Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Hansard source

Let me start my contribution to this debate on the answers given by Senator Wong today where Senator Marshall finished off—that is, whether the action that is being taken by this government will make any difference to the environment whatsoever. At the end of question time, Senator Fifield asked a very pertinent question of Senator Wong. His question highlighted the extent to which current commitments made by the global community are making or will make any difference at all. Senator Fifield highlighted the 2010 United Nations Environment Program Emissions Gap Report, hardly a source whose credibility could be called into question, hardly a source that those opposite would even claim that sceptics or anyone else would latch on to. It found:

… that developed and developing country pledges are 60 percent of what is needed by 2020 to place the world onto a trajectory that will keep global temperature rises to less than 2˚C in comparison to preindustrial levels.

The International Energy Agency concurred in its report, finding 'that the 2˚C goal will only be achievable with a dramatic scaling-up effort' from what has currently been committed to.

Under what framework have current commitments been made? They have been made under the so-called Copenhagen accord, one of the flimsiest, most meaningless documents signed on the international stage at any time. The Copenhagen accord runs for barely a couple of pages, it is non-binding, commitments and pledges under it are voluntary and there is no framework for how they will be measured, verified or reported upon. There is nothing at all in this accord. Guess what? The commitments made under this non-binding, voluntary, non-measurable, non-reportable and non-verifiable accord do not even manage to achieve the optimistic scenarios on which Labor has modelled its carbon tax for global action.

I wish the rest of the world were doing more; I do. I wish we did actually have comprehensive global action of the kind that Senator Wong tries to portray when she stands up in this place and answers questions. The reality is, and those international agencies that monitor these things have demonstrated, that we simply do not have that level of international action. It is not happening, and is not happening even under the flimsiest, easiest to get out of, of global agreements—let alone what people might commit to if, when, maybe some time into the future, we see some type of replacement legally binding framework to Kyoto. Kyoto, of course, expires next year. So the Labor government is sending Australia down this path of implementing its carbon tax scheme just months before we enter the year in which the only globally binding framework on emissions will expire with no replacement in sight. In fact, as Senator Fifield's question highlighted, it will expire with 90 per cent of those currently involved in the global carbon market telling a World Bank survey that they are pessimistic of there being any legally binding replacement any time soon. Those opposite say it will make a real difference to the environment. My challenge to them is: come into this place and just tell us how it will make that difference, given all of the other global commitments, or lack thereof, that we have seen to date.

Today Senator Wong also belled the cat on the government's intentions about its latest Treasury modelling. She was asked whether it would be presented to the Joint Select Committee on Australia's Clean Energy Future legislation before the Treasury appears on Wednesday morning this week. She would not give a commitment that it would be. She certainly would not give a commitment that it would be released today. So what we will have is 200-plus pages, if it is anything like the last lot, of Treasury modelling, maybe if we are lucky, dumped on the table of the members of that committee hours or minutes before they are supposed to scrutinise the Treasury on its contents. This is the government's approach to transparency and accountability. As Senator Scullion rightly highlighted, the remarkable thing is that they are being aided and abetted by the Greens, who seem to be happy to let the government get away with this, despite all their previous lectures. It shows what a shame and a farce it is. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.