Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too am going to take note of answers given by Senator Ian Campbell, the Minister for the Environment and Heritage. I note that Senator McGauran is off on some bizarre analysis of the Labor Party’s responses in taking note today, when in fact the biggest issue of today is probably the release of the Australia state of the environment report 2006, which Senator Ian Campbell willingly referred to in his answers.

In the state of the environment report we find that greenhouse gas emissions in this country have risen by 22 per cent. When we asked the minister for the environment questions about the appalling state of the environment in this country at the moment, he made some comment about South Australia’s Coorong. I do not think he has ever been there. I do not think he has any idea what the Coorong is or how important it is to the whole Murray-Darling Basin system. He also made a comment about some pathetic commitment of 35 gigalitres to go into the Murray for the purposes of rehabilitating the Coorong wetlands—the Coorong wetlands which are about to be delisted because they are so degraded due to the inaction of this federal government. The Coorong wetlands need 1,500 gigalitres of water, and this government can find 35 gigalitres. It is an absolutely appalling response to a very serious issue.

Senator Ronaldson, in his bizarre spray, also made mention of Senate Christmas parties. I did not go to the Labor Senate Christmas party for too long last night, because I had the misfortune of having to be in this chamber listening to Senator Ian Campbell attempt to debate a very important piece of legislation—the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006. It was a woeful performance from the minister in charge of the single biggest issue in Australia at the moment, and that is climate change. It was an absolutely woeful performance. It was puerile and we had sulky behaviour from him. We spent four hours debating one amendment last night, and Senator Ian Campbell’s contribution was to pick up the pronunciation of ‘Kyoto’ by senators opposite. So we had to endure elocution lessons from the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, instead of addressing the real issues of the day, including climate change. His bill does not even mention climate change. The bill that we spent four hours debating one amendment on last night, because of his complete lack of action with regard to the environment, does not even mention climate change.

We heard from Senator Julian McGauran just then about the yellow-bellied parrot. Is that another endangered species, Senator McGauran? There is no yellow-bellied parrot. I think there has been comment made about yellow-bellied ministers but not yellow-bellied parrots. It was in fact the orange-bellied parrot. So we have helped you out there, Senator McGauran.

We did note today in question time that the proponents of the Bald Hills wind farm are threatening legal action against the federal government because this minister has taken so long to respond to their legitimate request for a decision so that they can get on with either building or not building the $220 million wind farm that the people of Victoria need so that they can have clean green energy. Isn’t that what we are all about? What does your minister do? Sit down and do nothing. He does not even know what submissions are on the department’s own website.