australia could profitably achieve the Kyoto target on the back of a reduction in land clearing alone. Australia actually achieved the target at the same time as we increased fossil fuel emissions by 25 to 30 per cent. So forgive me for not believing that just because we achieved our Kyoto targets that that in any way indicates that a pathway is in place for achieving our Paris targets.

The reality is the policy work is still to be done in the review of climate policies next year. I certainly urge the government to listen to Professor Tim Stephens from the University of Sydney who said: 'With the repeal of the clean energy future legislation, we currently do not have any overarching legislation that says Australia is aiming for these cuts by a certain time. So we have no legal apparatus to give effect to our Paris commitments.' Those words are concerning. So far, the indications from the minister for the environment are that there will not be a major overhaul of policies or of targets. There is no doubt that a long-term, stable and predictable policy framework is required to ensure the investment in emissions reduction measures occurs.

I think the message that has resonated very strongly for me is that the whole approach that we need to take would be better if it were bipartisan, as was the case in the United Kingdom. For Australia, that seems a novel idea. Imagine a country where all of the major parties are committed to the same targets and, essentially, to the same policies to achieve them. The repeal of the previous Labor policy of a price on carbon does not give a lot of hope to the idea of bipartisanship. I think the process the government uses as it reviews its energy policy next year will be a test—a test of just how genuine it is to bring about a change in Australia's long-term energy policy.

It is worth noting that among the 36 members of the OECD only five countries—Australia, Canada, Israel, Mexico and Turkey—do not have carbon taxes, emission trading schemes or binding emission standards for power plants. There is little time to catch up, and Australia's domestic action has us a long way behind.

The preamble to the agreement for Australia focuses on a just transition for the workforce involved in this sector, so that there are quality jobs and decent work. One of the questions I had when I heard this term is, 'What do we mean by "quality jobs" and "decent work"?' ACTU president Ged Kearney sums it up well when she describes the fears workers have, that they are going from fairly stable, predictable, well-paid work that offers opportunities for lifelong education into a world they know is insecure and unstable, where they do not have predictable pay or wages, and where they worry about a dignified retirement.

When I think of a just transition and any failure to fulfil that commitment, I think of Lithgow, just outside my electorate in the seat of Calare. Coal has been the driver of that economy, and there is a clear and pressing need to establish manufacturing around the renewable energy sector and look at the development of alternative industries as the economy transitions to clean sources of energy, so that there is a smooth transition for Lithgow workers and the entire community. The story for assisting workers, particularly under the coalition, is one of ad hoc policy decisions. There is no national policy in place to ensure a just transition for workers in affected industries to obtain new, secure jobs.

Case studies presented to the committee by the ACTU illustrate that efforts to respond to large firm closures have been largely unsuccessful. A case study cited on Adelaide's Mitsubishi closure is stark. Professor Andrew Beer found that only a third of workers had found full-time equivalent work, a third left the workforce, and a third were either unemployed or underemployed. It is hard to draw a conclusion other than to hope that the government learn some lessons, that there needs to be genuine engagement with people working in these areas and their local communities, and specific measures that protect and create jobs and also help people find jobs. At the very least, we need to see things like job placement and information services; retraining while people are still working; financial and personal support and relocation assistance; a long-term plan, an early plan developed in consultation with the workforce and their communities. Given this government's current approach to jobs and growth, it is difficult to feel a huge amount of optimism about this. We have stagnant wage growth, a reduction in full-time employment, and a growth in the proportion of casual employment. We are already vulnerable, and without a plan. I live in hope, and so do the workers in every regional community.

Let us be clear about the Paris Agreement: it is an important step that so many countries can come to agreement on taking action on climate change. I want to thank my parliamentary colleagues on the joint standing committee, and the secretariat. But let us be in no doubt that the government's energy review next year is critical to determining whether the targets are achievable or not. Having said that, there is one aspect of the Paris Agreement that is a bit of a 'get out of jail free' card for this government, and that is that the agreement only locks us into trying to achieve our targets. We do not have to actually achieve them; we just have to demonstrate we tried. While I welcome the ratifying of the Paris Agreement for its symbolism and hope, it is more of a tiny step than a giant leap.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor support the ratification of the Paris Agreement and the Doha amendment to the Kyoto protocol. That is because we believe that it is imperative that we act to avoid dangerous climate change. But we do have a range of concerns: firstly, the target that Australia committed to under the agreement is quite inadequate. It lacks ambition that is required in order for us to advance and play our part. Secondly, the government has not outlined any mechanism to ensure that these modest targets can be achieved. Thirdly, we do want to ensure that communities that are impacted by the shift to a carbon-constrained economy—such as the community in the Latrobe Valley around the Hazelwood power station, that we have seen the closure of announced—are provided with appropriate support for economic restructuring. That has to happen in advance; we should not wait until announcements such as the one of a couple of weeks ago. Indeed, when we were in government we established economic transition plans, including for the Latrobe Valley. It is a pity that the current government cut $9.6 million from that plan when they came to office after the 2013 election.

Labor comes to this debate with a very strong record of commitment to international agreements aimed at addressing climate change. Australia, of course, signed the Kyoto protocol on 24 April 1998, but it took the election of a Labor government to actually get that agreement ratified. I am very proud of the fact that we did that, on 12 December 2007, as the very first act of the Rudd Labor government. On the afternoon of the day that we were sworn in to the ministry at Yarralumla, that agreement was ratified and signed by Prime Minister Rudd. Our predecessors had done nothing about the issue and, indeed, continued to be dominated by climate change sceptics and argue against the science of climate change, as well as against taking action to avoid dangerous climate change. As a result, as Labor's environment spokesperson, I introduced the Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change (Kyoto Protocol Ratification) Bill to the parliament on 14 February 2005. At that time, I said:

This is not a debate about Right or Left. This is a debate about right and wrong. It is a debate about old ways or new paths. It is not a debate about blame; it is a debate about real solutions to problems that are real now, but potentially catastrophic if not addressed.

In spite of the fact that there was a global movement, including here in Australia, the government of the day was very unmoved. We took action not just to ratify the Kyoto protocol but to put in place a pathway to a carbon constrained economy. We put a price on carbon as a prelude to the creation of an emissions trading scheme. Indeed, we saw the coalition become not just climate change sceptics but market sceptics in opposing the emissions trading scheme. We put in place, as part of the climate change blueprint, announced by Kim Beazley with me as the shadow environment minister, the 20 per cent by 2020 renewable energy target. At the time of that announcement, the target was two per cent. We essentially would not have had an effective renewable energy industry without that increase of the target. We provided significant support for the development of alternative power sources. We provided compensation to help low-income earners cope with the effects of change. We invested more in public transport than all previous governments combined, thereby lowering emissions in the transport sector. We understood that it needed a whole-of-government approach.

That was followed, it must be said, by a period in which there was an attempt to have a consensus among sensible people across the parliament. Indeed, the member for Wentworth, in 2010, said this as the member for Wentworth:

It truly requires us to think as a species, not just to think as individuals.

…   …   …

… in order to do that … we must make a dramatic reduction in the world's greenhouse gas emissions. Now you can look at the targets, 50 per cent the common sort of rubric rule of thumb is to cut emissions by 2050 … I promise you, you cannot achieve that cut … without getting to a point by mid-century where all or almost all of our stationary energy, that is to say energy from power stations and big factories and so forth comes from zero emission sources.

Such a strong and a principled view, but that, of course, was Malcolm Turnbull as the member for Wentworth, not Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister. As Prime Minister, he has embraced the so-called Direct Action Plan that he ridiculed when it was proposed by Tony Abbott, the member for Warringah, as the opposition leader. So what we have is a change of Prime Minister but not a change of climate change strategy. And that is unfortunate indeed, because this Prime Minister does know better, but this Prime Minister is frozen in time while the world warms around him. We know that each and every year we are seeing it coming through in the figures—whether it be year-on-year, or the hottest month, or the hottest week, or the hottest season—around the globe and we need to take action.

The Paris Agreement came into force last Friday with enough of the large emitters already having signed up to ensure that it was put in place in record time. It is good that Labor will be part of the agreement but, as Labor members of the committee have noted, we are disappointed at its lack of ambition. Under the coalition, Australia's commitment to the world in the Paris Agreement is to reduce emissions by 26 to 28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030. There is broad concern that that level of commitment is not consistent with keeping temperature rise below two degrees Celsius, and ideally, 1.5 degrees Celsius, as the agreement targets. For example, Bloomberg New Energy Finance has said:

Australia's current emissions reduction target of 26-28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 should thus be regarded as a low-case scenario. Australia's final 2030 target is likely to be higher and somewhere between this and a high-case scenario of 45-63 per cent, which is Australia's fair share of burden to limit warming to 2 degrees C.

It is very clear that we do need to be more ambitious.

Whatever the target is, we need an effective mechanism to get there. We need a target linked to total emissions. We need to have a renewable energy target after 2020. We need to ensure that we provide support to bodies like ARENA and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. We need to make sure that there is a whole-of-government response. As it is now, importantly, national emissions are projected to keep growing to 2020, and likely beyond, until Australia has a real climate change policy. This is an issue which we have a responsibility to deal with not just for us but for our children and our grandchildren. This is an intergenerational equity issue beyond all others, which is why this parliament must show leadership and it is critical that Australia play our role as good global citizens.

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to start by commending the contributions of my colleagues, the members for Macquarie and Grayndler. They have set up many excellent points. I want to focus on two aspects in my contribution: the targets embodied in the Paris Agreement and the just transitions clauses in the Paris process, which are quite revolutionary.

On the targets, as previous speakers have noted, Australia's official target of 26 to 28 per cent is grossly inadequate. Independent experts, both in Australia and around the world, have made the point that if other developed nations lodged similar targets, we would be on a trajectory for a four degree warming of the globe, rather than the two degree or, ideally, 1½ degree trajectory that the Paris treaty aimed for. This would lead to very extreme climate change events. This would lead, as Ross Garnaut in the Garnaut review has pointed out, a loss of the Murray-Darling irrigation area and a decimation of Australian agriculture—something that the National Party should consider. It would also endanger the Great Barrier Reef, a tourism attraction that drives $9 billion of GDP and employs 60,000 Australians—something Queensland Nationals MPs should consider. Our targets are wholly inadequate. Yet again that Liberal-National coalition's actions on climate change expose us as being international pariahs when it comes to taking action on climate change. That is why I am so proud of the Labor Party's commitment to a 45 per cent reduction on 2000 levels by 2030. It is a target that is wholly within the bounds of the Climate Change Authority's independent recommendation of what Australia's target should be. This is a policy we took to the election and a policy I am very proud of.

Even when we look at the government's targets, the way they seek to achieve them is through smoke and mirrors. The government's official target for 2020 is minus five per cent on 2000 levels and they will only achieve this through methods that are, quite frankly, almost fraudulent. In 2008 the Department of Climate Change estimated that the cumulative abatement task for Australia to 2020 would be 1,335 megatons of carbon dioxide abated. That has since been reduced over time to 236 megatons so it has gone from 1,300 megatons to 236 megatons of cumulative abatement to hit the minus five per cent.

Why has this abatement task been reduced? It has been reduced because of four events in the projections. First off, a very significant drought led to lower emissions from our agricultural sector. Secondly, there has been lower electricity demand over the last few years as Australian consumers have actually responded to the price signals. We had this giant furphy from the then Prime Minister Abbott and his farcical climate change minister, the member for Flinders, who said that Australians would not respond to price signals in the electricity sector, that people would not reduce their electricity consumption if prices went up. The facts are in and the facts are that, like any other market, when there is a price signal, consumers respond to it. We have got lower electricity demand driving fewer emissions in the economy.

Thirdly, we have got a very significant reduction in manufacturing emissions because we have seen significant job losses in the industrial sector. Most particularly that is driven by the destruction of the automotive sector, a sector that was sustainable as long as we had Holden and Toyota still in this country. But the Abbott-Turnbull government drove those companies offshore which means lower emissions from our manufacturing sector. Fourthly, weaker than expected coal prices compared to original projections mean less coal production which in turn means less fugitive emissions. None of those four factors are within the government's control other than driving Holden and Toyota overseas.

With a reduction in the abatement task from 1,300 megatons to 236, if you add in carry over Kyoto protocol permits and add in the impact of Peter Beattie's visionary land clearing laws, it will mean that only 92 million tonnes of carbon need to be abated by the government to hit the minus five per cent, something they will claim to do through the Emissions Reduction Fund—the direct action dog we talk about. There are still real questions about this fund because this fund is paying farmers to not cut down trees they have already committed to not cutting down under state laws so there is a real question about additionality. Let me repeat that. This fund is paying taxpayers' money to farmers to commit to not cutting down trees they are already prevented from cutting down by state based laws. So I have real questions about whether this 92 million tonnes of abatement is legitimate.

We will probably hit the minus five per cent target but we will do it with an economy in 2020 that will actually have emissions three per cent above 2000 levels, not five per cent below. And that means our economic structure will be baked in at a higher level than it needs to be to then flow on for the 2030 target. On the 2030 target, the abatement task on the government's own figures is 2,200 megatons. The government claims they will only get 900 megatons from their policies but most of the reductions will come from detailed policies around the National Energy Productivity Plan and the Emissions Reduction Fund going forward.

Most farcical of all is that 200 million tonnes will come from 'unspecified technology improvements'. The government's own policy paper says: 'We are going to claim 200 million tonnes of abatement from 'unspecified technology improvements' that we have no idea about. We have no idea of what they are and we have no idea how we are going to achieve them, but we are just going to put that in our papers. We are going to claim this to the UNFCCC, that we are going to get 200 million tonnes of abatement from some magic pudding of technology abatement.' This does not bode well for hitting the 26 per cent target that the government has lodged. It is magic-pudding economics at its best.

But it still leaves a massive 1,300 megaton gap between what they claim they can achieve and what we really need to achieve to even hit the 26 per cent target. This will lead to either one of two things: us not hitting our targets, which will have massive international costs, or, secondly, a massive fiscal cost as we try to buy additional abatement—if we can—through direct action.

Let me summarise where we are on the government's own policy: (a) hitting minus five through policies that are not the government's; and (b) a wholly inadequate 2030 target of 26 per cent that we probably will not achieve, but which if we do by some miracle achieve through the government's policies it will be at a massive fiscal cost. So I have real questions about this government's commitment to reaching these wholly inadequate targets.

In the time remaining I want to touch on one of the most important parts of the Paris agreement, and that is the commitment to just transitions—a commitment which says that we recognise that modern economies will need to change. Modern economies will need to decarbonise if we are to hit these abatement targets. That will affect regions in different ways. In capital cities—in CBDs—there will not be much change; there will be a bit around energy efficiency. But for resource-intense regions, such as mine in the Hunter Valley, or in the Latrobe Valley or in parts of Queensland, this will be a real challenge to industry and communities. But we cannot put our heads in the sand; we cannot pretend that change is not coming. That does not avoid the change, that just means that change will hit us like a locomotive in the middle of the night.

We need to plan for the future. Hazelwood announced its closure last week, not because of any climate change policies but because the plant was nearly 50 years old and the company could not see a rosy future in a climate-constrained economy. They were not prepared to reinvest in one of the most polluting energy power plants in the world.

What we could have done was planned for that closure and put in place real economic diversification—put in place policies so that communities and workers were not the first targets of this process. Instead, this government stuck its head in the sand because it is dominated by climate change deniers and dominated by the rump of the National Party—mostly out of Queensland, other than the Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce. He is stuck in the 1900s, if not the 1800s! Because of this lack of commitment to our future and because they refuse to take action, this community in the Latrobe Valley cannot plan for the future. There is not sufficient investment in the economic diversification of that region. There is no commitment to pool redundancies, which would mean that workers at these plants would not have to lose their jobs if they do not want to.

That is why I am so proud of Labor's policy of pooled redundancies. That means that when an energy station has to close because of climate change we pool the redundancies amongst other power stations in that region so that instead of the 30-year-old fitter who has a mortgage and a young family and who wants to continue in the industry having to lose his job, instead it might be the 59-year-old worker down the road who is happy to take a package.

I am proud to commit to just transition. I am proud to be part of a political party committed to embracing the future, rather than those dinosaurs on the other side who just stick their heads in the sand and hope for the best, because that is betraying our future.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In speaking on this Report 163: Paris Agreement, Kyoto Protocol—Doha Amendment, I notice that recommendation one states:

The Committee supports the Paris Agreement and recommends that binding treaty action be taken.

I assume that means ratifying the agreement, because it does not explicitly say that. But I would hope that that is the intent of the recommendation.

I also note that there were additional comments by the Labor members on that committee. In particular, I want to quote paragraph 3 of the additional comments, which state:

While Labor members of the Committee support ratification of the Paris Agreement and the Doha Amendment, we believe that Australia can and should participate more meaningfully and effectively in the global effort, and that treaty actions covered by this report are weak, poorly founded, and not supported by an adequate basis for implementation.

I quote that paragraph because that is exactly the conclusion I draw about the government's approach to climate change. And can I say that, ever since climate change has become a topic of international discussion, the coalition has continuously resisted any acknowledgement of the reality and consequences of climate change or acceptance of Australia's responsibility as to it. Indeed, just prior to the 2007 election, the Howard government succumbed to community pressure and finally accepted that an emissions trading scheme was necessary in order for Australia to play its part in combating climate change across the world.

Subsequent to the 2007 election, which the coalition lost and which Labor won, we saw the coalition then revert back to its old position, opposing Labor's emissions trading scheme when it was introduced. Indeed, the member for Wentworth, who is now the Prime Minister, lost his leadership over that very decision. But in 2013, when the coalition was returned to government, it again did away with its Howard-government-era commitment to an emissions trading scheme and brought in a very ineffective direct action plan—a plan which, the evidence suggested, would not work and would cause emissions to rise. In fact, from the latest report on that, I see that, by the year 2020, emissions are expected to rise by about six per cent, which confirms what many of the experts have predicted and continue to say. As we all know, the now Prime Minister, the member for Wentworth, has done a complete backflip and now supports the direct action policy which he was an intense critic of back in 2013 or shortly thereafter.

This particular agreement is about Australia playing its part in the globe in terms of doing something about mitigating climate change. We know that, as of last week, 87 countries—covering 61 per cent of all global emissions—had ratified the agreement. Again, Australia is left trailing behind in that it has not ratified the agreement as yet, and it is trailing behind with a very weak emissions reduction target of somewhere between 26 and 28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030. The real question is: 'Are we even going to reach those 26 to 28 per cent targets?'—let alone the questions of whether the targets are in themselves adequate and whether they reflect the level of responsibility that Australia has to play its part.

Evidence about climate change continues to grow. CO2 concentrations around the world now have surpassed 400 parts per million, which is the highest figure in two million years. In fact, in the pre-industrial era it was only 280 parts per million; it is now over 400 parts per million in most parts of the world. Terrestrial temperatures have risen by one degree over the last 100 years, and that is when most of the heat is absorbed by our oceans. The year of 2015 was the hottest on record, and July was the 15th consecutive month of record high global temperatures.

Extreme weather events have become a regular occurrence around the world. In May we saw extreme fires in Canada and extreme heat in India. In June we saw extreme rainfall in Paris and, in Louisiana, we saw a one-in-500-year rainfall event—and that was the eighth such event in the USA in the past 12 months. The facts speak for themselves, and Australia is no different. Here in Australia we have seen fires, floods, heatwaves and cyclones, one after the other, almost every year for the last seven or eight years that I have been in this place, and earlier this year we saw the extensive coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef.

The problem is that Australia is dithering while other countries are acting. North American leaders jointly pledged to reach a target of sourcing 50 per cent of their continent's electricity from clean power sources, which included renewable energy sources. Eighty one corporations have now pledged to reach 100 percent of their energy from renewable sources, and 173 countries now have a renewable energy target, but not Australia. Instead, what this government has done is go in the opposite direction. This is a government that has attempted to shut down the Australian Renewable Energy Agency—one of the agencies put together in order to try and help Australia transition into a clean energy environment and into a new era where renewal energy was the way of the future. We saw this government try to close down the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Worst of all, we have seen this government turn on and criticise state governments who have taken the initiative upon themselves to increase their own renewable energy targets when the federal government would not. I was most disappointed at seeing the Prime Minister, in his first response to the power loss in South Australia, initially try to blame it all on the wind generators in that state.

The consequences of Australia doing nothing are very, very serious, as they are for the rest of the world. Not only will we be left behind with respect to the clean energy jobs and the growth of that industry—the growth which other countries are forging ahead with and which is creating huge opportunities for those countries that are taking the initiative—but it means that we will continue to be using the kinds of energy system that simply add to the pollution that causes the problem in the first place.

The economic costs of not doing anything and of continuing to have to deal with the extreme weather events, whether they are floods, fire, heat or even sea level rises, will continue to rise. The figures in respect to the economic costs are very difficult to quantify. I have spoken in this place previously about those costs. They run into tens of billions of dollars. Because they have dissipated across a whole range of areas, it is difficult to say, 'We can save this amount of money by doing this or that amount by doing something else.' The reality is that every time there is a flood, a fire or a cyclone, there would be tens of millions of dollars of costs expended in the states where they occur simply to fix the problem—before you even look at the productivity losses that might have arisen from it.

The other area of serious costs that is very rarely spoken about is the health cost to the nation. We know that heatwaves in particular cause a lot of people in this country to suffer very ill health and, in many cases, die. We also know that disease may well rise as a result of changing weather patterns. The CSIRO has put together some very good information about all of that if members care to have a look at it. We also know that as a result of climate change we will see huge environmental losses of flora and fauna. As a member of the standing committee on the environment in this place for the last eight years prior to this year—because I am not on it in this term of parliament—I have been involved in one inquiry after the other which all highlighted the environmental costs and losses as a result of climate change that we as a nation, in my view, are not doing enough about in trying to protect.

The last matter that I wish to very briefly talk about is the intergenerational cost that the member for Grayndler referred to earlier. All of these costs continue to rise. The more we do nothing about what should be done the costs will continue to rise and be passed on to future generations. That is the greatest type of intergenerational theft I can think of—to leave future generations to sort out and manage a problem that we refused to take responsible action about.

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Debate is now adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order for the next sitting day.