Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Good. I am pleased that Senator Faulkner is here. I think he probably has a more rational understanding of the whole issue of climate change. He understands the politics very well and I know he was part of that. But he does, I think, have a more balanced view of the fact that other people can have a view without being continually accused of being sceptics. As my colleague Senator Brandis continually interjects to Senator Wong: ‘Is being a sceptic a crime nowadays under the new regime of the thought police of the Labor government?’ I would like to understand that whole issue.

I ask a question today about free permits and, again, the minister does not seem to have any idea. I have to say I do agree with Senator Milne on this issue: for all the rhetoric, all the handclapping, all the flashlights popping at Bali last year we now find that the Australian government are going to this major international conference without any indication of where they are heading. That has not been the rhetoric all the way through this year. You will notice a slight change of rhetoric as the Labor Party now understand the sense of the approach that was taken by the coalition in relation to climate change. Yes, we need to do something, but we do not need to do it in advance of others and we have to see what everyone else is doing.

I am also interested in discussing recent reports, only I dare not ask about them for fear of being accused of being a philistine. The other day I read—but I do not know if the article was accurate or not—something about some very serious ice scientists who were saying that the amount of ice is increasing both in the Arctic and the Antarctic. If that is true—I have no capacity to judge, but some fairly prominent scientists were quoted—how does that fit in with global warming? I do not know. I would like to ask the minister about that but I am sure that, if I do, for a start I will not get an answer and then I will be accused of all sorts of things. I am not a shrinking violet—I do not really care if she calls me names—but it would be nice every now and again to get the resources of the Australian government, who can give answers to these things, to actually answer a question. But it does not suit the minister’s rhetoric so we never get it.

How these assessments could have been done without taking any notice of the global financial circumstances I am not quite sure, but this government has done it. The Garnaut report seems to have been tossed aside already and we find some difficulty in having any idea of where we are going.

I do not want to take too much of the Senate’s time. The ministerial statement—although I have only had an opportunity to glance at it and listen while the minister was speaking—does not seem to take us any further except to say what she announced to the media last Friday, I think it was—that is, that they are not going to announce a target before the Poznan conference is all over and dead.

I cannot help myself so I will put on record my disagreement with Senator Milne. I note the impact that Australian forests and the forestry industry have as to their positive aspects for so much of Australia’s society and economy, including our addressing of climate issues. There are positives all the way through. Time will not permit me to go through them. I know that if time permitted Senator Colbeck, my colleague here on the front bench, would relish that, but I understand he is on strict orders not to delay the debate. But there are very positive aspects as to Australia’s forestry industry that help in so many ways. On that subject I am pleased to say that, at least in the last few years, the Labor Party and the Liberal Party are at one in our understanding of that.