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

On the first question, my recollection is just New Zealand, but only at 2015. I am not sure why the senator regards that as a special case. I think that is at least 50 per cent of their domestic emissions. However, it should be noted that a number of other nations do regulate or apply other policies to reduce emissions from agriculture. I will get some advice about some examples of that.

I make some comments on what was described as the preamble and also Senator Nash’s comments, which I have not had an opportunity to respond to. Senator Nash says, ‘If Australia is going to act first of those that haven’t acted yet, that would be next.’ So Australia will act next—not first, not last but next. There was a lot of talk, as there is in this place from those opposite, about the catastrophe and the disaster that this policy is. They have yet to tell anybody in Australia how it is different to the policy they went to the last election with. I noticed there was an absence of a response on that. They always forget to talk about the effect of climate change on this nation and on the people they represent. We as a government are not doing this because it is easy; we as a government are doing this because it is right. I have said before in this chamber and I will say again: we have a lot to lose from climate change. We have a lot riding on an effective global agreement. It is in our national interests to act because we know what climate change will mean for Australia, one of the hottest and driest nations on earth. We know what that will mean in the next 20 years. It will mean more droughts, more heatwaves, more fires and more extreme weather. That is in our lifetime. Beyond that, it will mean a drop in agricultural production and an over 90 per cent drop this century in the Murray-Darling. How can you look at those facts and not believe we have an imperative to act in the national interest?

What makes this difficult is that we are asking this generation of Australian leaders to do something for those who are younger and for their children. That is a hard thing to do. But what is remarkable is how far the community is ahead of this parliament; how so many people in the community, despite what we are seeing from those opposite, continue to say, ‘We want action on climate change because it is the right thing to do.’

Senator Macdonald asked why we have to pass this legislation now. He accuses us of rushing it through. There is no risk of rushing. There is no risk of rushing in this country, nor with this parliament, on this issue. We have been talking about this for 10 years. In 1999 Prime Minister Howard’s government received its first report on emissions trading. The Task Group on Emissions Trading report was presented to John Howard in 2007 before the election, which led to the then Prime Minister changing his policy position. Both parties went to the election with a policy for a trading scheme. This government went through an extensive consultation process and policy process—a very detailed process because this is a big policy. The draft of this legislation first came before this parliament in March 2009 and it has been before this parliament since the budget week in May 2009. It was debated in this chamber in June where it was the subject of, again, procedural games by those opposite so that they did not have to vote. The opposition voted it down in August and it has been brought back now. It has been through Senate committees. In fact, since this government was elected there have been no less than 13 parliamentary inquiries into either this Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009 [No. 2] or climate change. So there is no risk of us being accused of rushing.

One of the questions that those opposite never answer when they argue for delay is this: what will change in a couple of months? If the conservative party in this country has got people with such extreme views that they are prepared to tear down a leader and tear apart their own party so as not to act on climate change, why on earth does anyone believe that coming back in February will have anybody changing their mind? It will not.

I am asked why we need to pass this scheme. There is a very simple proposition here. Acting on climate change is in Australia’s national interest. If we know we have to act then all we are doing by delaying is increasing the price tag—that is all we are doing. We are increasing how much it will cost us to make this change. So what the Liberal and National parties are arguing is for us to pay more for a change we have to make. Those of them who are not arguing delay but inaction are actually saying that we in this parliament, all of us, should make an active decision to impose more risk on our children. How can that be responsible?