Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The question that we have in front of us for discussion in this matter of public importance this afternoon is one that invites a comparison of Labor’s responsible, fully-costed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme with the so-called ‘policy’ released by the Leader of the Opposition yesterday. I welcome the opportunity to make the comparison.

The day that the climate sceptics took over the Liberal Party late last year was a very sad day for Australia. It was a sad day particularly for our children and then our grandchildren. If the policies and the approach espoused by the Liberal-National Party had the opportunity to be put into practice, it would be the young people of today who would have to carry the burden of a changed environment and an economy that could not manage the impact of increased greenhouse gasses. Our children and their children will be the generation that shoulders the burden, if there is no action on climate change.

The fact is that the Liberal Party has had myriad positions on climate change over the last few years. Mr Howard took a while to come to his senses. After many years of inaction in government, Mr Howard took the position that an emissions trading scheme was the only sensible and reliable way of dealing with dangerous climate change. After considerable consideration of advice, Mr Howard and his cabinet agreed that they would adopt an emissions trading scheme as government policy, and he said:

It is fundamental to any response both here and elsewhere that a price is set for carbon emissions. This is best done through the market mechanism of an emissions trading system.

That was the policy that the coalition took to the last election. That is the policy they put in front of the Australian people and asked the Australian people to vote on. Now we have a completely different position from the opposition. As I said, it was a sad day when the climate sceptics took over the current opposition.

An emissions trading scheme is recognised by most economic commentators around the world as the most sensible method of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. As Lenore Taylor said in today’s Australian in analysing the Liberal-National Party approach to climate change, ‘This is a climate change plan to get Tony Abbott through to the next election, not a serious plan to refit the Australian economy so that it emits less carbon.’ This so-called policy is a political fix. Michelle Grattan described the plan as ‘Mickey Mouse’ and a ‘summersault on emissions trading’ that is ‘a short-term election pitch, not a sweeping reform to meet the threat of climate change’. Phil Coorey from Fairfax said that taxpayers will foot the bill for the big polluters under the opposition plan.

As I said, those opposite have had a number of positions on climate change in the last three or four years and by my reckoning Mr Abbott has had three different positions in the last 12 months. Initially he was a sceptic, then he became a pragmatist and then we had the unedifying spectacle late last year of Mr Abbott doing his numbers in order to gain the leadership and realising he would have to revert to being a sceptic yet again. In order to gain the votes that were required to put him into the leadership of the party, he has rephrased his approach to climate change and now he is an avowed climate sceptic. This is a dangerous position for Australia and it is a dangerous position because, if it were allowed to be put into effect, it would wreak havoc on our economy and on our environment.

The Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Wong, has consistently said that an appropriate policy response to dangerous greenhouse gases is a response that is economically responsible and effective in reducing greenhouse gases. The Liberal-National Party policy fails on both counts, but you do not have to rely on me to tell you that story. Matthew Warren from the Clean Energy Council said, ‘Any genuine, effective climate change policy needs to provide investor certainty across the entire energy market and beyond.’ He also said that it is difficult to see that the Liberal-National Party plan provides that long-term certainty. Peter Cosier from the Wentworth Group said this morning on radio that the best policy on the table is the amendments agreed to between the government and the opposition, referring to the agreement last year. He went on to say that the proposal to plant 20 million trees falls well short of proposals included in the current ETS, under which farmers would be paid four times as much to plant trees. I am interested that those in the National Party would accommodate less money for their so-called constituency. This is a political con designed to take the Liberals to the next election. It is not about responsible policy development that will actually deal with the threat that we face in climate change. It is economically irresponsible and environmentally useless.

Climate change is real. Australia is the hottest, driest country in the world and we have a responsibility to act in concert with the world to reduce dangerous carbon pollution. Nowhere is that threat more real than in my state of Queensland. Last weekend Mr Abbott said:

… even if dire predictions are right and average temperatures around the globe rise by four degrees over the century, it is still not the ‘great moral challenge’ of our time …

Those words are of great concern for those in North Queensland whose livelihoods rely on the Great Barrier Reef. The common, well-understood and agreed science is that if we have a two-degree increase we will not have a Great Barrier Reef. We know that with a two-degree increase there will be significant bleaching events and the time between those bleaching events will be shortened, reducing the ability of the reef to recover. We know that with increased climate change there will be an increase in the intensity of cyclones. We have seen recently that cyclones of higher intensity do enormous damage, especially to the outer Great Barrier Reef. With a four-degree increase in temperature over the century, which according to Mr Abbott is not a great moral challenge, there will be no Great Barrier Reef.

I take this opportunity to remind people of the wonderful asset that this natural attraction is to our community. It is a natural wonder of the world. It contributes $5 billion of economic value to Queensland and to Australia. Thousands and thousands of people are employed in tourism and fishing and other industries directly related to the existence of a healthy Great Barrier Reef. We cannot afford to lose it and it is morally reprehensible to allow its demise. I remind senators that the Great Barrier Reef is the best managed coral reef system in the world. It is still the best reef experience in the world. I encourage people to visit the Great Barrier Reef now, to experience how wonderful it is and how well managed it is. It is a fragile ecosystem and we have to do all we can to protect it. But, can I say, it is still well and truly healthy and open for business, so we encourage your visit now.

Recently I had the opportunity to visit the Australian Institute of Marine Science and was given a presentation by Janice Lough, who published an article in Science on 2 January 2009 entitled ‘Declining coral calcification on the Great Barrier Reef’. I think this is some of the most compelling evidence to say that we have to act on climate change. The authors say:

Reef-building corals are under increasing physiological stress from a changing climate and ocean absorption of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. We investigated 328 colonies of massive Porites corals from 69 reefs of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) in Australia. Their skeletal records show that throughout the GBR, calcification has declined by 14.2% since 1990, predominantly because extension (linear growth) has declined by 13.3%. The data suggest that such a severe and sudden decline in calcification is unprecedented in at least the past 400 years.

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The causes of the decline remain unknown; however, this study suggests that increasing temperature stress and a declining saturation state of seawater aragonite may be diminishing the ability of GBR corals to deposit calcium carbonate.

Calcium carbonate is the skeleton of the Great Barrier Reef. If we have lost 14.2 per cent in the last 10 years, that should be cause for alarm and that should cause action on climate change. I commend the article to the chamber.

Mr Abbott likes wandering around Cape York Peninsula, so I encourage him to come up a little further in the Torres Strait. I encourage him to ask the people of the Torres Strait if they think climate change is real. They will tell you in no uncertain terms that climate change is real. We have seen increased tidal inundation and increased frequency in inundation over the last while. In the last couple of seconds I would like to refer to an article in today’s Daily Mercury that talks about some polling that has recently been done—(Time expired)