Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to wholeheartedly support this reference to the Senate Employment, Workplace Relations and Education References Committee of a full and thorough investigation of the research priorities of the CSIRO, how it is organised, how it is managed and what its management culture is. I have to say that there are many Australians who I am sure feel exactly as the Greens do. The CSIRO used to have a fantastic reputation around the world as a leading research institution, and as one that was independent. When the CSIRO worked on an issue, people felt quite proud of the work that was done. They felt that it was authentic and legitimate and that it was not driven by government policy and not biased in its outcomes.

Progressively, that has changed over the last 15 years as the government has cut back funding to this very important flagship research organisation, to the point where it now has to kowtow to government policy in relation to its response to climate change. We have seen the appalling announcement in the last week or so that the CSIRO is now virtually abandoning its work in renewable energy and cutting-edge technology and is going to focus on the government’s priorities—which are, of course, coal, coal, coal and coal. It is about the export of as much coal as possible to China, India and anywhere else. As long as it can pour fossil fuels into a global energy market, this government is determined to do that and to drive the CSIRO into being complicit in that arrangement.

They have actually put themselves in the position of saying that Australia’s contribution to attending to global warming will be to put as much government money as possible—which is effectively corporate welfare—into the coal industry to see if it can develop carbon capture and storage, otherwise known as geosequestration. It is completely unproven technology. What happens if it does not work? In 20 years time, we will be left with a far worse situation on greenhouse gases and more immediate outcomes in terms of climate change and less capacity to deal with them.

The world wants to get beyond a carbon economy. The world wants to get beyond fossil fuels. Australia had the capacity to do that. We have cutting-edge researchers in this country, particularly in solar energy and photovoltaics. We now have good research and good outcomes on the ground in terms of wind energy. We have seen the renewable sector in Australia start to blossom because of some incentives due to the mandatory renewable energy target, and now that has been left floundering at just two per cent. The investment in the renewable sector is drying up, and everyone in that sector acknowledges that it is because of the government abandoning an increase in the mandatory renewable energy target. That means that we are not attracting the money we need to invest into those technologies.

In the same week as the CSIRO announced that it is warming to coal research, its chief executive said:

... industry and consumers depended heavily on coal to fire electricity and that was unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.

CSIRO’s deputy chief executive, Ron Sandland, said that we can have more impact by focusing more of our energies on clean coal. What a load of rubbish! They must have felt like washing their mouths out after they had said that because they know as well as I do that the future lies in cutting-edge renewable energy technology.

At the very same time, we have CSIRO scientists, having developed solar technology that they believe could replace coal fired power stations in 20 years, being forced to go overseas to tout for business. There was a UNEP conference in Dubai. They have just been there to tout for business and to seek partnerships with anyone they can get from overseas in order to commercialise the technology and to leapfrog coal. The biggest contribution Australia could make to the world would be to use our scientific expertise to leapfrog coal. That is what China needs, that is what India needs and that is what the whole world needs in order to deal with climate change. Whoever develops that technology will write its own cheques in terms of employment, investment in research, capability and so on. You only have to look at what has happened in Germany. Germany decided to get out of nuclear power. They had a proactive government policy and went straight into solar technology. In the last five years, Germany have had a huge expansion in solar. They are now a world leader in solar technology. They have eclipsed Australia in terms of research in solar and have created 25,000 jobs in solar alone. More jobs have been created in the solar industry in Germany in five years than are in the whole coal industry in Australia. And Japan is following suit.

Here are we, with some of the best research in the world, such as that which happens at the University of New South Wales, but also here at the CSIRO—