Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Hansard source

I will take that interjection. The minister, Senator Brandis, says, ‘That’s not true.’ I would invite him to consider some of the previous statements of the Prime Minister and the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources on this issue, including the dismissive way in which the film An Inconvenient Truth was discussed, and some of the dismissive statements of senior members of the government on these issues. The reality is that they are shifting position from climate change sceptics to believers, not because they actually do believe but because they think it is politically necessary. We know one thing about this Prime Minister: he is a very clever politician. That is what marks the government’s approach to climate change: clever politics, but lacking in substance.

It is interesting to read Minister Turnbull’s statement, because he refers to Sir Nicholas Stern. We saw the papers and some of us saw the television news. There has been quite a lot of media interest in Sir Nicholas Stern’s visit to Australia. His report can, I think, be regarded as having shifted this debate internationally quite significantly. It is interesting that on the one hand, on page 2 of this statement, we have Minister Turnbull referring to Sir Nicholas Stern in a way that says: ‘He said this, so therefore we should do it.’ Isn’t it interesting how selectively the government chooses to take Sir Nicholas Stern’s advice? On the one hand they want to use him in a ministerial statement in this way, as justification or to add support to the position, but they do not want to take his advice when it comes to ratifying the Kyoto protocol—something which Sir Nicholas Stern spoke to the Press Club about at some length in terms of the way in which the government’s position has been commented on, indicating that it was not a position that made Australia a world leader. They do not want to take his advice on the Kyoto protocol or on implementing market mechanisms to drive reductions in carbon emissions, such as a carbon trading scheme—the government do not want to take Nicholas Stern’s advice on a whole range of issues—but they are happy to put his name in a statement, selectively, to support one aspect of what is clearly a clever political announcement.

The reality is that the government has been sceptical of climate change, and that, unfortunately, has affected its response. It is now responding only because it recognises that the people of this country recognise that this is an issue that requires urgent political leadership—which, I am sad to say, has been significantly lacking by the Howard government.

One of the things that the government does—and we saw it in question time again from Senator Abetz; he seems to have a few standard lines that he trots out on this—when criticised about climate change is to refer to the Australian Greenhouse Office. That was a good initiative when Senator Hill put it in place. I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall when he and Senator Minchin argued in cabinet about that issue, because everyone knows that Senator Minchin is one of the great climate change sceptics within the government. Anyway, Senator Hill might have won that first round, but what have we seen since then? I have some knowledge of this because, as a backbencher, I in fact attended the environment estimates. Many of the programs within the Australian Greenhouse Office were characterised by underspending and that great term ‘rephasing of funding’, which is public servant or government speak for: ‘We haven’t been able to actually spend the money, so we’re going to put it out to another year.’ That was what characterised a range of programs funded through the AGO and the department of the environment.

We have also seen—and the government do not mention this when they seek to put forward the AGO as their great emblematic answer to climate change—the AGO downgraded and moved into the department. I would invite those who want to look at the government’s record on these issues to consider the approach the government have taken to the funding of research into renewables, particularly solar energy. This has certainly been raised with me by a number of scientists in the area, in that the government’s record, in terms of supporting solar research and commercialisation initiatives, has been extremely poor. The reality is that the government do not have a coherent position in relation to climate change. What they have is a cobbled together range of political announcements. One only has to look at the buffet of positions they have had in relation to carbon trading over the last two years. Have a look at what the Prime Minister, Senator Minchin and Senator Ian Macdonald said, and then look at the current lines. The reality is that they have refuted the prospect of a trading scheme out of hand—they said, ‘We have to have the international framework in place first’—and now they are countenancing the possibility, or some of them are, of a national scheme as part of the move to an international scheme.

This government has no clear position. Only now, because they are under political pressure in relation to climate change, are they undertaking consideration of this through the prime ministerial task force—many years after many people, including the opposition, members of the Australian community and members of the business community, have been calling for this sort of action to be taken.

So, when Australians read the minister’s statement about it and see in press clippings various articles about it—because I am sure that Mr Turnbull, who loves the camera so much, will be out spruiking this as much as possible—I would invite them to look at all that this government is not doing in relation to climate change. This government has an incoherent and ad hoc approach to climate change that is driven by politics and not by substance. And I suggest that, as time goes on, the Australian people are becoming more and more aware of the way in which these clever political announcements do not address the substantial issues and substantial challenges this nation faces into the future.