Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The incorporated speech read as follows—

I rise to speak on the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Bill 2007.

This Bill is intended to provide a single conduit for reporting by corporations of their greenhouse gas emissions and abatement action from July 1, 2008.

It has been introduced as the first step towards the establishment of an emissions trading scheme.

With that objective in mind, the concept of this legislation is not difficult to support.

Over the past few years, the states have pushed for a national greenhouse reporting scheme at COAG, and industry groups have lobbied for various limits, conditions and exclusions to these efforts.

This Bill was foreshadowed by the Government earlier this year, after the announcement of the intent to establish a national emissions trading scheme.

As would be expected the major stakeholders expected they would be consulted during the drafting stage of the legislation.

Therefore, it was a major disappointment—and to the detriment of the document before us—that on this occasion this did not occur.

In addition to this lack of consultation, the Bill was hastily drafted and introduced into the Parliament, meaning there wasn’t time for full public and parliamentary scrutiny of its contents.

Introduced into the House of Representatives on August 15 of this year, the legislation includes the following aspects:

• Mandatory registration of controlling corporations with the national system,
• Requirements for registered corporations to keep records and provide reports,
• Requirements concerning the security and disclosure of information under the scheme,
• Compliance and enforcement arrangements, Administration arrangements (including the
• establishment of the position of Greenhouse and Energy Data Officer), and
• Compliance monitoring arrangements.

By the 2010-2011 financial year the provisions of the legislation would apply to approximately 700 companies which annually put out more than 50 kilotonnes of greenhouse emissions each.

However, the slow-start timeframe and the reporting thresholds that this Bill establishes may be insufficient to meet the reporting needs of an emissions trading scheme slated to start in 2010.

A major and recurring concern raised by the states about this legislation is that it has not accurately translated the spirit of cooperation, collaboration and consultation from the COAG talks on the subject.

Some of its clauses and provisions were an unwelcome surprise to the states, who had expected a different outcome when it came down to specifics.

Across a wider range of parties, other concerns voiced about the original Bill included that the proposed new Federal Government powers over state legislation and policies it provided for, looked to be on the excessive side—even harmful to the very essence of the legislation.

This most troublesome clause has been amended by the government, however this and other significant amendments were circulated less than 24 hours before the second reading debate so as to prevent due public and parliamentary scrutiny.

Indeed, overall there have not been appropriate timeframes for analysis of the Bill by those it will affect and those charged with bringing it into law.

It is a substantial document—it contains more than 50 pages—but was introduced into parliament with at short notice at the end of the last sitting week in August.

It’s no surprise, considering this, that potential “unintended consequences” of the Bill have been identified.

These include increasing the compliance burden on industry.

One example of this would be the legal costs likely to be incurred as stakeholders grapple with the ambiguities arising from the structure of the Bill.

There also may still be a risk this Bill could undermine current and future state-based programs which have been designed to tackle the challenge presented by climate change.

However, despite its flaws—and I will canvass these in some more detail later on—Labor supports this Bill because we believe in the general aim of the legislation.

Our country urgently needs a workable climate change strategy.

Labor is committed to the implementation of an emissions trading scheme.

Those on our side of the chamber see it as the most sensible and practical means of dealing with greenhouse gas emissions.

The more effectively we can monitor and record emissions data, the more effectively we can reduce and offset emissions.

So the heart of this legislation is in the right place.

However, because it has been put together in haste, without cursory—let alone comprehensive—consultation with the relevant parties, it has a number of shortcomings.

The government also obviously has had both eyes on the mirror while drafting it.

In other words, the Government has been more concerned about being seen to be doing something ... anything ... than worrying about getting the finer details right when it came to putting together this Bill.

So rather than reducing the uncertainty and ambiguity for those in industry who are trying to do the right thing when it comes to emissions, the document’s current form has the potential to increase doubt.

Still, even just having legislation on this issue before the parliament is an important first step towards real progress.

I was a member of the Standing Committee on Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts recently charged with the examination of this Bill.

The resultant report accurately conveys that the state government departments, industry representatives, environmental and conservation organisations, and other groups and individuals who furnished submissions were supportive of the Bill’s intent.

However, each of these groups articulated significant and specific concerns as to its provisions and likely effect.

These concerns were highlighted during the Committee’s public hearing on September 3, 2007.

The inquiry heard that the Commonwealth Greenhouse Reporting Bill was put together without due consultation over July and August this year.

The Department even admitted it had not consulted with any of the stakeholders during the drafting of the Bill.

However, it did cite previous years’ discussions with various parties on the subject and referred to previous COAG outcomes and agreements during the hearing.

Although the Bill itself fails to reflect accurately the outcome of these discussions.

The Australian Industry Greenhouse Network, which represents the major Australian emitters, testified that the government did not consult with the network when drafting this Bill.

The state governments, likewise, were not consulted on the Bill.

Expert witnesses, state governments, industry and environmental groups agreed that while the objective of the legislation was sound and necessary to underpin emissions trading, the Bill before Parliament had various problems.

The inquiry heard that its introduction would deliver unintended consequences such as significantly raising compliance costs and producing a fractured system that may not include all major emitters and therefore might oblige companies to seek judicial review.

Other unintended results likely would include undermining state laws on climate change that are working; and cutting across other state laws that are not even connected to greenhouse emissions issues.

Major emitters testified that the Bill was not consistent with previous positions or agreements made between the states and the Howard Government at COAG.

It also was pointed out that the proposed Act would leave little room for future co-operative efforts or negotiation.

Overall, the major emitters supported the Bill in its current form but recommended numerous amendments to improve it.

Environmental groups testified that the reporting thresholds were too high and that more information should be publicly disclosed than currently proposed under the legislation.

The Investor Group on Climate Change and environmental groups believed the time-frame was too slow—which is consistent with Labor’s position of introducing emissions trading as soon as practicable.

The powers that the original Bill afforded the Commonwealth potentially could have undermined current and future state climate and pollution programs.

Legal testimony from Professor George Williams from the University of New South Wales’s Faculty of Law suggested simply removing the clause—clause 5—that provided these unnecessary powers.

If the clause—which he deemed to be “overbroad”—couldn’t be scrapped, he called for it to be amended to be specific rather than all-encompassing.

“It is hard to see how good policy could require the breadth of section 5,” Professor Williams says in his submission to the Committee.

“I am concerned that by denying an effective operation to state and territory laws providing for reporting and disclosure this will prevent those jurisdictions from enacting carbon trading or other schemes.

“Section 5 may strike at the heart of such schemes and prevent them (from) being put into place,” he goes on to say.

While backing the simplification and rationalisation of greenhouse reporting, the state governments recommended significant amendments both via submissions and at the hearing.

The submission from my home state of South Australia begins by stating that its government is—and I quote—“extremely supportive of the streamlining of greenhouse gas and energy reporting”.

However, like so many other groups, its view on clause 5 was unequivocal.

The SA submission says: “... the Commonwealth has taken a very heavy-handed approach that could have broad ramifications for an effective response to climate change. It undermines the spirit of the COAG initiative.”

That clause since has been amended by the government.

Of significant concern to both industry and the conservation groups which gave evidence was that the Bill leaves many of the practical measures that would underpin it to be determined at a later date by regulation and ministerial decree.

Indeed, the majority of submissions to the inquiry expressed concern that too much was left to regulation, believing instead that such provisions should be dealt with in the actual legislation to provide greater clarity and the chance of certainty.

There is concern that the Greenhouse Reporting Bill is necessary legislation but that it may yet have the potential to slow Australian action on climate change by undermining—at least in the short term—state initiatives.

All state governments represented at the hearing perceived the original clause 5 as unreasonable, leaving their responsibility to implement their own legislation, policy and locally based climate change programs to the discretion, essentially, of a Commonwealth government minister.

A significant number of submissions sought the deletion of the clause entirely; while Professor Williams, however, added that an alternative formulation of the clause would exclude state and territory laws only if and when they fell within the ambit of the regulations to be made under the Bill—that is, if they duplicate reporting made under the proposed scheme.

Labor members of the committee agreed with the committee’s recommendation that Clause 5 be redrafted to this effect.

Another major issue is that the thresholds for greenhouse and energy reporting are, in the view of Labor members and some other witnesses, loose in the Bill.

One submission noted that under the proposed threshold, only approximately 20% of the facilities which currently report under the National Pollutant Inventory would be required to report under the proposed Act.

Only 20% of those businesses who now report their emissions!

We are concerned, too, that it is proposed the maintenance and dissemination of information will, at the basic level of public disclosure, comprise a single aggregated total of emissions in carbon dioxide minus energy.

Meanwhile, only total energy produced and consumed will be made available for public disclosure.

It is the view of Labor members of the Committee that emissions and energy data should be disclosed at the facility level.

So it would seem the provisions of this Bill support disguise over disclosure.

Labor believes that state access to information must be guaranteed, not subject to the discretion of the Greenhouse and Energy Data Officer - as it would have been under the original Bill.

This issue is particularly relevant in light of the readiness of the states and territories to participate in a streamlined national scheme and the need for cooperation in greenhouse reporting between all jurisdictions.

Therefore, Labor supported the Committee’s second recommendation—that Subclauses 27(1) and 27(2) (c) be amended to provide for reporting information to be given to the state governments—and welcomes the amendment to this end.

Overall, this legislation must consider its impact—on all stakeholders—into the future.

In the absence of Federal Government leadership on climate change, state governments have led the way and their efforts should be supported rather than handicapped.

In concluding, I feel compelled to draw to the attention of Senators the fact that yet again, as has so often been the case in recent months if not years, Labor Senators have been obliged to come to the conclusion that submitting organisations were not allowed sufficient time to formulate and furnish their views on the proposed provisions.

In this present instance, all but three of the more than 30 submissions were received after the closing date.

Interested parties simply weren’t given enough time to give their views on the legislation.

Yet again, the Committee was not afforded sufficient time to adequately review the submissions nor to adequately inquire into the likely impact of the proposed measures.

Then, when amendments were put forward by the government in the face of overwhelming concerns by the majority of stakeholders, the House had less than 24 hours to review them.

This unseemly haste in dealing with a matter of significant complexity and acute importance only highlights the Government’s fixation on ramming through its Bills before they can be properly and comprehensively examined.

Surely this election-inspired haste, after eleven years of posturing, denial and delay, demonstrates how tenuous and self-serving this Government’s commitment to a workable solution to the climate change imperative really is.

We know members of the Howard-Costello government have either lost touch with Australian families—or never been in touch with them.

While many people across this great but fragile continent are concerned by, and willing to do anything they can to help curb climate change, they rightly have little faith in Canberra’s Coalition to lead the way.

And why would the Government be at the forefront on this issue when some of those that comprise it don’t even believe climate change is an issue, let alone a crisis?

Indeed, as we have heard repeatedly in this chamber and the house, a number on the Government’s benches still refuse to accept the science about the human impact on global warming and climate change.

In contrast to the Howard Government’s sceptics and fencesitters, Labor ranks are brimming with true believers.

We believe the issue of greenhouse gas emissions is a serious one.

We believe something needs to be done now to stem the harm being done to our planet.

We believe we have the policies and people to deliver on this and other issues which matter to the Australian people.

The sooner we act on emissions trading, the longer the economy will have to adjust to new market signals, and the better placed we’ll be to prosper in new and growing international carbon markets.

Therefore, because of its intent, Labor supports this Bill.

But as ever, we emphasise the importance of realising that intent through a well thought-out, consultative legislative framework, rather than a hastily drafted, lone-handed document.