Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

This scheme is about Australia doing its share to tackle climate change. The senator may laugh and roll his eyes, but this is about us doing our part. We will not tackle climate change without a global agreement but we will not get a global agreement if Australia is not prepared to stump up. The reality is that what the senator is actually arguing for is Australia not doing our part. The reason that he is doing that is that he does not think that action on climate change is important.

I can tell you what we know absolutely for sure, Senator—apart from the fact that you will vote against this legislation no matter what. We know that without action by Australia and by everybody else, we face the risk of temperature rises in excess of six degrees this century. Professor Garnaut’s no mitigation scenario—that is, no action; the ‘do nothing’ scenario—had the globe in excess of 1,500 parts per million in this century. So in excess of 1,500 parts per million in this century and in excess of a six degree temperature rise. In the face of that, you say, ‘Do nothing.’

The senator also suggested—again inaccurately—that the government has not been willing to have inquiries. Since our election, there have been some 13 inquiries by the parliament either into the CPRS or into related climate change matters—some 13 in two years on one topic, climate change. We put a paper out in June or July 2008, the green paper, proposing what the government was going to do. We consulted widely. We put out a white paper, which is a policy position, in December 2008. We put out draft legislation in March that went to a Senate committee. In May, in the budget session, we brought the legislation that is now before the chamber into the parliament. There have been many inquiries and there has been a lot of talking. One thing that everyone knows for sure is that no amount of talking, no number of facts and no amount of discussion or argument will change Senator Joyce’s mind. He simply does not want to take action.

We have never pretended that we can wave a magic wand to fix climate change. He knows that. This is hard work. This plan is about Australia doing its part. And, yes, we absolutely need a global agreement. But he also knows that other countries are acting. He does not like to remember that. He has tried to dismiss the targets announced by the President of the United States by saying that it was only a press release. This is a statement from the President of the United States. He knows that Europe has committed to targets. He knows that Japan has committed to targets. He knows that New Zealand has a scheme in place. He knows that other countries are acting. But that is not a fact that he wants to cloud his diatribes.

The reality is that this generation has to decide whether it is simply going to handball the problem down the track. We do not believe that that is the responsible thing to do. I notice Senator Joyce scribbling over there. I am going to keep my remarks short in an attempt to allow Senator Milne, who has an amendment before the chair, to speak to her amendment, given that he and I have had a fair go at this. After some 25½ hours in the committee stage of the debate, I respectfully suggest we could move to discussion on the amendment.