Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I, and also on behalf of Senator Milne, move:

(1)

That the Senate notes:

(a)

the recommendation of the Australian Business Roundtable on Climate Change to ‘Build national resilience to the impacts of climate change’;

(b)

the announcement of support for the Roundtable’s recommendation by the National Farmers Federation (NFF) on 6 December 2006, stating that the ‘NFF believes that climate change may be the greatest threat confronting Australian farmers and their productive capacity’; and

(c)

the call by representatives of 16 faiths on 5 December 2006 for the Australian Government to take urgent action on climate change.

(2)

That the following matters be referred to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee for inquiry and report by 30 June 2007:

(a)

the need for a national strategy to help Australian agricultural industries to mitigate and adapt to climate change;

(b)

consideration of the risks and opportunities presented by reduced rainfall, increased temperatures, higher evaporation and increased climactic variability for Australian agriculture;

(c)

assessment of the state of existing knowledge, the relevance of current strategies, and the adequacy of existing research and development programs to the need to address impacts of climate change on the security of Australian food production and the viability of rural communities; and

(d)

the effectiveness of the National Plan for Water Security in meeting the challenges of protecting the health of our rivers, floodplains, wetlands and other dependent environments, ensuring secure water supplies for our towns and cities, and maintaining the viability of our agricultural sector.

This is an extremely important issue—so important that I acknowledge that I made an attempt to refer a similar item to the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport last year. Since that time a number of other things have occurred, which has made the urgency and the requirement for this issue to be reviewed even more significant, I believe. We have had the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, commonly known as the IPCC, report again about the severity of the impacts of climate change. My colleague Senator Milne will go into more detail of those issues later. We have also had the Australian Business Roundtable on Climate Change make a statement on building national resilience to the impacts of climate change. We had what I think is a very significant statement from the National Farmers Federation on 6 December last year, which said:

NFF believes that climate change may be the greatest threat confronting Australian farmers and their productive capacity.

I repeat—they have said that it is:

... the greatest threat confronting Australian farmers and their productive capacity.

There was also the call by 16 faiths around Australia for the Australian government to take urgent action on climate change. That is why Senator Milne and I are seeking to refer the issues around climate change and the impacts of climate change on Australian agricultural industries and their ability to adapt to the rural, regional affairs and transport committee.

At the beginning of February I amended my motion to include:

(d)

the effectiveness of the National Plan for Water Security in meeting the challenges of protecting the health of our rivers, floodplains, wetlands and other dependent environments, ensuring secure water supplies for our towns and cities, and maintaining the viability of our agricultural sector.

I will go into some of the issues relating to water very shortly, but I would like to remind the Senate about some of the limited work that is going on in Australia into investigating and dealing with the impacts of climate change on our agricultural sector. I remind the Senate that Australian agriculture is one of the most adaptive in the world and Australian agriculture has managed to adapt to a very hostile climate. But scientists and researchers are acknowledging that agriculture is now at the stage where it cannot progressively adapt to the impacts of climate change. Unfortunately, at a political level that recognition is not coming rapidly enough. We are getting to a point where we cannot adapt anymore. We need significant investment in research into adaptive techniques so that Australian agriculture can adapt. I also remind the Senate of ABARE’s latest predictions for summer crops, which are, unfortunately, extremely depressing—they were cut yet again just a couple of weeks ago. The Queensland Farmers Federation just last year said:

Adaptation to climate change is the biggest challenge facing Australian agriculture in the next 20 or 30 years ...

In other words, they are also supporting comments by the National Farmers Federation. They also said:

Like all changes, a changing climate brings both risks and opportunities. Those who better understand the nature and implications of the change can adapt more effectively to avoid the risks and seize the opportunities.

They went on to say:

Agriculture is arguably the most seriously affected sector of the State economy—

they were talking about Queensland in this instance—

in terms of climate change effects. Yet there has been little investment by the State in identifying the impacts of climate change for farmers, or in preparing farmers for adaptation or mitigation strategies.

I will yet again highlight the comments that have been made by Dr Bryson Bates, the director of the CSIRO climate change program, on research into climate change. He said:

If you are talking about adaptation in the decades ahead, again this is where we run into this problem, if I can be blunt, where researchers in this country—and I am not just talking about CSIRO—are continually nickelled and dimed, chasing $50,000 contracts to look at the impact of climate change on the water supply in one catchment, for instance, when the real problem is exactly the sort of problem you have described. It is the issue of the sustainability of our rural communities and the rural environment. We are not getting to that and we are not getting to that for a very good reason.

He was speaking in the context of a question that I had asked about how much money was being invested in research into the impact of climate change. Both Senator Milne and I have in the past reminded this chamber that Australia’s senior economics research bureau is not addressing the issue of climate change. I remind the Senate that the Farmers Federation have said they believe that climate change may be the greatest threat confronting Australian farmers and their productive capacity. Yet at estimates two weeks ago, when I yet again asked ABARE what they were doing to address climate change—a continuing theme on which both Senator Milne and I have been chasing ABARE—they said:

… there is a need for better understanding of the science and the biophysical impacts at a regional level within Australia. We are currently working with CSIRO, the Bureau of Resource Sciences and others to begin to grapple with that issue.

They are only just starting to deal with it. They continued:

Understanding how the changes are going to occur, how best for the farm sector and others to adapt to it, is critical to the long-run future of the farm economy, so we have begun that work.

They have just begun that work! It is the year 2007 and they have just begun to look at the impact of climate change on agriculture. As you would probably understand, I then commented that I did not think that was appropriate. They replied:

We are beginning that work.

Then I asked whether they had a time line for producing some results. The new head of ABARE, Mr Glyde, told me:

We are putting a paper out about that, just toe in the water type stuff, at our Outlook conference, in terms of what some of the things might be. But if you are talking about the time line for coming up with really detailed impacts, it is a very long time. It is a long project to be able to do all that. We are still in the process of working that through with our colleagues.

So they are still beginning to work out what they are going to be doing about climate change and its impact on agricultural systems. This government should support this review, if for no other reason than to see what Australia’s supposedly senior resource economists are doing about climate change. There is a need for a review just to do that, let alone anything else that Senator Milne and I have included in the terms of reference for this report.

Senator Milne will shortly be addressing in more detail some of the impacts of climate change, but I would like to go to the water plan and the amendment that I made to these terms of reference. I think there is an urgent need to review the national water plan—if it is going to be producing results—in particular, how it is going to be helping our agricultural sector deal with the interaction between water and climate change. As I pointed out just a little while ago, we learnt at estimates that this water plan obviously occurred sometime after November and most of the work was done in January—in other words, it was very rushed.

At estimates we asked for the calculations on the savings, the costings and the targets, but there were none. A number of us repeatedly asked the water agencies about the basis on which the water plan costings were done. But we got nothing. The only reference we were given was the plan itself. I have read the plan—in fact, a number of times—and the information provided in it is not referenced. When I asked for references, I was told to go to the plan. Where are the references on how much the water efficiency provisions are going to contribute—that is, 1,200 gigalitres, half of which goes back to farmers and the other half of which goes back to Australia? When I asked for the rationale behind those costings and the figures on water savings, they could not give them to us. They tell us they consulted experts, but they could not give us the written references, other than what is in the plan. I could have written something in a plan and then, when someone asked me to justify it, I could have said, ‘The reference is in what I have just written.’ I could have plucked any figures out of the air, written it down and then said, ‘Refer to them.’

Also, there are no targets. The only information that is there is the information in the plan that says, ‘We’ll get 1,500 gigalitres from overallocation and then we’ll get 1,200 gigalitres from the efficiency measures we’re putting in place.’ But there are no actual targets. So the only target we are going with now—the only target that is written down on paper—is the 500 gigalitres from the Living Murray target, which everybody knows was the lowest common denominator. The experts said, ‘You actually need 3,500 gigalitres to have a good chance of recovery for the Murray.’ There was also an interim figure of 1,500 gigalitres, but that gave only a chance of recovery. For a good chance of recovery, we need 3,500 gigalitres. But there are no targets. When I asked about the target, I was told, ‘We’re putting lots of water back into the river, through the water efficiency program and through the overallocation program.’ But, of course, there is nothing written down that anybody can follow to see what those figures actually are. In other words, ‘We could’ve potentially plucked figures out of the air because we don’t need a target and that’s what we’re going to deliver.’ But we still need a target.

We come to the issue of overallocation and what comes first. Are we actually going to be investing in water efficiency or the overallocation program? Of course, you do not want to be in the situation where you may have been delivering funding through the water efficiency program but then have to turn around and buy out that lease anyway. I raised that issue in estimates, and I was assured by the department, when I asked how they were going to integrate the two plans, that it would be silly if you paid Peter and robbed Paul. I was assured at the time that both of these approaches would be carefully considered. They would ‘make sure that it is integrated in an effective way’. Yet yesterday in the other place, the House of Representatives, when Mr Vaile was asked a dorothy dixer about the plan, he made it obvious what the Nats think about the plan:

... overallocation will be addressed firstly through efficiency savings in the system. That is why we have indicated ... $6 billion ... Secondly, as a last resort we are prepared to purchase water rights in the marketplace from willing sellers.

In other words, he was continuing the line that the minister for agriculture has been taking all along: they are not prepared to properly invest in fixing up our river system because they do not want to upset the cockies.