Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator McLucas is shaking her head; it seems a very strange thing that she is so sceptical of a magnificent achievement by the Australian government, something which I think ought to be lauded. It is a fantastic thing that regardless of the fact that we have not ratified the Kyoto treaty we are still meeting our greenhouse targets as though we had.

That brings me to the broad issue of the contrast between the ALP when they were in government, when nothing was done about climate change and nothing was done about greenhouse gas emissions, and the very proactive policies which the Howard government has followed, providing leadership to the rest of the world on this issue. I think that is, as I said, a very outstanding achievement on the part of the Howard government.

We do recognise that the world will need to make major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions if we are to avoid the more serious consequences of climate change. We believe that, to do that, we will need to use the broadest possible range of technologies, including renewable energies such as solar, wind, geothermal power, clean coal technologies and, yes, nuclear energy. We have other options, but nuclear energy is something that Australia will have to consider in the future as part of this overall reassessment of our energy needs and how we will provide energy to industry and to the population of Australia.

The Australian government has invested heavily in the development and commercialisation of technologies for renewable energy and I think that is a remarkable and positive achievement of the Australian government that should not go unnoticed. As I said earlier, we have the $500 million low-emissions technology demonstration fund, which will leverage a further $1 billion or more in investment from the private sector. More than one-third of the government’s climate change funding is supporting renewable energy development, including a $75 million Solar Cities program and a $123 million program to extend and expand the Renewable Remote Power Generation Program, which is to provide renewable energy in remote areas through things such as solar energy, wind energy and other possibilities such as tidal power and wave technology.

In conclusion, the Australian government, the Howard government, has an outstanding record in dealing with environmental issues. The Howard government has an outstanding record in developing policies to address climate change. It is an enviable record; it is a record of which I would have thought all members of this federal parliament, regardless of their party affiliation, should be justifiably proud. I think credit should be given where credit is due.

Climate change and greenhouse gas emissions have only become a big issue over the last 15 or so years. The criticism of the Howard government seems to be, ‘You have not fixed it up, and we want it fixed yesterday.’ As I have said several times, the Howard government was one of the first governments in the world to be aware of these issues and has put in place a lot of very sophisticated programs to address the problems of greenhouse gas emissions. I think the Howard government deserves to be thoroughly congratulated on the fantastic contribution it has made to this reduction of greenhouse gases.