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

I am not going to delay the Senate by speaking on this again except to say that the evaluation criteria in our amendment would require Infrastructure Australia to include assessments of greenhouse gas emissions and oil consumption implications in any matter of advice prepared under the section. That requires that filter to be put across every project. Frankly, if you have a whole-of-government approach to climate change and you are serious about greenhouse gas emissions then you would be accepting this. Though you say, ‘Of course it is going to be taken into account,’ I know it is not the case. If you did take it into account in relation to a coal port, for example, you would be required under this amendment to identify the likely greenhouse gas impact and to give some appraisal of that. You might still decide against it, but at least you would be forced to look at it. The same applies in relation to new freeways and so on. You would be forced to look at the likely ramifications of the increased number of vehicles and so on. That gives you a better criterion by which to compare that to, say, a public transport investment.

I accept that the government and Senator Xenophon are not going to support this. I did not hear from the coalition but, consistent with what they said before about the principles, I am assuming that they also do not support it. I am disappointed about that because I have an inherent feeling that we are going to end up with the case that, when it suits the government, they will take greenhouse gases into account; when it does not, they will not. We are going to end up investing in infrastructure which is 20th century, hugely emissions-intensive and which undermines our effort to move to a low-carbon economy, a much more efficient transport and freight system and a much more efficient way of living in terms of energy and emissions. However, nobody can say that the parliament did not have the opportunity at this time of climate emergency to actually put into legislation the priorities that they say they espouse. I think this is another signal to the community that the government is on a go-slow on climate change.