Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by Senators Abetz and Minchin to questions without notice asked today, relating to climate change.

Every week we hear something a little more arrogant and a little more sanctimonious from the Howard government on climate change. How fascinating it was today to see Senator Abetz and Senator Minchin effectively throw up their hands and say, ‘Well, what do you want us to do—shut down the whole economy?’ This shows that this government has no idea of the seriousness of this issue and it is choosing to make that kind of ridiculous and, I think, quite immature statement about the economic and social challenge ahead of us on climate change. What we now know, and this was reinforced today by Sir Nicholas Stern’s speech at the National Press Club, is that there is a chronic market failure. We know that climate change will cost the global economy—according to Sir Nicholas Stern, more than both world wars and the Great Depression combined. Unless, he says, the world acts to reduce carbon emissions, the global economy could be cut by up to 20 per cent. Therefore, the reasonable conclusion is that early action on climate change is critical to protecting our future prosperity.

But we have none of that from the Howard government, despite the auspicious source of these statements being today at the National Press Club in Canberra, the national capital of Australia. They persist in making excuses saying what they are doing is enough. Well, it is not enough. We know that the Howard government is full of climate sceptics and that they are busy trying to talk their way through growing community pressure and growing political pressure, certainly from the Labor Party and others here in the federal parliament but also from right around the world, to take decisive action.

Labor are conducting a national climate change summit this Saturday, coinciding with Earth Day, because we are focused on the sorts of solutions and consensus that we need to try to find amongst the stakeholders in the Australian economy and community. That will bring together scientists, business leaders, union leaders, community stakeholders and of course the Labor Party to hear what they have to say about the urgent necessity to address climate change in Australia. That is on top of Labor’s commitment to ratify the Kyoto protocol and other initiatives that I will go through shortly.

Firstly, I want to make a point about ratifying the Kyoto protocol. Many people have now seen the movie An Inconvenient Truth and it grates so appallingly on many of those people when the US and Australia are identified as the only two countries holding out on ratifying the Kyoto protocol. It is clearly there as a symbol of not only the Howard government’s neglect of climate change but their subservience to the administration of George W Bush in America and his anti-climate change stance that this government is happy to mimic, to be a puppet to, at the expense of all of us, not least the climate change refugees whom we may well have on our own doorstep with the islands in the Torres Strait predicted to be affected by global warming through rising sea levels. So it is an issue that is very close to home, one that is so in a very tangible and practical way for those people.

Today Labor announced another policy to add to our growing suite of very specific policies to tackle climate change. Labor’s leader, Mr Rudd, and our environment spokesperson, Mr Garrett, announced a plan to provide $50 million to help subsidise the installation of solar power in homes and community buildings around the country. This will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 16,800 tonnes a year, the equivalent of taking 4,000 cars off the road for a full year. This is another policy, joining our policies on green cars and clean coal, that a Labor government will put in place if elected. Another critical issue is that we will substantially increase the mandatory renewable energy target and set up a national emissions trading scheme, with the overall goal of cutting Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent by 2050. All of these things stand in stark contrast with a lazy, sceptical government that is incapable of, and unwilling to, take climate change seriously. (Time expired)