Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise as the 10th speaker in this debate on the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006, and I would like to place on the record, as my colleagues have, that we are yet to hear a convincing case from the government about why this is good legislation. It would seem that not even the government members of the committee that examined the legislation have been prepared to come in here and defend it.

If my time in this place has taught me anything about the political process, it is that each government will be remembered for its stance on only a few of the big issues facing our country. That is why I felt that it was very important to speak about the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No.1) 2006. Due to the importance of this matter, in discussing this bill I will devote my time primarily to the issue of climate change, as my colleagues have done. However, I do wish to acknowledge the significant procedural concerns that my colleagues and I have both in terms of granting extra power to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage and also about the haphazard way that this bill has been designed and submitted to this place.

In the context of this parliament, climate change must surely be amongst the biggest challenges that we face. The community is certainly aware of the significant predicament facing the world if we remain on a course of environmental disregard. The massive attendances that were seen at climate change rallies earlier this year demonstrate to me that the community at large craves a serious dialogue on this subject—not the token gestures that it has been presented with during the years of the Howard government.

The Prime Minister has been making louder noises than normal about climate change lately. The populist value in the matter obviously has not escaped his highly tuned political radar. But, sadly, when it comes to the crunch, this government has done nothing about one of the biggest issues facing the world. It is not through lack of opportunity, I must stress. I take this opportunity to quote the Prime Minister in a speech he made regarding the 28th South Pacific Forum—a speech delivered in October 1997. He said:

A second significant outcome from the forum was the leaders’ retreat statement on climate change. My objective in discussions on this topic was to promote and protect Australia’s national interest. Some members opposite have criticised me for this, but I am never going to be apologetic about standing up—particularly abroad—for the national interests of Australia.

The Prime Minister went on to say:

Australia’s position is that any regime will be effective only if it is realistic and fair and therefore has a reasonable chance of being implemented. There is no gain for the environment from an agreement which is not worth the paper it is written on because the commitments are not credible and the burden of efforts and cost is not equitably distributed.

This strikes me as a particularly interesting yardstick in determining worth. To the government’s credit, they have stayed true to their word in this case, having not mentioned climate change once in the amendments to Australia’s primary environmental act—not one mention of climate change printed on paper. In 409 pages of amendments, the government could not bring themselves to even utter the term ‘climate change’ let alone devise a solution. I ask the government: did their advisers perhaps tell them that, if you cannot say anything nice, don’t say anything at all? Inaction on climate change and on the environment generally is one of the worst legacies the government will leave.

I acknowledge that devising the right response to such a complex problem is not easy. That said, the Kyoto negotiations and subsequent protocol provided this government with a solution that had the support of the global scientific community. The Prime Minister said this of Kyoto in 2004:

Australia will not ratify the Kyoto protocol until the ratification of that protocol will protect the long-term national interest of this country. We have a very simple proposition. We are not blinded by some mythical belief that by ratifying the Kyoto protocol you are going to bring untold benefits to Australia.

He then went on to say:

The problem with the Kyoto protocol as presently cast is that developing countries such as Russia and China would not be subject to the same strictures as developed countries such as Australia. And if we adhered to the protocol, as requested by the Leader of the Opposition, that would disadvantage the resource industries of Australia because they would incur burdens that the resource industries of countries like Russia and China would not incur. That is the reason why we will not sign.

I see absolutely no reason to believe that the government’s attitude to environmental management has changed. The fact that the amendments in this bill do nothing to acknowledge or deal with the environmental burden of global warming suggests to me that this government does not know, nor cares to know, how to contribute to the global climate change movement.

The recent growth in awareness within the media and the community at large about the importance of this issue has meant that the government must appear to not be sticking its head in the sand. The Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator Ian Campbell, enthusiastically proclaimed to this place last month:

The problem of greenhouse gas emissions, the problem of climate change, is the mother of all global problems. People talk about ‘Think global, act local’. There are a whole range of environmental issues which you can talk about as being global—obviously, ocean type issues and water quality type issues can be quasi-global. But when it comes to greenhouse gases and climate change, a tonne of carbon saved in Australia or a tonne of carbon saved in China has an absolutely identical benefit for the environment.

I hate to rain on the government’s, and particularly the minister’s, parade, but that secret was already out. The trouble for them is that the Prime Minister has consistently, since his election in 1996, dismissed global collaboration in the name of national interest.

As an issue global warming is, as the name suggests, global. The national interests and the global interests are one and the same. Just as we rely on the rest of the world to consider the environment in their industrial practice, they rely on us to do the very same thing. This concept has by no means eluded the Australian people, but on the basis of this bill it still eludes the federal government. My Labor colleagues and I point out these issues not to be nay-sayers but rather to try and achieve a positive outcome for the Australian environment. That is why the shadow minister for the environment, Mr Anthony Albanese, moved a series of amendments to incorporate a climate change trigger into the act.

It is regrettable that the government has turned down this offer of support from the opposition and relentlessly pressed on with its mindset of blissful ignorance. However, that ignorance is sometimes evolving to be a direct denial of the very existence of climate change. On 20 August this year the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, Mr Ian Macfarlane, took great delight in declaring himself to be a ‘sceptic of the connection between emissions and climate change’. If that is the view he insists on maintaining, I wish the remainder of his government colleagues luck.

Despite the Prime Minister’s new-found interest in things like solar power and climate change more generally, the truth is that the government is doing nothing to get serious about global warming. This month the Climate Action Network released its annual Climate change performance index, based on the last 12 months. Countries that were in the top 20 assessed performing nations included Malta, Argentina, Brazil, India, Latvia, Romania, Iceland, Lithuania, Morocco and Portugal. Australia, a country that under previous governments has often been an environmental leader, was placed 47th. Even regionally we were a poor performer, with both New Zealand and Indonesia above us in the rankings.

I contrast this to the media release issued by Senator Ian Campbell two weeks ago. Discussing new initiatives being undertaken by the US and Australia—or, for want of a snappier title, the coalition of the polluting, Senator Ian Campbell boasted:

The Australian Government is more interested in taking real action than in simple slogans. Climate change is a serious problem that requires a ‘multi-track’ approach and we will continue to take action through a range of international forums.

I ask this government and the minister: what are these multiple tracks? They clearly are not located within this legislation. If you do not wish to discuss climate change in our primary environmental law, where do you wish to discuss it? Has climate change perhaps become part of the tourism portfolio? Some illumination from my government colleagues would be most appreciated. It would seem that perhaps it is now part of the tourism portfolio, as I am sure we all recall the announcement of Minister Bailey suggesting that we put shadecloth over the Great Barrier Reef to ameliorate the effects of climate change.

I return to the claim that this government has made under successive ministers about Kyoto being an impediment to our economy. Some of my colleagues, including the shadow minister for environment, have already spoken of the missed opportunity to establish Australia as the centre of green technology in the world. Unfortunately, the environmental decisions that have been made by this government have been acts of politics, not governance.

In the case of this bill, we have evidence that this government is making policy on the run. In the month of November alone, the Prime Minister announced projects aimed at climate change objectives under the Asia-Pacific partnership, he demanded a water meeting and he went to the launch of a solar city project. I applaud the Prime Minister for his new-found interest in this topic. A quick scan of the press releases available from his website for the entire year of, say, 1998 reveals not one mention of climate change or global warming. Yet, all of a sudden, we are holding three such events in one month.

The government must surely be feeling generally nimble lately. This bill has been introduced with no exposure draft and with less than a week between its introduction and debate. Most alarmingly, no environmental or heritage groups were consulted in the formulation of this bill. As Senator Siewert pointed out yesterday, it is no wonder that the few environmental groups that supported the government on its first construction of this law have condemned it this time around.

The government in my home state of Western Australia, like all current state governments, has had the guts and the foresight to deal with conservation throughout its whole term, not just when the issue was worth a couple of points in the next opinion poll. The economy in Western Australia is booming, on the back of the strong minerals sector. Under the previous Premier, Dr Geoff Gallop, the state government made the very admirable decision not to develop the Ningaloo Reef tourism site. Furthermore, the government has a tremendous series of programs in place to allow people to start good environmental practice in their local communities. This includes rebates for wood heater replacements, subsidies for solar power within local schools and a very successful water-wise rebate plan. I am proud to say that the Western Australian state government has had a long-held focus on environmental policy rather than the ostrich approach that the federal government had adopted until extremely recently.

The trouble is that short-term interest and irregular piles of money do not make for good long-term results. I assume this bill to have been quite some time in the making, yet the government cannot bring itself to cater for an issue it seems ever so excited about all of a sudden. Temporary fixes are just that: temporary. I ask the government: what is next? What is the long-term plan to become a decent global citizen? When do you plan to start taking this issue seriously?

Of course, I should not limit those questions to the subject of climate change. The recent charade that was the Switkowski nuclear report is proof that the government is willing to handcraft any message that is politically suitable to its agenda. That is the prerogative of the government but, unfortunately for it, the result of reckless environmental legislation—like this piece of legislation—is that the degradation of Australia’s natural resources is becoming more and more apparent. You cannot PR your way out of smog. You cannot spin droughts. Poor green policy leads to poor green results. As the recent spike in awareness shows, people are waking up to the decade of policy inertia we have endured during the Howard government years.

I have been fortunate enough to hear from a lot of my constituents about the environment generally. As I have alluded to before in this place, I distributed a petition calling for a ban on nuclear power production and dumps within Australia, particularly in Western Australia. The response to that petition was nothing short of extraordinary. I am sure that we have seen a cultural shift in our community on the environment. Years of raising awareness through green NGOs and the media has been very well taken up by the general public. The combination of these campaigns and the visible changes to the environment in recent years has obviously led to a genuine concern within our community about the future. If the government insists on pursuing nuclear power, and other such follies, community awareness will quickly turn to community outrage.

Labor will not be supporting the legislation before us today unless our amendments are accepted by the government. We cannot in good conscience engage in a meaningful debate on the environment without acknowledging the biggest problem facing it. Let us be honest with ourselves, if with no-one else. We should be honest with the Australian people and face up to the fact that we have a serious problem. It disgusts many Australians that countries with far greater social and economic challenges than our own are able to take environmental issues much more seriously than we are. The passage of this bill as it is will only epitomise the reasons for that frustration.

I conclude with this observation: the people who raised this issue with me are not left-leaning; they are not even habitually environmentalists. Often they are parents or grandparents worried about the apathy and the incompetence this government displays on environment policy and that that incompetence will have catastrophic consequences for their children and their grandchildren. If the Australian people are thinking about the future, why isn’t their government?