Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

For a moment I thought we were finally going to get one admission from a government senator that climate change is real, that it is a real and present threat to our ongoing viability as a community, as a planet. Senator Eggleston started to say that he accepts there is real evidence of climate change, that there is constant evidence around the world of climate change, but, of course, the sceptic, like the rest of the government members, started to come out. He said, even though the evidence is real, present, constant and world wide, there is doubt about the causes. There is doubt whether human activity is having an impact on climate change—it could be just cyclical change; it could be the orbit of the earth.

For Senator Eggleston and the rest of the government members, this debate has been had. It is done and dusted. The scientific community has been arguing about this for the last 20 years and it has clearly resolved that human activity is affecting the climate on this planet and, unless we intervene in the way we do business, in the way we conduct our affairs, climate change is going to get worse, to the extent where it will finally be irreversible. But no-one suggests it is not irreversible now, and we have an obligation as a society to start taking the action that is necessary to address it. But we will never take the action that is necessary when over there the people with the purse strings, the people on the government side, are sceptical about the impact of human activity on climate change.

Crosby Textor, the pollsters of the Liberal Party, must be turning over and agonising about this, because they must be providing evidence to the government that even the public of Australia are light-years ahead of where this government wants to be. You really need to start taking it seriously. We hear mealy-mouthed promises about what you are going to do and that the government are taking these things seriously—but of course they are not. We have only to look at some of the quotes from some senior ministers in this government and some backbenchers. Let me start with Senator Abetz. He wants to write off climate change by saying:

There is no doubt that weeds pose ... a challenge much clearer, more present and possibly more serious than the unclear challenge which climate change may or may not pose to our biodiversity in 100 years time.

He said that in a media release on 25 December 2006. Weeds are an issue. It is something we ought to be addressing as a community. But to suggest that they present more of a threat than the unclear and challengeable impact of climate change is really just a joke. Again, it is the image the government want to present to the Australian public—that they are really trying to do something and that they believe that there has to be some intervention in climate change. Let us look at what Senator Cory Bernardi from South Australia said this year:

I have come to believe that we are seeing a distortion of the whole area of science that is being manipulated to present a certain point of view to the global public. That is, the actions of man are the cause of climate change. I have examined both sides of this debate and when the alarmist statements are discounted the scientific evidence that remains does not support the scenario that is being presented to us. The facts do not fit the theory.

All I can say to poor old Senator Bernardi is that the results are in for climate change. That debate has been had, so move on and accept the overwhelming body of evidence that suggests absolutely that human intervention is a cause of climate change. This bury-your-head-in-the-sand attitude will get us nowhere. It will lead to what this government suggests tackling climate change will lead to—that is, a lack of jobs. If we do not act, if we do not engage in the technologies, if we do not engage in rebuilding our industries and doing what is necessary to tackle climate change, it will become a self-fulfilling prophesy and we will lose jobs. But by tackling these issues now—and we have the technology if only we had the will—we can grow these industries, we can grow them sustainably and we can grow them with jobs. The Prime Minister acknowledges that as well. (Time expired)