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

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes the recent statement by the International Energy Agency that new coal, oil and gas projects must cease by 2021 to be able to reach net-zero by 2050; and

(2) calls on all Members of Parliament to act urgently on the International Energy Agency's warning.

The International Energy Agency is a conservative body that represents the coal, oil and gas industry, and they are giving us a warning. They are making it crystal clear: time is up. This statement hasn't come out of thin air, though. The world recognises that time is up. Time is up on new coal, new oil and new gas. It's time for pollution to start ratcheting down and for new renewables to go up.

In just the last month we've seen people killed in climate induced flash flooding across Europe and Asia. Across America and around the Mediterranean people are dying in climate fuelled fires. During a pandemic, we are seeing death and destruction from the climate crisis, the climate crisis which is being driven by coal, oil and gas.

This is not the first warning, but it is dramatic. It is far-reaching. It will send a powerful message to banks and investors that the jig is up—that, no, we cannot keep burning this stuff forever. But, here, Liberal and Labor are talking about opening up new gas projects in the Northern Territory, using public money to do it. In the Northern Territory, the Beetaloo Basin and the associated Northern Territory basins contain 68 years worth of Australia's pollution. It must say in the ground, but Labor and Liberal are talking about taking money that could be going to schools and hospitals and using it to open it up and make the climate crisis worse.

Why don't Liberal and Labor members get it? Banks get it; super funds and insurance agencies get it; state governments get it; firefighters, police and ambulance officers get it; kids get it. Why don't politicians get it? Is it the donations? Is it the millions of dollars that coal, oil and gas corporations shovel into the old parties' election funds that makes them wilfully blind, silent and complicit? Is it that simple? Is money all that it takes to pay off the government and the opposition to look the other way while a few coal and gas billionaires and big corporations wreck the only place that we've got to live in? Or is it the jobs, the jobs for the boys, the jobs for the former men of the Liberal and Labor parties, who, once they leave parliament, end up with the lobbyists or on the boards of the corporations poisoning our politicians with donations—the likes of Martin Ferguson, Ian Macfarlane, John Anderson and Mark Vaile? How well paid are these gigs that members are willing to sell every one of us out? Do they pay enough so that your conscience is clear?

Or are politicians just scared—scared of losing power after being attacked in the pages of News Ltd? How is it that fear of climate deniers like Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair is worse than the fear of our kids losing their lives? Or is it fear of the big corporations? In this country the big corporations have way too much power. They're like the drug cartels. They've addicted our politicians. They extort public cash and outrageous approvals. They get so much special treatment to railroad farmers, local communities and traditional owners, and they often pay no tax and send their profits offshore, tax-free.

But, members, we cannot deny the reality that we face. Members, you all know this. You might tell yourselves that it's not our problem, that there's nothing that you can do. But we all know the fires will be back. There will be more summers burnt by this government's and this opposition's failures. They know that politicians will be called out again and again on the world stage. Whenever this pandemic is over, the climate crisis will be there and it will keep getting worse. Young people have been forced to endure so much during this pandemic, and they have lost some of the best years of their lives to COVID and this government's failures. But now they are facing a climate crisis. And right now this government is going to court to argue that it doesn't have a duty of care to our children's future. It's clear that the coal, oil and gas corporations in this place have too much power, and you just need to look at the fact that they pay no tax as proof of that.

It is time to take responsibility. This is our decade for change. We must act. And the good news is: the next election is closer than we think. For a few hundred votes, we can kick this government out, put the Greens in balance of power and make the next government go further and faster on the climate crisis.

Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the motion be agreed to. I give the call to the honourable member for Clark. In the event that he is not available, I give the call to the member for Indi.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will publish a distressing finding. Global temperatures are set to pass the critical 1.5 degrees threshold by the early 2030s, an entire decade earlier than expected. Two hundred and thirty experts reviewed 14,000 scientific papers in the last three years to give us this sobering statistic. As an academic, as a medical scientist, I know the work that goes into reports like these. This is empirical science and it's alarming.

The IPCC report will also find that human induced climate change was a major cause of the Black Summer bushfires that tore through my electorate, and many other electorates in this nation, 18 months ago. Just this week we've seen horrifying visions of wildfires engulfing towns across Greece, Turkey and Italy. California continues to burn, just like Canada did last month. It's hard for my communities to look at that footage. The emergency sirens are still ringing in our ears, and—it hurts me to say this—it's almost certain that those sirens will be ringing in our ears again. Temperatures in North East Victoria have already shot up one degree. They will go up another 2.4 degrees by 2050. That means double the number of extreme heat days and a 44 per cent increase in extreme fire danger days. The climate change crisis is well and truly here.

The United Nations ranks Australia last out of nearly 200 countries when it comes to actions to reduce emissions. That's right: dead, motherless last. We've had our strongest diplomatic allies, like the UK and the US, begging Australia to step up and join them in their ambition. The EU carbon tariff is happening, whether the trade minister likes it or not, and the US will be next. And still the government bury their head in the tar sands. The International Energy Agency wants us to halt immediately any new coal, oil and gas projects. Instead, the government pump $50 million in taxpayer subsidies to frack the Beetaloo Basin, and they do that without any consent from the traditional owners. Our precious Great Barrier Reef is dying too. When UNESCO moved to label it as 'in danger' last month, the environment minister jumped on a jumbo jet to lobby oil-rich nations like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to block the decision. I was shocked to see ministers of this government call that a win. As the head of the UNESCO marine program said, 'It doesn't matter what we're calling it on paper, the facts are the facts; the science is the science.'

COP26 in Glasgow is only months away. Our Prime Minister must seize the moment in Glasgow to turn this nation's appalling record on climate around. This is a moment for courage, for leadership, but the only place we've seen real proposals for action on climate in this parliament is right here on the crossbench. There is hope if the moment is seized—proposals like the member for Warringah's net zero 2050 bill, which I was proud to second, or proposals like the local power plant, which I introduced, which charts an ambitious path for renewables in regional Australia. But, while the crossbench comes with solutions, this government presents excuses—and young people are wearing the costs of this reckless inaction, and my heart goes out to them.

Young people right now are spending some of the best years of their lives restricted by COVID. They're staring down the barrel of recession and endless debt, and now we're handing over a world to them which is quite literally burning. The mental health toll of this is immense. In the past, climate debates were fought on clear fault lines—scientists versus sceptics, industrialists versus ecologists, young versus old. Well, you'd be hard pressed to find these divisions in Indi; we have one of the highest median ages in Australia, yet our older folk are in lock step with our youth on climate. Farmers and businesses stand with our youth. Young people like Charlie Paterson, Lachie Sands, Cheyane Vaughan and Jessica Patterson—school captains and vice-captains from Benalla—marched in Benalla, side-by-side with people of all ages. Declan Thomas, from Yea, is leading an Indi youth advisory panel to advise me on issues like climate change. I will fight for young people like these any day of the week, any hour of the day. I promised to do it in my first speech; I promised to do it every day I am here. I am resolute, and I know other people in Indi stand beside me too. I will keep fighting for courage and hope and leadership.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] My community just cannot fathom that we are still debating climate change in the Australian parliament. My community just cannot understand, and certainly does not tolerate, the fact that there are so many members of the House for whom the science is not settled, who don't believe the science. My community can't believe that there is not, by now, the strongest possible bipartisan response to climate change. We can't believe, down here in Tasmania, that the government has not pulled out all stops, that the government doesn't treat climate change as a genuine emergency and respond as though it's a genuine emergency. How on earth can the federal government not respond to the International Energy Agency and its very clear advice—that there must be no more carbon based energy production from this year, no more coal-fired power stations, no more oil, no more gas projects? And what about the latest IPCC report, which we're expecting out later tonight, advising that the average global temperatures will by 2030 increase by 1.5 degrees centigrade, which will be a full decade earlier than we expected as recently as only three years ago?

The fact is we have an emergency. We have to start dealing with the emergency with a very clear understanding of what I think is the main takeout from this evening's IPCC report—that is, the atmosphere is now full. We don't have until 2050 to get our emissions down to net zero; the atmosphere is full. So rather than talking about 2050, as is the case by many people in the House—by the government and the opposition—

Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I may pause proceedings until we get sound back. In the event that sound is not working, I will wait until sound is available for the member for Clark. I'll give the call to the member for Sturt.

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Speaker. I'll happily take the opportunity. I assume someone's communicating with the member for Clark on the situation, but, nonetheless, I'll take my opportunity to make a contribution on this motion.

I welcome the opportunity to talk about what the Commonwealth government is doing to undertake the three important elements of the energy transformation in this country, not only reducing emissions but also ensuring that we are reducing electricity prices and making sure that we have a reliable energy and electricity system. As a South Australian, I've got particular interest in the latter two points being done in concert with the challenge of emissions reduction, because it's very important that, in this country, as we reduce our emissions, we're also ensuring that the collateral outcome of that doesn't involve dramatic escalation of electricity prices for struggling families and businesses and, of course, the additional lack of reliability that is a risk if we're not ensuring that we have a transition that provides not only a reduction in carbon but also a stable, reliable electricity grid that is affordable.

I welcome the news today from AGL in my home state of South Australia that they are building a new battery system on Torrens Island, a 250-megawatt-hour plant that goes with a lot of the other grid-scale battery schemes that are being invested in in my home state and across the nation, in many cases with support from the Commonwealth government through ARENA and other agencies. In South Australia, we now regularly have the situation where the entire grid consumption for our state is being provided from renewable energy. I'm proud of that and want to see that growing into the future.

Recent decisions around an interconnector to New South Wales will put South Australia in an enhanced position to export more renewable energy out of South Australia to the national electricity market. We already have the 800-megawatt interconnector through the Heywood line to Victoria and now we're talking about building a 750-megawatt interconnector through New South Wales. That will put South Australia in the position to install a lot more renewable energy generation in South Australia and have the interstate export markets for our renewable energy there to firm up investment decisions, attract capital and see us investing in more renewable energy generation in South Australia, where there is a market and a home, which makes it a lot more viable. That will see a continued increase in renewable generation for South Australia, continued periods of time where renewables are the entirety of generated electricity while also ensuring that the affordability is there and the firmament of supply is there, because the challenges of intermittent electricity generation are still there with the renewables that we're installing. The more diverse generation we've got the better, and equally the ability to send that electricity interstate makes them a lot more economically viable.

I'm also very proud of the partnership between the CEFC and the South Australian state government to provide finance for home-scale battery installation in South Australia. We now have, on some metrics, the largest distributed grid on the planet, and this involves us being able to marry up installed PV solar on rooftops with a storage solution that genuinely means that a household in Adelaide can generate electricity when the sun's shining but be able to use it when the actual demand profile is there. One of the real challenges so far has been that you don't necessarily want to consume the energy at the same time that you're generating it, so storage at the local level is vital for that.

As I said, we've got the largest distributed storage grid in the world and we proudly want to continue to expand that. It's these technology solutions that are going to see us address the important objective of reducing emissions. Of course, as a government we are very ambitious to get to net zero as soon as it is possible to do so. But the Prime Minister has made it clear that we won't mislead the Australian people by setting targets that we don't have a plan to achieve. That's what our government is about: practically investing in technologies that can see us meet those objectives while reducing emissions while also ensuring affordability and stability in the grid. I've outlined some of the things that we're doing. I'm proud to be a part of a government that is investing in those initiatives and many more to achieve these important objectives.

Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the event of the member for Clark not being available, the time allocated for the debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.