Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

In order to understand the significance of what this government is now seeking to do in overturning, through this climate change bills repeal package, the country's first national climate laws, it is necessary to reflect on the clean energy package—its genesis and its success. The clean energy package was a truly remarkable and incredible achievement of the last parliament. In my short time here, it has been the most significant day I have had the pleasure of being involved in and being a part of. On that day, I was really proud of this parliament. I was proud that we had started to take the action necessary to safeguard our way of life—not just for my own daughter but for all future generations.

I was proud of the fact that we had taken action for the people of this generation, who are already suffering from the impacts of climate change. Our Pacific neighbours and our Torres Strait Islander communities are already facing saltwater incursion into low-lying farmland, and all around the world people are suffering from extreme weather events, which are sadly becoming more intense and more frequent. I was proud that we had taken action for all of the other creatures we share this planet with. I was proud that we had set aside the short-term interests of a vested few and had acted in the public interest and for the good of all future generations. Lastly, I was proud that we had looked at the science and had considered not just the needs of ourselves but also the needs of those to come.

This parliament did something that really mattered that day, and I want to take this chance tonight to publicly acknowledge, thank and pay tribute to the leadership of Senator Bob Brown, former Leader of the Australian Greens, and Senator Christine Milne, the Leader of the Australian Greens, for driving that climate action. I want to single out Senator Milne for her tenacity and determination in raising the issue of climate change long before it was a mainstream issue, in just never giving up and in managing to keep a smile on her face throughout. I pay tribute to Senator Milne.

In the short time that we have seen the carbon price operating, it has demonstrated a number of things. Firstly, it has demonstrated that we can, in fact, take the action we need to to safeguard our way of life and to ready our economy for the low-carbon future that the rest or the world is already moving towards. It has demonstrated that we can do this without economic shockwaves and, in fact, with the growth of new sectors—not just any new sectors but job-rich new sectors, which both sides of this parliament frequently claim to be concerned about. I mean job-rich sectors like clean energy, tourism and manufacturing. The key thing the carbon price has demonstrated so far is that it is actually working. It has already lowered our national emissions and has done so profitably. Likewise, the complementary measures have seen renewable energy flourish. We have the real start of a new economy here. And we know this renewable energy takes pressure off peak demand and we know this means it brings down electricity prices, and this is particularly important in the recent heatwaves.

The scheme was not perfect. We saw that there was overly generous compensation, in our view, to the big polluters, but that was also planned to be subject to review as the years progressed. If indeed the age of entitlement is over, as we are sometimes told by this government, those sorts of subsidies should be examined along with the other fossil fuel subsidies that rank in the billions of dollars every year that are meted out by taxpayers to those very profitable, often multinational, fossil fuel companies. They do not need the help, and probably never did. If these laws were to pass the parliament and be repealed—and I will harken back to that in the course of this contribution—there would be a windfall gain to those fossil fuel companies of $450 million per year. And that is just the cost of their fugitive emissions—that is, the leaking gas wells and the gassy coalmines—under the carbon price.

In total, according to the Parliamentary Budget Office's post-election report, abolishing the carbon price would remove $7.3 billion from the government's revenue stream. At a time when revenue forecasts are shrinking and we are seeing cut after cut to all of the things we hold dear—to universities, to single parents and even now to that great institution of Medicare—at a time when we have a need for an additional revenue stream, why on earth is this government countenancing the loss of $7.3 billion every year? It boggles the mind. It must simply be ideology and not evidence that is driving this government. We see that with the Commission of Audit's razor-gang.

If it were evidence based then this government would at least be seeking to retain the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, that magnificently successful organisation—that $10 billion renewable energy bank, if you like—that not only has seen emissions reduced but also has been making the government money and stimulating a new, incredibly profitable and exciting sector of our economy. If indeed it were evidence driving this government's decisions then they would be retaining the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Sadly, we see that the lack of evidence pervades. It is all the more so when it comes to the science itself, and climate science most of all.

The most confronting example of that, in recent times, was when the government put a climate sceptic in charge of the renewable energy target review. That is the target which was reviewed by the Climate Change Authority—who are actual scientists—not 18 months ago. They are scheduled to do an update to that in about six months time. Sadly, this government wants to abolish them as well. But I am really proud that today this chamber voted to keep that science based independent organisation. That is the organisation which last week recommended that Australia's emissions targets need to be increased, that if we are to follow the science and tackle climate change we should be increasing our reduction target to 19 per cent by 2020.

This government wants a five per cent target, yet it is not even prepared to spend the money to meet that five per cent target. It has quarantined $3 billion to spend on its bizarre direct action policy but it has admitted, countless times, should that money not produce a five per cent cut in emissions that: 'It doesn't matter; we won't throw any more money at it. It doesn't really matter if we don't meet that five per cent.' It does not care. Sadly, that five per cent target is itself far too low and will do nothing to help prevent more extreme drought, bushfires and economic ruin fuelled by global warming.

That is what we are talking about tonight, when we talk about climate change. It is not just, as the Prime Minister said, some invisible, odourless and weightless substance. No doubt he got a wealth of scientific advice on that statement, given that we now no longer have a science minister in this parliament. It is about the extreme weather events that this country is already facing. We are in a climate emergency and, when you look at the predictions from the government's own advisers about what we face under a changing climate, it is really very confronting.

I want to read into the record some of the projected impacts of global warming for my home state of Queensland. They come from a combination of sources, mostly the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO. Brisbane will experience more variable rainfall and stronger winds, leading to more extreme weather events. Extreme rainfall intensity is projected to increase, which could lead to more flooding—and we have already seen what happened with the devastating 2011 floods. Coastal areas are at high risk, and up to 67,700 residential buildings are at risk of inundation from a sea level rise of just 1.1 metres. That same sea level rise would also put up to 4,700 kilometres of Queensland's roads, up to 570 kilometres of Queensland's railways and up to 1,440 commercial buildings at risk. The number of days in Brisbane above 35 degrees could go from one a year up to 21 a year by 2070. Sadly, we know the effect that those extreme heat days can have on the elderly and the young.

In Central Queensland the projections are likewise for hotter weather and dry conditions that could lead to extreme and more frequent fire behaviour. We have had quite a lot of that lately, and none of us would wish it to continue unnecessarily. The fire season will start earlier and end later, there will be an increased fire frequency in the region and more areas will be burnt. The area will experience more variable rainfall, stronger winds and droughts, leading to more extreme weather events. The projections are also that there could be an increase in category 3 to 5 tropical cyclones, and there could be an increase of up to 60 per cent in severe storm intensity by 2030 and a 140 per cent increase by 2070.

The facts continue, and they are incredibly sobering. Far North Queensland may see an increase in the spread of diseases such as malaria and dengue fever due to more favourable conditions for vectors. It may also see ecosystem changes and extinctions in the wet tropics rainforests, increased heat related illnesses and flooding, erosion and damage to infrastructure associated with sea level rise. I could go on. Sadly, these are very, very sobering facts.

But it is not just human cost and human misery that will come from a failure to address runaway climate change. Our iconic plants and animals will also suffer. Our biodiversity will shrink and the world's biodiversity will suffer. Today is inaugural World Wildlife Day, and today two learned folk, Bradnee Chambers, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Environment Programme Convention on Migratory Species, and Christiana Figueres—hopefully, not talking out of her hat today, as the Prime Minister once contended—who is, of course, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, talked about the need for an international agreement in 2015. They said today that the agreement will come not a moment too soon for species like the monarch butterfly, humpback whale, polar bear, turtles and countless other species which, for millennia, have migrated across ancient routes spanning hundreds and thousands of miles. They say that climate change is clearly already impacting on many animals and plants and could spell extinction for some without urgent action.

We all know that polar bears in the Arctic are already challenged by several years of thawing, melting and thinning ice, making it harder and harder for some to hunt and to find food. Meanwhile, warmer beaches are affecting the hatching patterns of marine turtles. Cooler beaches produce predominantly male hatchlings, while warmer beaches produce mostly females. So we have a whole lot of lady turtles, and that is not good news for future reproduction. Blue whales now have to migrate further from their feeding grounds in warm waters to their breeding grounds in the cooler parts of the sea, and their main food source of krill is declining because of changes in temperature and acidification of the oceans due to climate change.

As a Queenslander, I hope the Great Barrier Reef holds a really special place in all of our hearts. Sadly, the latest science that we are seeing says that the reef probably will not withstand a two-degree rise and that it will only take a one degree rise to see severe coral bleaching in the reef. That is incredibly disturbing, given that we already have a 0.9 degree rise at this point in history. Of course, it is not just temperatures that will do damage. Ocean acidification makes it harder for corals to form and weakens the existing coral structures.

Yet we have approvals for new mega coalmines and coal ports handed out like they are lollies and tossed around like confetti. In the Galilee Basin up in north Central Queensland, we have plans for coalmines that are just enormous—three times as big as the current biggest coalmine that we have got in this country. Many of them are planned for that region. If we do not keep that coal in the Galilee Basin in the ground then we will not have a chance of constraining global warming to any kind of liveable climate. In fact, Bill McKibben, who came out to visit Australia last year, has done some calculations and says that if the Galilee Basin coal were mined and burnt it would represent six per cent of the entire carbon budget for every single country in the world forevermore if we do want to keep to two degrees and keep a liveable climate. So the sheer size of these resources and the potential damage that they stand to do to our way of life, to our economy and to our planet just boggles the mind.

Much of the coal from those areas is exported through the Great Barrier Reef. We already have 12 coal ports, but apparently that is not enough. This government wants to approve yet more and expand the existing ones even more, with mass dredging and offshore dumping of that dredged spoil, and it wants to treat the reef like a highway for ships carrying coal and gas. So we see both the direct impacts on the reef from a doubling—and, in fact, a tripling in some cases, depending on your time frame—of coal exports and the terrible climate impacts when that coal is burnt. I am sure people will have seen the approval of Abbott Point, giving us now, in our Great Barrier Reef, the dubious honour of the world's largest coal port in a World Heritage area. I think that is a true tragedy. Over the weekend, we saw evidence from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, who have said that it is perfectly clear on the science that this proposal is bad news and that that offshore dumping of that dredged spoil is going to have devastating impacts on the reef. Apparently, that did not really matter to the minister. Again, science seemed to come at the bottom of a very long list of other considerations—mostly the profits of foreign multi-national mining companies.

It is clear to me that people really care about the reef. They care about the plants and animals that we share this world with, and they care about the sort of world that they want to leave for their own children and for generations to come. To that end, in the short time I have left, I want to share with the chamber a few of the contributions that have been emailed to me or sent to me via Facebook from Queenslanders.

People are really concerned about the backward step that this government wants to take on climate and they cannot understand why anyone would have such a lack of perspective that they would do this. The first fellow, David Bruce says:

To me it is really simple. I now have a grand daughter, just eighteen months old, and I nor anyone else have the right to jeopardize her future. My granddaughter will need a lot of things, but most of all she will need clean air, clean water, clean soil. A biosphere that is habitable, that's what she needs! We must provide this!

J Lawrence says:

I was one of the sixty thousand people that marched for Climate Action (on 17th November). I want my baby grand children to grow up and be able to enjoy fresh drinking water, to be able to see the Great Barrier Reef and all the wonderful and diverse marine life within those waters, to have the same quality of life that I had as a child.

I am rallying on behalf of the future generations, that's the least I can do.

As stewards of this land, we must take care to maintain it in as good a condition as we possibly can.

We should aim higher toward higher clean energy initiatives, it is our duty as human beings.

There have been many other contributions, but sadly I do not have time this evening to share them. I look forward to sharing those in the future.

I want to take the chance, though, to pay tribute to some of the community groups in Queensland that have been working tirelessly to protect our environment—particularly on climate issues. I want to mention conservation groups along the Great Barrier Reef coast, including the Mackay Conservation Group and the North Queensland Conservation Council. I want, particularly, to mention all the young people at the Australian Youth Climate Coalition in Queensland and across the nation. They are just amazing young kids, who are so active in their democracy and who are really fighting for their right to a decent future.

I also want to mention community groups like 350.org and Market Forces. And, of course, I want to acknowledge the landholders and community groups in our beautiful farming regions of Queensland, who are taking a strong stand against the coalmining and coal seam gas mining that is pillaging their land and recklessly threatening their groundwater supplies. There are so many people who are fighting for a safe climate and who are fighting for the sort of future that I want my daughter to have.

I am really proud to stand in this place to say that the Greens will always back them. We will back strong climate action and we will do everything we can to make sure that this government does not tear down the progress that we have finally started to make, so belatedly and yet so importantly. Today we have seen the retention of the Climate Change Authority. I am hopeful that we will be able to retain the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Things are going to change here after July, but I am confident that the science will speak, the evidence will speak and the good sense will speak so that we may be able to retain several aspects of our climate laws. I think that is what we all need to work to deliver.

It is not all doom and gloom. I think we have a bright and exciting future. If we see this as an opportunity and start investing in the low-carbon economy of the future this will be good not only for business but for the planet and for future generations. I caution the government against proceeding down this path. I look, despite all indications to the contrary, with optimism for the future.