Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services and Disability Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in support of the Product Emissions Standards Bill 2017. This bill enables the introduction of air pollution standards for products such as small petrol engines, equipment and outboard motors. The bill implements a key aspect of the National Clean Air Agreement agreed to by Australia's environment ministers in December 2015. Under that agreement, a key initial action was the introduction of national emissions standards for new non-road spark ignition engines and equipment, also known as NRSIEEs.

These engines and equipment are a significant emissions source and at peak times are estimated to contribute up to 10 per cent of overall air pollutants in Australian urban environments, the very neighbourhoods where majority of us reside. Everyone in this chamber will undoubtedly remember their childhoods, with the smell of freshly mown lawns on a weekend. Add to that fragrance the ever-distinctive two-stroke exhaust and petrol aromas emanating from mowers, hedge trimmers, whipper snippers and the dreaded leaf blowers. Times have changed little since those days, yet our knowledge of the emissions of such equipment has resulted in the rethinking of small-engine emissions. Madam Deputy Speaker, it may pass your mind but you do know that small spark engines are high emitters of pollution for their size. Two-stroke leaf blowers can produce similar nitrogen oxides to one car. I am told some lawnmowers can produce 40 times the emissions of a car. Consider the number of small spark engines in your neighbourhood being used on a Saturday morning. The emissions figures certainly add up. Fundamentally, these standards will improve the air quality of urban areas and deliver health benefits. With increases in population and transport growth come added pressures on the quality of the air we currently enjoy—quality air that most of us take for granted. Clean air is good air.

The facts that I will set forth in my support for this bill will demonstrate the unsuspected dangers we are all exposed to. This bill will align Australia with other developed countries and other major markets which already have similar standards. Australian standards will be harmonised to minimise any regulatory burden. I note the government has consulted and worked with the industry for more than a decade to develop emissions standards for these products. In order to allow industry time to adjust to these new standards, they will be phased in over the next two years. It is proposed that imports of non-compliant products will be prohibited from 1 July 2018 with the sale of non-compliant products fully prohibited from 1 July 2019. As part of these bills, customs and excise charges will impose fees on the importation of products prescribed under the product emissions standard legislation. These fees will enable the full cost recovery of the costs associated with regulating prescribed products.

Like most federal members, I continually meet with my constituents to hear firsthand their current concerns and issues. One such local resident is Mr Gary Fooks. For those of you who do not know him, Gary is the chairman of Blue Sky Alliance, representing some manufacturers and distributors of non-road engine products who believe that Australians deserve to breathe clean air. Gary has worked in close consultation with industry and government on these standards for the past 10 year and wants to ensure that Australia is stringent in its approach to the enforcement of these standards. Gary's passion for this legislation and for the environment starts in his own garage, where, I understand, much of his small-engine equipment is emissions-standard friendly.

As I mentioned earlier with the emissions from leaf blowers and lawnmowers, these proposed standards will cover noxious air pollutants such as carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides, which have significant impacts on human health. With estimates that new standards could deliver $1.7 billion in avoided health costs, it is vital that this bill is supported by all in this House. Given that similar standards are already in place in 26 of the 35 OECD countries, Australia has become the dumping ground for high-polluting products manufactured overseas. Manufacturers who produce these old emission-intensive engines have realised that the Australian market is still open for sale when it comes to old emission-intensive engines. You only need to walk into your local large hardware outlet to see the cheap Chinese-import mowers. No-one can expect these engines to be the cleanest and greenest.

These standards will be the genesis of Australia's urban clean-air initiatives. However, I know that more can be done and achieved from here. While many probably relive their pasts of premixed fuel for the old two-stroke mowers, I would like future generations to breathe clean air when they are tending to their gardens and lawns or taking their boats out onto the water at the weekend. Not that many years ago, it was normal for us to have hazy Saturday afternoons with neighbours lighting up their incinerators to clean up gardening leftovers. Since the banning of incinerators in Queensland many years ago, our afternoons are now cleaner and clearer, and neighbours' washing on clothes lines is untainted. While this example has little to do with small engines, it is the type of environmental policy which seeks to ensure the health and safety of Australians. Darryl Kerrigan of The Castle fame once said that he loved the smell of two-stroke in the morning. Unfortunately, what he probably could not smell were the undetectable carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides that surrounded him and his boat.

I place on record my support for this bill and the work of the coalition government and industry. I particularly thank people like Gary Fooks, who is in the chamber with us today, and all who strive to ensure the health of our environment and future generations. I commend the bill to the house.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The new standards introduced by these bills are good for the health of Australians and the environment, and they provide certainty for industry. As someone who before coming to this place as the member for Canberra worked on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in the department of climate change and worked on the stakeholder engagement strategy with industry, I know that certainty for industry is absolutely fundamental for them to get on board for dramatic change—quite often for the climate change initiatives that the Labor government was proposing at the time. It is vitally important that industry is clear on the way forward, has certainty on the way forward, is clear on what a government is trying to achieve and, most importantly, is clear on its investment strategy for the future. There is nothing that industry hates more than uncertainty. Unfortunately, that's what this government has given industry: uncertainty in the climate change area, uncertainty in terms of a national energy policy and uncertainty in terms of renewables.

The new standards outlined in this bill provide for a reduction of 1.9 million tonnes of CO2 emissions over the next 20 years. This could avoid $1.7 billion in health costs, which is significant, as well as about 3,000 premature deaths. They are significant outcomes. Similar standards are already in place in 26 of the 35 OECD countries, including the United States, Japan and China. By introducing these standards, Australia will finally have a regulatory framework in place that will prevent our country—with some of the world's most unique flora and fauna, and the Great Barrier Reef, one of the seven wonders of the natural world—from being the dumping ground for high-polluting products manufactured overseas.

Environment ministers from federal, state and territory governments agreed to the adoption of these new standards in December 2015, which was the first key initiative under the National Clean Air Agreement. It's taken almost two years for this legislation to be introduced. In the meantime, the ACT government here in the nation's capital, here in the wonderful but freezing-cold national capital, has been doing all it can to lower emissions and help improve what can only be considered a bleak outlook on climate change presented by this Turnbull government.

One of the best things about Canberra—Australia's national capital—is its reputation as the bush capital. That's one of the features that we love about it. The bushland surrounds and intertwines this city, which is why our city is known for clean air, open spaces and convenience. Systems of parks, wetlands and waterways provide a valuable habitat that improves our ecosystems. The design of Walter Burley Griffin is definitely one of the reasons for the city being what it is today—a bush capital with a natural landscape that has, as part of the planning process, green spaces.

Walter Burley Griffin was very much influenced by the notion of a democratic city. He wanted democracy to be encouraged, with the participation of citizens—active citizenry—to be realised through the design of cities. That is why his design has so much interaction with the natural landscape, that is why the architectural designs have so much interaction with and so much sympathy for the natural environment, and that is why there is so much green space, so people have a sense of wellbeing not only from looking onto green space but also from walking in that green space, bike riding in that green space, running in that green space, playing in that green space. It's vitally important to the notion of the wellbeing and health of a community, and it's vitally important to the notion of access and activity citizenry for everyone. So we've got this fabulous city, this fabulous national capital, that realises Griffin's design ideas. At the time, unfortunately, those ideas were attacked by politicians and by the architecture profession here in Australia, as well as by the media.

In much the same way, climate change has been attacked by those who don't believe in the science behind it. But Canberrans believe it and are leading the way for the rest of Australia. With emissions in the ACT already reduced by 20 per cent since 2012, which is significant, we saw an announcement late last year that 100 per cent of the territory's electricity needs will be met by renewable energy by 2020. Canberra is investing in sustainable transport and buildings and is shifting away from a reliance on motor vehicles to more sustainable options. That's a big challenge, because, for all the merits of Burley Griffin's design, he actually had as part of that design a light rail or tram network. Unfortunately, there were various iterations of Canberra's town planning, and in the seventies there was a flurry of activity, and a lot of what's happened, particularly with the satellite city concept, has meant that large parts of Canberra are linked. We have satellite cities that are linked by roads. Despite Walter Burley Griffin's original concept of a democratic city with lots of green space and people actively engaged in the community, thanks to the town planners of the seventies and the satellite city concept, Canberra is connected by a large road network, so we are very heavily reliant on cars.

That is why the ACT government should be commended for the efforts it's made in trying to reduce Canberrans' dependence on cars. It's looking at electric cars, at walking tracks, at cycling and at sustainable public transport systems. They've all been on the agenda to help Canberra into the future, which shows a real commitment to achieving that 2020 emissions target.

This is streets ahead of some states and territories that haven't even set a renewable energy target. It's an interesting point: can you set a target for net zero emissions by 2050 without having a renewable energy target in place? While it's encouraging to see this Turnbull government implementing policies that are expected to reduce carbon emissions, it's happening at a glacial pace.

This is similar to the Turnbull government's response to managing PFAS contamination. Legacy firefighting foams containing perfluorinated chemicals were used extensively in Australia and worldwide from the 1970s due to their effectiveness in extinguishing liquid fuel fires. After concerns emerged about potential environmental and human health impacts of the chemicals, Defence began phasing out its use of legacy firefighting foams containing PFOS and PFOA chemicals as active ingredients, and it started doing that in 2004.

Defence has identified 18 category 1 properties which have had large quantities or routine and frequent historical use of legacy firefighting foams and prioritised these sites for investigation to determine if any contaminants have migrated off-site and, if so, the extent of their migration. Investigations into the extent of PFAS contamination, its effects on the environment and its effects on human health have been ongoing for some time.

In fact, one of the first areas subject to investigation was around the Army Aviation Centre in Oakey in 2012. Defence completed an environmental site assessment, a human health risk assessment and a preliminary ecological risk assessment for Oakey in 2016, with further investigations still underway. Five years later and the community in Oakey are still facing the same anxiety and uncertainty they have had from the start of the investigation in 2012. There's a class action underway at the moment. Erin Brockovich has been there a number of times to speak to Oakey residents. Five years later, there's still this anxiety and uncertainty facing the Oakey community in terms of the PFAS contamination issue.

The waiting, the anxiety and the uncertainty are also felt by the community in and around RAAF Base Williamtown. Environmental investigations into the nature and extent of PFAS contamination on and around RAAF Base Williamtown began in 2015. The environmental site assessment, human health risk assessment and preliminary ecological risk assessment were also completed in 2016. Following the completion of these assessments, Defence identified data gaps in some portions of the investigation area, so further work is underway to update and refine the 2016 assessment reports. Some of this work is similar to that happening in Oakey. Analysis is happening on the uptake of PFAS in fruit and vegetables and the uptake of PFAS in chicken eggs, and there is seafood sampling and analysis, additional surface water and groundwater data collection and additional sediment data collection and analysis.

This year, updated tolerable daily intake levels were identified by Food Standards Australia New Zealand—and this has been the challenge with this issue, Deputy Speaker. I'm not sure whether you're aware of it, but the challenge has been in the fact that there has been no internationally agreed standard on it. The US has a particular standard. The various states in the US have different standards. Europeans have different standards. Australia now has a different standard. So everyone is really grappling with this issue internationally in terms of working out: what is an acceptable level of reading in your blood with these PFAS contaminants? We are at the beginning of this journey, and it's a real challenge for everyone.

As I said, these new daily tolerable intake levels were identified by FSANZ just this year, and Defence released an additional human health risk assessment report setting out additional precautionary recommendations for Williamtown and Oakey residents to minimise exposure to PFAS chemicals. Williamtown and Oakey residents are facing the uncertainty of what is actually happening to their health, their environment and their property values, and other communities living near those 18 Defence sites are taking note of what is happening in Oakey and Williamtown.

The two locations are considered benchmarks. Oakey's been dealing with this issue for five years, still with no resolution from the government. Five years on; still no clear way forward from the Turnbull government on what should be actually happening. For two years Williamtown residents have been coping with the uncertainty, anxiety, stress and human health concerns. These have not been addressed appropriately by this government. There's still uncertainty around the issue. We have those two sites, Oakey and Williamtown, still with large question marks over them because of inaction from this government. Labor has continually called on the government to actually listen to residents and respond appropriately.

We know that the community living near RAAF Base Tindal in Katherine is also concerned about the impact of PFAS chemicals on its natural water supply. The concern for their community's health and environment has led to a water treatment plant being quickly sourced, built and shipped from the United States to Katherine to help filter the community's water supply. In the meantime, water restrictions are in place to help reduce the community's potential exposure to PFAS chemicals. If the benchmarks of Williamtown and Oakey are anything to go by—Oakey five years, still no certainty; Williamtown two years, still no certainty—then the Katherine community will have to wait before any certainty can be provided by this government.

The leaching of PFAS chemicals off Defence bases into the national environment is a major concern. I have visited almost all of the 18 Defence sites that have been identified as affected by PFAS contamination to find out more. I have received briefings from Defence staff and officers at Navy, Army and Air Force bases right around the country on what is happening to identify potential sources of contaminants, to establish the extent of any contamination, and the management processes in place to prevent any further leaching of PFAS chemicals into the surrounding environment. I want to take this opportunity to thank all of those Defence staff and Defence officers who provided their professional advice and opinion and their hospitality in these many briefings and base tours. They've shown me where the PFAS chemicals were used, they've shown me where they were stored, and they've shown me the management arrangements that are currently in place to risk manage it.

Defence is working tirelessly in a cloud of uncertainty that's been created by this government's failure to coordinate a national response to what is an emerging national issue. Labor has led from the front on the management of PFAS. This government largely adopted Labor's policy that we took to the last election in response to PFAS contamination, but it is failing in its execution. It was Labor that called for a nationally consistent approach to PFAS management. It was Labor that called for the Turnbull government to expand its program of voluntary blood testing for only Williamtown and Oakey residents to all 18 Defence sites. It was Labor that called for the creation of an intergovernmental taskforce to coordinate the government's response to contamination. The government finally created a taskforce earlier this year, but the taskforce has yet to make a public appearance, comment or announcement on the government's policy solution. We've heard there's a solution for Williamtown out there. What is that solution? I'm calling on the Turnbull government to let us know what the government's solution is— (Time expired)

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Product Emissions Standards Bill 2017 and the related bills currently before the House. This package of bills is long overdue, and I do commend the stakeholders and members of the manufacturing industry, in particular, who've worked long and hard to finally get some emissions standards for small engines in this country. Australia is one of the last major economies to regulate the toxic emissions from lawnmowers, leaf blowers, chainsaws and the like.

Although this government is finally doing something about these emissions, a far greater source of toxic emissions continues. Coal-fired power stations are a far greater source of toxic air pollution—including mercury, sulphur and oxides of nitrogen—and yet the government shows no interest at all on acting on this pollution. This government are tough on lawnmowers and leaf blowers, tough on lawnmowers and the causes of lawnmowers, but they let dirty, polluting coal off scot-free. I'll have more to say about coal-fired power stations and their pollution a bit later, but first I want to comment briefly on the bills before us.

The Product Emissions Standards Bill establishes a national framework to enable Australia to address the adverse impacts of air pollution from certain products on human and environmental health. It implements a key aspect of the National Clean Air Agreement established by Australia's environment ministers on 15 December 2015. Under that agreement, an initial action was the introduction of national emissions standards for new non-road spark ignition engines and equipment. The explanatory memorandum to the bill states:

… consistent with the National Clean Air Agreement, it is anticipated that the first emissions-controlled products to be prescribed under the … framework will be NRSIEE products—

non-road spark ignition engines and equipment products. It goes on:

… rules made for NRSIEE will prescribe two broad 17 categories … new small non-road spark ignition engines (up to 19 kilowatts in power) and new marine spark ignition propulsion engines.

In other words, these rules will cover outdoor power equipment, such as leaf blowers, lawnmowers, chainsaws and brush cutters, as well as marine engines, such as outboards and personal watercraft. Emissions from these products include nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, carbon monoxides and particulate matter. But these bills do not regulate carbon dioxide and other global-warming gases. At peak times, these non-road engines and equipment are estimated to contribute up to 10 per cent of overall air pollutants in Australian urban environments. The government claims that this bill will align Australia with other developed countries and major markets that already have similar standards, including the US, Japan and China, and the EU, and that Australian standards will be harmonised to minimise any regulatory burden.

The bill also allows the minister to prescribe products as 'emissions-controlled products' and to make rules relating to those products. It establishes offences and civil penalty provisions relating to the import or supply of certain controlled products, and it also enables the sharing of information with other agencies and the publication of certain information relating to these emissions-controlled products.

The Australian Greens have long called for controls on air pollution, and in 2013 we initiated a far-reaching inquiry in the Senate into the impacts on health of the air quality in Australia. Because we have been the ones leading the charge in the parliament on regulation on this front for many, many years, we support this bill and we will vote for it. But we do share some of the specific concerns expressed by stakeholders that the bill falls well short of what is needed.

As I said at the outset, the bill does not address the main source of air pollution in Australia. For example, the bill fails to make it an offence to modify a machine in any way that changes its certified level of emissions. There is no point in having clean-certified engines imported if there are no restrictions on modifications. It's been reported to my office that at least one existing manufacturer makes modifications to every Honda engine it uses in its Australian manufactured products. So, once it's imported, what then happens to it is completely unregulated. The current automobile standards have a modification restriction, so why not small-scale engines? Why not?

Secondly, it is important to understand that the bill's not just about lawnmowers and outboard motors. It creates a framework that will be used in the future for a range of products, so it's important to get it right. Stakeholders have legitimate concerns about the enforcement of these rules. With 1.3 million small engines imported yearly, enforcing these restrictions on importation is going to be a critical means of ensuring compliance.

But concerns have been raised with me and with my office that the exemptions contained in the bill may be far too lax. It's also been suggested that the department's plan is to allow any products sold in limited numbers under the USA scheme to be sold in unlimited numbers in Australia. Essentially, that gives us the USA 2006 standard, which is not exactly world's best practice. It's also been claimed that abandoning evaporative standards means that we're going to remain behind world's best.

I welcome the minister's response on these concerns, because these may well be issues that we pursue as this bill progresses through the parliament. However, as I've indicated, we do support the bill, because after many years of delay it represents some action—some action—on air quality and tackling toxic pollution. So it's a good step but a very tiny step.

As I said at the beginning—this is part of the reason that it doesn't go anywhere near far enough—the pollution controlled by this bill almost pales into insignificance compared to the massive amount of toxic pollution from Australia's coal-fired power stations and our vehicles. Even the government has agreed that fine particle pollution emissions account for the lion's share of impacts of air pollution. We, the Greens, will continue to pursue the case for a phase-out of coal-fired power stations in this country and a shift over to renewables because of the climate change impact.

But let's just park that for one moment and focus on what this bill purports to regulate and to be concerned with, which is the direct health impacts of particulates and of pollution. We know, as I've said, that as much as 90 per cent of the health impacts across the country are related to fine particulates, and yet small engines are not even listed as a source of PM2.5 in the National Pollutant Inventory. Lawnmowers are listed as a source of nitrous oxide but in 14th place. A total of 390,000 kilograms is regulated by this bill, compared to 360 million kilograms from power stations and 340 million kilograms from motor vehicles. We have to bear in mind that the government is still dragging its heels on vehicle emission standards, where we are way behind the standards set in the US and Europe.

The clear hypocrisy of this government has now been revealed by a major new report released by Environmental Justice Australia just two weeks ago, which shows that Australia's power stations are allowed to emit far more pollution than those in the US and Europe and that many operators are failing to adopt available pollution reduction technologies and in one case even admitted to falsifying pollution reports. That report states that nearly 900,000 Australians in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria live dangerously close to coal-fired power stations that cause asthma and respiratory illnesses and increase the likelihood of stroke and heart attack. Those 900,000 living in close proximity to the power stations are not the only ones who are affected. Emissions from the five New South Wales power stations account for 87 per cent of Sydney's sulphur dioxide pollution. This report, entitled Toxic and terminal: how the regulation of coal-fired power stations fails Australian communities, is the result of exhaustive research, freedom of information searches, surveillance of Australia's major power stations and advice from health experts and industry whistleblowers. I want to commend the work of Environmental Justice Australia in putting it together.

The report comes up with some incredibly startling findings. They find that coal-fired power stations emit more than 30 toxic substances and are Australia's biggest source of PM2.5, or fine particle sulphur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen, and that these substances cause and contribute to asthma, lung cancer, heart attacks, stroke, respiratory disease, headaches and nausea in nearby communities.

The report also finds that, incredibly, in most cases emission limits from these stations in Australia are much more lax than those in the US, the EU and China. In many cases, Australian coal-fired power stations are allowed to be more polluting with the kinds of chemicals that are regulated by this bill than those in China. Mercury limits in some New South Wales power stations are 666 times higher than the United States limits. The report also found that pollution reduction technologies that have been available for many, many years and are used overseas could significantly reduce power stations' emissions but aren't in use in Australia.

It was also found in the report that a representative of the Yallourn Power Station admitted 'that at times of excessive pollution it "simplified" its reporting by stating that it was emitting at levels that correspond with its licence limits'. Shockingly, and this comes back to the question of enforcement, it found:

Despite much evidence of failure to comply with pollution licence conditions, no power station in Victoria, NSW or Queensland has been prosecuted for any offence in the past ten years (instead they have been issued with inadequate penalty notices).

One of the report's co-authors, Environmental Justice Australia's lawyer, Nicola Rivers, said, when releasing the report:

Fine particle pollution exposure is responsible for 1,590 premature deaths each year in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth … People who live within 50 kilometres of coal-fired power stations are three to four times more likely to die prematurely than people who live further away.

And, because air pollution travels:

… 87% of the sulphur dioxide pollution recorded in Sydney can be traced to have come from power stations in the Hunter Valley, more than 100 kilometres away.

She also said:

Power station pollution is believed to cause 130 premature deaths a year in Sydney.

That report highlights the lack of seriousness of this government in tackling air pollution. It's all well and good to be tough on lawnmowers and leaf blowers but coal-fired power stations are allowed to emit more pollution than in China. Whatever you think about climate change, whatever you think about the current debate about the role of coal-fired power stations, when you know—it's undeniable—that coal-fired power stations produce pollution and the kind of particulates that the government says that it cares about and when there are 1,590 people dying early in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth because we do not properly regulate pollution that comes from our power stations, which we allow to be more polluting than China, then you would think you'd take action on it. If you're prepared to have reviews over several years, go through COAG and talk about how you're going to crack down on lawnmowers and leaf blowers then don't turn a blind eye to the massive power stations that are sitting, in many cases, in people's backyards and are causing people who live within 50 kilometres of them to die and suffer disease more than others in the population. Don't allow these power stations to continue to produce so much sulphur that it travels all the way down to Sydney and accounts for 87 per cent of Sydney's air pollution. Do something about that as well.

Instead, what we know in this country is that the coal-fired power station lobby has this government under its thumb; when it says 'jump', this government says, 'How high?' We know the government doesn't care about climate change. But, again, let's put that to one side. If this government actually cared about people's health and wanted to stop 1,590 premature deaths in some of those eastern seaboard cities every year, then what they would do is say, 'We're going to go beyond leaf blowers and lawn mowers and we're going to tackle one of the biggest sources of preventable pollution in this country and look at what's coming out of the top of those stacks at our coal-fired power stations'. Maybe if the government had the guts to regulate the pollution that comes out of there—to at least the level of, say, China, but, ideally, to the level they're using in the EU—we might go some way to having clean air in this country and stopping people from dying unnecessarily.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm very glad to rise today to speak on the Product Emissions Standard Bill 2017 and related bills. It is a package of bills that I'm really glad to support. It may seem to be a relatively minor emissions issue, but I think it is indicative of this government's laissez faire attitude to emission standards, energy policy and climate change.

There is no doubt that in Australia we are way behind the eight ball when it comes to our action on climate change and reducing emissions. In many ways we are going backwards. The news today that the Prime Minister is trying to promote the prolonged continuation of some of our oldest and most polluting coal-fired power stations, and that some government members are advocating the building of many more new coal-fired power stations, to me is absolutely shocking. It is even more shocking because I know the Minister for the Environment and Energy comes from a scientific family and, I suspect, doesn't really believe what this government is promoting. It is symptomatic of the destruction of any real knowledge or action on climate change and environment and it is disgraceful.

Almost all the rest of the world is fighting climate change while some on the other side of the chamber are still debating whether or not it's real. Australia's environmental policy has been smeared by political pointscoring for far too many years and we need to take action now. This bill is a small part of that. The emissions standards bill before us, or something close to it, is already in place in the vast majority of the 35 OECD countries, including America, Japan and China. This is a change that should've been implemented many years ago; it's a real no-brainer. So I'm glad to see that at last the government is introducing these bills that will not only improve our environment but improve the health of Australians and save many lives.

The bills before us relate to air pollution standards on non-road spark ignition engines and equipment. It is absolutely horrifying to know that some lawnmowers emit up to 40 times the emissions of a car per hour, and brush cutters at least 10 times the emissions of a car per hour. In other words, lawnmowers are the equivalent of having 40 cars on the road. We all know that in Australia we love our lawnmowers, and I'm no exception. I love my lawn. I take pride in the fact that my lawn looks good. My grandchildren come and play on our lawn, our dogs run on our lawn, and it looks great. In my house we have lawnmowers, brush cutters, leaf blowers, mulchers, lawn edgers and even, dare I say it, a chainsaw—although my days of playing with chainsaws might be over, I think; they do worry me quite a lot—and it is horrifying for me to know that these machines pollute so much. I wasn't aware, in fact, that we didn't have emission controls on these machines. As well as their being heavily polluting, we use them very close to our faces and we breathe in the fumes, which we know contain things like carcinogenic hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and often particulate pollutants, all of which can be associated with things like cardiovascular disease, stroke and peripheral vascular disease and are possibly related to a variety of different cancers, including lung and gastric cancer. Really, this is something that we should've addressed many years ago. In the 1970s we were addressing these issues in our motor vehicles, and the fact that we are only just now thinking about doing something about our leaf blowers, lawnmowers, chainsaws and brush cutters is pretty horrifying and yet another indication that in Australia we are lagging behind in what we should be doing about our air pollution.

The unregulated engines that emit these toxins may be small, but they are definitely highly polluting. On average, they produce between 10 and 20 times more emissions per hour than a motor vehicle engine. These emissions have a significant effect not only on our environment but, as I mentioned, on our health. It's very difficult to understand the actual effect until you look at the statistics, but at least 1,500 lives a year are being lost directly because of environmental pollution and countless people are suffering from early onset cardiovascular disease. We are concerned, in the medical community, about the incidence of relatively young males dying suddenly from cardiovascular disease, and one can only think that our environmental pollution may well have something to do with it. So it's about time we did something about it. When we use these machines, as I've mentioned, we're breathing the emissions straight into our airways, and very quickly these pollutants can enter the bloodstream, and they must definitely be having an effect. It's estimated that environmental pollution reduction could save up to $1.7 billion in health costs and avoid up to 3,000 deaths a year.

Early yesterday I met with Gary Fooks, the chair of the Blue Sky Alliance, and I'm very grateful for his advocacy of these emissions standards. He's been one of the main drivers of this bill, along with David Heyes, the President of AMEC, and Tim McCarthy, the President of OPEA. I am grateful for their support and advocacy on something that should have been addressed many years ago. The Blue Sky Alliance is a joint venture between the two peak bodies that cover the garden equipment and marine engine industries, and they represent about 95 per cent of the 1.3 million small non-road engines sold in Australia each year. These organisations have done the research for many years and have proven that no-one will be worse off under the implementation of these emissions standards and we will be a lot better off in terms of our environment. In fact, over half the market is already filled with clean engines and every brand available has a clean engine available. All this bill is doing is regulating the dirty engines, and this legislation will not make it illegal to use our old equipment but will mean that the new equipment we buy will be low-emissions machines. So this is a very good outcome.

To be honest with you, this bill is dealing with the low-hanging fruit. It's addressing a fault in our system that should have been dealt with many years ago. It's about ensuring that Australia can meet international standards. While it's great that we're finally dealing with the Product Emissions Standards Bill, there is a long way to go in addressing Australia's lack of environmental policy. The government is letting Australia's environment be destroyed, and we are seeing absolutely no action at all to protect our oceans, the Murray-Darling Basin, which we know is being allowed to be degraded surreptitiously without proper action, and our wildlife and their habitats, which are being damaged continually. The Great Barrier Reef is another case in point where the government has done very little to support environmental protection and, in fact, looks like supporting a coalmine that may well signal the end of the Great Barrier Reef as we know it.

As a father and a grandfather, it is shameful for me to have to tell my children and grandchildren that much of their environment will be destroyed because this government refuses to protect it. We're now faced with the disastrous effects of climate change. They will know that this government let Australia fall behind the rest of the world in any action to stop it. I'm very happy to support this bill, but I hope we can start seeing some courage from this government and from the minister in shaping some real environmental policy that will deal with the challenges ahead. Even in my own electorate, we're seeing the gradual loss of our koala colony, the only chlamydia-free urban koala colony in Australia, by ongoing development, but neither state nor federal governments will lift a hand to protect it. It is absolutely shameful.

We know that in south-west Sydney we have very poor air quality, yet we have no clear emissions policy or energy policy from this government and this minister, who are wilfully ignoring the advice from their own Chief Scientist. This government is mired in a right-wing reactionary ideology that fails to protect its people from pollution, climate change and environmental degradation. It is an absolute disgrace that members of the government could think it funny to bring lumps of coal into the parliament to demonstrate their support for the coal industry and coal-fired power stations. That they think this is a joke, to me, is absolutely shameful. I really think it's time that some courage be shown by the environment minister and by the Prime Minister to try to make things different. We need courage, we need to keep up with the rest of the world in our environmental policy and it is time for change.

I'm also very concerned, apart from this bill, about whether the government will put in place mechanisms for imported engines to be tested appropriately. We already know the government is allowing suspect building materials, flammable building materials and building materials containing asbestos into the country without proper checks and balances. We know they've let motor vehicles come into the country with fairly easy to check brake linings made of asbestos, which have been illegal in Australia for many years. Even if we do introduce these bills and even if we do want to have low-emission engines, we need to make sure that imported engines, which are the majority of what we use in Australia, are properly tested by Customs and by pollution control authorities.

I commend the bill, and I commend it as something that really should've happened a long time ago. I ask that Minister Frydenberg urgently develop an energy and emissions policy to protect the Australian people. I also ask the government to fully implement the recommendations of the Finkel report. I ask them to reassure the Australian people that they are actually doing something about our environmental pollution. And I ask them to develop an energy policy that can reassure people that their power bills won't continue to skyrocket, and that we do have a clear and appropriate emissions policy so that power companies can develop mechanisms to develop their resources appropriately. We are crying out for leadership in this debate. I am grateful for the members supporting the bill, but it is only part of what is a very big picture. It is time for courage from this reactionary government. Thank you.

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Port Adelaide has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment be agreed to. Those in favour say aye, those against no. I think the noes have it.

An opposition member: The ayes have it.

As it is necessary to resolve this question to enable further questions to be considered in relation to this bill, in accordance with standing order 195 the bill will be returned to the House for further consideration.