Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The minister explained that the difference between a 25 per cent cut in greenhouse gases over 1990 levels by 2020 and a 40 per cent cut was 0.3 of one per cent of gross national product, or $3.5 billion. I think those are the figures she gave to the committee. They indicate that regardless of which you choose there will be a significant growth continuing in the economy when you get to 2020.

When you look at $3 billion or $3.5 billion in 2020 it is very small indeed, compared to the amount that the government suddenly found it could give to the coalition in reaching a deal yesterday in 2009 dollars to get a political fix, which we are now dealing with. It underscores the importance of Senator Milne’s original question. Having known that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was recommending that the developed countries have a 40 per cent cut by 2020, that it was a target which would achieve a measure of safety way beyond a 25 per cent reduction and that it would, in particular, raise the chances of protecting the Great Barrier Reef—which under this legislation is enormously endangered—and the Murray-Darling Basin and its food producing potential—the minister herself is talking about a 90 per cent potential reduction in this century in its ability to produce food, and this legislation that she has before the parliament is going to do very little to insure against that drastic outcome and many other damages coming to Australia—the question still is: how on earth, except for saving a political argument based on reality and facts that should be available to this committee, did the government make a decision not to model 40 per cent?

That is what the global scientists were saying who informed the government and it was, as Senator Milne said, part of the Bali deliberations. It was very much publicised at the time. It has always been part of the debate in Australia. If you take the Greens out of the debate, you are left with the leading climate change scientists in Australia, who are always calling for their preference—a 40 per cent reduction by 2020. But the government, deliberately, with forethought and with a great deal of political consideration, not only decided not to model a 40 per cent reduction but to refuse a very clear request from the Greens to have that reasonable and responsible alternative, which would make this country much safer from climate change, modelled. I put it to the committee that the reason for that is the government did not want to face the reality that that modelling would have shown it was a very reasonable and responsible option—economically as well as in every other way.

This government and this minister studiously refused to allow that modelling to occur so that when we were debating this tonight we could not have that alternative debated from a point of public interest let alone Senate common sense. This minister, this Prime Minister and this government deliberately set out to refuse this Senate and this parliament crucial information to be able to evaluate whether the prime call for scientists to make this country safe was within reasonable economic reckoning. It was deliberate and with aforethought. It was a studied effort to stymie the parliament’s and the public’s right to know whether that alternative was a reasonable one. If you just look at the figures that the minister has revealed about the 25 per cent reduction over the five per cent reduction, a simple extrapolation will tell us that the 40 per cent reduction would have allowed the economy to continue to grow and would have made this country much, much safer, and the government did not want the public to know that.

Before it allowed such modelling to take place the government took a decision that for its own political reasons it did not want this hugely important piece of information to be made available to the House of Representatives, the Senate, the parliament, the people of Australia or business in Australia. It is an abrogation of responsibility not done by mischance, mistake or oversight but a deliberate and studied abrogation of the right of the parliament to be informed. The government made a decision based on its own selfish politics against the wider interests of the Australian people and their right to be informed. Let that be on the record, because it was a disgraceful decision made by the Rudd government not to have an enlightened debate on the alternatives which the best scientific minds in this country said we should be debating here tonight. I cannot go further to express the absolute disgust that should be expressed about that behaviour from the minister, the Prime Minister and the government in cheating this assembly and the people of Australia of their right to have a full and informed debate on a scientifically based option which we should have adequately and equally debated before this chamber tonight.