Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (Senator Conroy) to a question without notice asked by Senator Milne today relating to petrol usage.

As I indicated in my question, it is very clear that the only long-term way to constrain petrol price rises and ease the pain for Australian commuters as well as to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport is to reduce demand through system-wide alternatives. I listened to Senator McGauran saying this government came to power without debt. There was a massive debt in the Australian economy in terms of climate and in terms of infrastructure. When this government came to power, we had a total collapse in the Murray-Darling system as a result of long-term drought made worse by climate change, and we had had a decade of complete neglect on climate change and peak oil.

In 2006 I moved in the Senate for an inquiry into Australia’s future oil supply and alternatives. In that inquiry we demonstrated the argument very strongly for peak oil—the recognition that Australia was running out of any self-sufficiency in oil and would soon become dependent on expensive imported oil, that cheap, plentiful oil was over, that we needed to invest massively in public transport, and that we needed to get ABARE to smarten up its ideas on predicted prices. We looked at a whole range of things like going to AusLink and forcing them to look at alternatives—to review the road funding and get some decent analysis on future oil supply—and the government of the day did absolutely nothing. The Howard government completely ignored the recommendations of that inquiry, and now we sit here with this government ignoring them as well.

The key point I chose to make today was that the Prime Minister said he wanted to be a world leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, the government, in the budget, has approved $4.3 billion worth of funding for transport which is 20:1 going to roads, freeways and cross-city tunnels—the whole shebang—and not to urban passenger transport, in particular urban rail. We do not want duplication of services; we want proper linkages and improved outer suburban transport to regional and intercity rail links. That is where money should be being spent, but it is not.

Senator Conroy told us that the government intends to massively increase road funding and road use and at the same time reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport. That is fascinating, because you simply cannot have it both ways. Certainly, we need mandatory vehicle fuel efficiency standards—absolutely right—and we need them very soon. We needed them a decade ago. China and plenty of other countries around the world have them; we do not. We need them. But, on their own, they are not enough. We need to reduce the number of cars on the road and make the ones that are there more efficient. Reducing the number on the road means a massive investment in public transport.

You just have to look at other cities to see how far behind the rest of the world Australia is. London and Paris are investing in centres where you can take your electric vehicle and plug it in. They have free vehicles in the centre of the city. You pay £75 in London for a key that gives you access to plug-in. You can book the car and drive it in the city, recharge the battery and leave it at the centre, and so on. Paris has just announced 4,000 of these, following up on a free bicycle strategy that works in the same way. Where are we in Australia? A mile behind.

Just in estimates, the minister said that Australia’s niche is in building the V8s for the US market. How backward are we in Australia in terms of addressing peak oil and climate change? Just last week, Permo-Drive chairman, Colin Henson, said that the $5 million that they now will not get from the Commercial Ready program is going to cost them the rollout of this technology. The government must look at the consequences of abandoning Commercial Ready and abandoning these innovative companies with proven technology. The US military has looked at this technology and says it works. They had venture capitalists ready to invest on the back of $5 million through the Commercial Ready program—instead of that the whole thing has collapsed.

It is quite clear to me that the whole of the road funding needs to go to Infrastructure Australia so that that new body can have a look at the road funding in the light of climate change and peak oil. A refusal to do that, a refusal to refer these election promises for roads to Infrastructure Australia, means that we are going to drive emissions higher and have little regard for the impacts in terms of scarce oil resources. This government does not have a whole-of-government approach to climate change. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.