Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Joyce, there is a great deal of stupidity in your remarks, because the greatest threat to jobs in Queensland in the long term is climate change. Indeed, you only need to look at the coral bleaching that is projected to take place, even under the existing projections of climate change. If we fail to mitigate climate change, as our ETS outlines that we should, we will be looking at a far more catastrophic scenario for the Great Barrier Reef. That is the real threat to jobs in Queensland.

Labor have done extensive work on this issue, unlike those opposite, who do not want to talk about the jobs that will be lost if we fail to respond to climate change. We must prepare this nation for a carbon constrained future, a future in which we will very much feel the impact of climate change on jobs—in the Western Australian rock lobster industry, for instance, through increased drought and coral bleaching.

The fact is that not taking action now would leave Australian jobs on an even more insecure footing. We need to put Australia on a footing that will create the jobs of the future and mitigate as much of the inevitable damage of climate change on our great nation as possible. We need to emerge from this economic downturn with a commitment to the jobs of the future. That is what is in the best interests of our nation. It makes good economic sense, and our economic modelling has told us so. We know that the less we do now the more it will cost later.

I hope senators in this place had a chance earlier this week to go to the CSIRO’s briefing on the latest science on climate change. The CSIRO made it very, very clear that what will prove most costly to the Australian community, environment and economy is unabated climate change. We must mitigate climate change and we must cooperate with the global community to reach that goal.

The impact on our local environment is already going to be severe, but, if unmitigated, it will be catastrophic. We will have more bushfires—and we only need to look at the nation’s recent experiences to see how terrible they can be. We will have more floods. Look at the impact on productivity in North Queensland of the floods that we have experienced. We will have less rain, more drought and more extreme weather events. This is not the future that we want for our nation.

On the other hand, the government is looking to provide substantial support and assistance for the jobs of today to transition to the jobs of the future through the CPRS. We have allocated free permits to engage in emissions-intensive trade-exposed activities. We have an Electricity Sector Adjustment Scheme, and that is going to provide fixed allocations of permits to coal fired electricity generators worth about $3.9 billion over five years. We also have a $2.15 billion Climate Change Action Fund, which is providing further targeted assistance to businesses as well as community sector organisations, workers, regions and communities. We understand that what we are doing is difficult. This is no easy path, but the alternative that you would have us face is much worse. The CPRS will create the low pollution jobs of the future. The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and our renewable energy target are creating the low pollution jobs of the future in industries like solar energy, on wind farms and in jobs using new technologies—clean coal and geothermal energy.

Senators will know that the Treasury modelling released last October shows that these measures are going to see the renewable energy sector grow to up to 30 times its current size by 2050, creating thousands of new jobs. But if we do not act Australia’s economy is going to be left behind. We will not have the opportunity to create the low pollution jobs of the future. We will have missed the boat. (Time expired)