Senate debates
Monday, 7 November 2011
Bills
Clean Energy Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Income Tax Rates Amendments) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Household Assistance Amendments) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Tax Laws Amendments) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Fuel Tax Legislation Amendment) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Customs Tariff Amendment) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Excise Tariff Legislation Amendment) Bill 2011, Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas (Import Levy) Amendment Bill 2011, Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas (Manufacture Levy) Amendment Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Unit Shortfall Charge — General) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Unit Issue Charge — Auctions) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Unit Issue Charge — Fixed Charge) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (International Unit Surrender Charge) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Charges — Customs) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Charges — Excise) Bill 2011, Clean Energy Regulator Bill 2011, Climate Change Authority Bill 2011; In Committee
8:07 pm
Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source
millennia. What Senator Macdonald missed when talking about the science was that in the current Holocene—that is, the present warm period that we are in—a lot of the change in the climate has been caused by humans. That is why we are in the situation we are in and why we are trying to do something about it. According to Professor Will Steffen, one of the climate commissioners, one trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today is of human origin. That means something like 30 per cent of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been caused by humans. Yes, the climate has changed, and it has changed because of our contribution to it. That is why we are trying to do something about it. That is why we are trying to ensure that our climate and our ecosystems—including the Great Barrier Reef, which Senator Macdonald touched on—are protected into the future and that our ecosystems remain in the equilibrium in which they need to remain.
As Senator Macdonald said, other nations in the world are not acting as fast as he would like or all of us would like. But if we all had the attitude that others are not acting and therefore we should not act, if we all had the attitude of putting our heads in the sand and not doing anything about this global issue that has no boundaries—the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere that has in part been caused by humans does not have boundaries—or if we did not have the attitude of leading as a developed nation in our Asian region then we are not setting an example for other countries to do something about this issue. In the meantime, they are actually doing something about this issue; they are acting. Even India and China are acting on the issue of carbon in the atmosphere.
Senator Fierravanti-Wells interjecting—
The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN: Order! Senator Singh, you have the call.
Senator Fierravanti-Wells was obviously not here earlier this evening, nor last Thursday, or she would have realised that her Senate colleagues have wasted much of the time of this in committee debate on not asking questions. In fact, every time Senator Macdonald gets on his feet, he eventually get round to his question or he spends at least half of his time talking about the fact that he is not getting enough time to ask questions, without asking a question!
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