Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Finance and Deregulation (Senator Wong) to a question without notice asked by Senator Milne today relating to fossil fuel subsidies.

I remind the Senate that at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh in 2009 the then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, agreed to 'phase out and rationalise' inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. At that time in Australia Treasury had identified 17 such subsidies that existed and there was then a move to determine what Australia was actually going to do consistent with that undertaking the Prime Minister had made to President Obama and others at the G20 meeting.

In the time since that meeting at Pittsburgh in 2009 we have seen very little movement in Australia in phasing out fossil fuel subsidies. What we have seen, however, is a redefinition of what constitutes a fossil fuel subsidy, so, whereas 17 of them were identified by Treasury in 2009, the redefinition suddenly meant that they evaporated, that Australia did not have inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. Of course, the weasel words there are 'inefficient'. So how can you have an efficient fossil fuel subsidy at a time when fossil fuels are the reason that we have accelerating global warming? How sensible is it, on the one hand, to introduce carbon pricing in order to bring down the fossil fuel emissions driving accelerated global warming and, on the other hand, to maintain fossil fuel subsidies? The fossil fuel subsidies in Australia have recently been assessed by the Global Subsidies Initiative report saying that they currently are at $7.2 billion a year in Australia. We are subsidising fossil fuels at the same time that we are introducing carbon pricing to bring down fossil fuel emissions. It makes no sense.

We now have the Prime Minister in Mexico for the G20 meeting and no doubt there will be discussions there not only with her colleagues at the G20 but with the International Energy Agency, the OECD and the World Bank, which are all out there basically saying, 'One thing that we have to do is sever the link between economic growth and the consumption of scarce resources because otherwise we will see not only our resource base but also our governance and policy structures unable to sustain the standard of living societies have grown accustomed to and aspire to.' So what is Prime Minister Gillard going to tell the G20 about how Australia is decoupling business and economic growth from resource intensive environmental impact? It seems to me that, instead of actually severing that link to economic growth that is driving those adverse environmental impacts, Australia is actually cementing the link with this massive expansion of coal and this massive expansion of coal seam gas and the destruction of the environment in the Great Barrier Reef, the World Heritage area, as a result of dredging in Gladstone harbour and the dumping of spoil into the Great Barrier Reef area.

Of course, now we have had the announcement of a national network of marine parks around Australia, something for which we have campaigned for years, but what do we find? We find that the marine park boundaries, particularly on the Kimberley Coast in the Pilbara and even at Ningaloo, have been compromised by oil and gas. So not only do we have actual financial subsidies for accelerated depreciation, for exploration and for fuel tax credits but now we are also subsidising them with our environment. We are actually risking the World Heritage endangered listing of the Great Barrier Reef and we are risking permanent damage to it and we are risking losing substantial parts of our marine environment. Many of the reefs have not been put into the marine parks because of oil and gas. So I think Australia needs to get very serious about this and recognise that we have a totally inconsistent approach at the moment. If you are serious about climate change and if you are serious about getting rid of fossil fuel subsidies, it means you then have the money to invest in education and training and to invest in the new low-to-zero carbon economy that is essential if we are going to sustain ourselves as a planetary community in this century. That is what it comes down to: sustainability. Sustainability and fossil fuel subsidies are in direct conflict.

Question agreed to.