Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to support Senator Wong’s resolution on climate change. First of all I want to go to the comments made by Senator Eggleston earlier in the debate. Senator Eggleston spent some time trying to defend the position of the government, saying, yes, the government now realises that there is a link between human activity and climate change—I will go to the evident change of opinion from the government later. But he then spent a lot of time saying that maybe it really is not human activity that is resulting in the climate change we are experiencing at the moment. He said that climate change is cyclical and that there is evidence of coral reefs in inland communities. He said that he had heard on the radio that continental drift can be a factor in climate change. He said that he also heard on that radio program that the tilt of the axis of the earth might be what is causing climate change.

If that is not being a sceptic, then I do not know what it is. He said it is not impossible to hold the view that climate change is a result of the tilt of the axis of the earth. I am sorry; there are over 2,500 internationally recognised scientists who have come together over many years to bring us the report that we received last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, which says that human activity is the connection to climate change. I plead with Senator Eggleston: if you are going to be a leader in our community, you have to be truthful and you have to be straight. Referring to a radio program that says that the tilt of the axis of the earth is the reason that we are in this predicament is far from helpful.

As I said, we have seen a huge shift in the government’s position over the last month or so. The government has been dragged to the point where the Prime Minister—even though he had to go back into the chamber to clarify it—finally acknowledged that there is a link between human activity and global warming. That is a huge shift that this government has taken, and you have to ask why. Why has it taken till 2007 for this government to recognise the reality of climate change and to then develop some reasonable policy to respond to it?

I suggest it is not because the Prime Minister watched Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth over the Christmas holidays. I am not sure that he has watched it. I do not think it is because the Prime Minister has read the many, many briefings that he would have received over the last 10 years about the impact of climate change, Australia’s role in the production of greenhouse gases and also Australia’s responsibility to mitigate it. I suggest he would have received thousands of briefings: briefings from the department of science, the CSIRO, the department of the environment, the department of health. I dare say he has had some information from his tourism department, and he has certainly had plenty of information from the business community telling him that this government needed to act. It is only this month that there has been any recognition by the government that it has a responsibility to work in front of the Australian community and not behind it.

It is not because of the facts, it is not because of the science that the government has changed its position. I suggest the reason that the government has changed its position on climate change is because the Prime Minister has finally understood that Australians are concerned about climate change. All of us are concerned about what we need to do to mitigate the effects of climate change as a community and what we need to do to stop the growth in greenhouse gases. It is all about politics in this case, and that is not unusual for this Prime Minister. It is not about leadership; it is all about votes. It is not about dealing with the hard issues.

Senator Eggleston then went on to compare Australia’s emissions system with China’s. I suggest to Senator Eggleston that that is completely unhelpful. Quoting statistics when we are dealing with the issue of climate change is important in order for us to understand, but in the political arena it is completely unhelpful and very misleading. This is a global problem that we are dealing with. That is why the Kyoto protocol was devised. That is why nations around the world came to the view that the only way to deal with climate change was to deal with it as a global issue. Senator Eggleston went on to say that we needed a meaningful international agreement, that Kyoto was not the answer. He suggested that the Asia-Pacific partnership was an ideal solution to the problem. I do not share that view. The Asia-Pacific partnership comprises 50 per cent of the globe and 50 per cent of the emissions. As I said, this is a global problem; we need a truly international solution. To pin one’s flag to the Asia-Pacific partnership is false faith.

I want to use some of my time this afternoon to talk about the impact of 10 years of inaction, despite having the knowledge, and the effect of that inaction on my community of North Queensland. As you know, the Great Barrier Reef is loved and valued by all Australians. I would suggest that it is also loved and recognised as an amazing environmental icon by most in the world. We have, as Australians, a pride in its uniqueness. We also pride ourselves on the level of protection that we as a country give to the Great Barrier Reef. It is valued as an environmental asset and it is also an extraordinary economic asset, bringing over $5 billion annually to the Australian economy. I say to my community of North Queensland: without it, our economy would collapse.

It is not scaremongering to say that our Great Barrier Reef is at enormous risk, but do not take my word for it. The Chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation is Mr John Schubert. John Schubert is the Chairman of the Commonwealth Bank and a former Chairman of Esso Australia. He is a respected businessperson and has a doctorate in chemical engineering. On 2 January this year he wrote an opinion piece in the Australian, in which he said:

Until my appointment as chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation two years ago, I was something of a sceptic. However, the marine scientists who advise the foundation convinced me that climate change is the most pressing threat to our Great Barrier Reef.

I suggest to the Senate that Mr Howard would have had those same briefings. Mr Schubert had them two years ago. I suggest that Mr Howard has had those briefings for a very long time. Mr Schubert said:

The evidence presented by these scientists, the literature they have shared with me and my visits to the reef have proved to be so compelling as to prompt something of an epiphany.

John Schubert knows that climate change could devastate our Great Barrier Reef. He has had the evidence. But so has the Prime Minister.

In 2002 we had a coral bleaching event in the southern part of the Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority at the time estimated that between 60 and 90 per cent of the reefs were affected to some extent in the area around Keppel Island. We cannot afford to lose 60 to 90 per cent of any of the reefs along the Great Barrier Reef without enormous impact on the biodiversity of the Great Barrier Reef. Along with that we have to understand that the reef, whilst it is an amazing ecological icon, is a very important fishery. To lose the reef will mean that we also lose the fish that live around that reef, so it is not only environmentalists and reef managers who are concerned about the impact of climate change on the Great Barrier Reef; it is also the fishing industry. Mr Schubert described coral reefs as ‘a canary in the mine in the context of climate change’. I think that we should all use that image to think about what we need to do in the future.

The answers are many, but one of the answers, of course, is going to be research, not only into what we have to do to lessen our greenhouse gas emissions but into what we have to do because of what has already occurred and what is happening now—research into what we have to do in order to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Professor Russel Reichelt is the head of the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre. He is one of Australia’s leading marine scientists. Professor Reichelt has suggested that it is important for us to undertake research to ascertain whether or not it is possible for reseeding of the reef to occur if large bleaching events happen. I suggest to the government that that is a very useful strategy and a very useful piece of work that could be undertaken. He says:

We need an integrated risk management study to map out the most vulnerable and the most resilient parts of the reef to help us target management and conservation efforts.

This work needs to happen now. We cannot wait. We need to protect this asset, not only for its environmental values but certainly for its economic values.

Far North Queensland is also the home of the wet tropics. We know with climate change there will be a loss of biodiversity in the wet tropics. We still do not know what is in the wet tropics. It is that diverse. It is a most amazing piece of rainforest in this country and is potentially the home of enormous biopharmaceutical assets to our nation. We do not know what is there, but at the same time we know that we are going to lose part of it.

I have spoken in the chamber before about the impact on the people who live in the Torres Strait. I am very fortunate in that I have been going to the Torres Strait for some 15 years now. When you sit down with leaders in the Torres Strait, they talk about the ocean, because their culture, their life, is inextricably linked to the ocean and it is part of their living. They talk more and more frequently now about the fact that the water is changing, the tides are shifting, the sand under the water is shifting and the erosion is much higher. This time last year we had some fairly horrific events in the Torres Strait. I am not saying that they were directly linked to climate change, but over the last 10 years we have consistently and increasingly heard, from people who know this country, who know this ocean, who understand it so well, that they are concerned about what is happening to the waters of the Torres Strait. Certainly some action should have happened.

I know that those same leaders have been telling members of the government the same story, and I know that only last year $200,000 was allocated to do some sort of study into what is happening with erosion in the outer islands of the Torres Strait. I suggest that $200,000 is nothing compared to what the people of the Torres Strait will need to mitigate rising sea levels. The islands of Saibai and Boigu are mud islands. Most of Boigu is actually under sea level. Any rise in sea level in the Torres Strait will affect the people of the Torres Strait.

We also know of the potential for climate change to affect the habitation of the people of the Pacific. I suggest to the government that our people—the people of the Torres Strait—will be equally affected. They do not want to leave their islands because of their cultural connection to them. Unfortunately, if we do not start acting now, if we do not even try and work out what is happening in the Torres Strait by researching, by talking with people, by doing some real data analysis, we are leaving the people of Boigu and Saibai in particular with the prospect of having to be relocated to the mainland. They do not want to do that but they are thinking about how they might manage it. That is not fair, in my view.

At around this time last year, we had the event of Cyclone Larry. Following Cyclone Larry, a category 5 cyclone which had a devastating impact particularly on the areas south of Cairns—Innisfail, Mission Beach and Babinda—we had Cyclone Monica, which was another category 5 cyclone. We do not usually have two category 5 cyclones in a year. In fact, I cannot remember that happening in my lifetime.