Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move Greens amendment (10):

(10) Schedule 1, item 8, page 6 (after line 22), after paragraph 5C(b), insert:

  (ba) climate change, as it relates to infrastructure, including the following:

     (i) the economic, social and environmental impacts of climate change;

     (ii) prioritising infrastructure that would assist with adapting to, or mitigating, climate change;

     (iii) the role of infrastructure in decarbonising the economy;

     (iv) the impact of infrastructure decisions on the achievement of national and international targets to limit global warming;

As I acknowledged before, the opposition amendment that the Greens just supported in part reinserts the language that the government had in its infinite wisdom around climate-related matters chosen to delete. We have put that back in. It is the Australian Greens view that the legislation does not go nearly far enough, and that climate change has to be front and centre in all relevant aspects of government policy, including, crucially, infrastructure provision, which has a life span if you are considering road-rail projects, water infrastructure projects or power projects well into the 2030s, 2040s or 2050s. We are basically living in a different kind of world and potentially in a different geological age. That is the reason we propose much stronger language in this bill around the way that Infrastructure Australia evaluates the advice that it gets on climate change and that it then in turn provides to the government.

The amendment we have proposed goes further than where for some reason the Labor Party has seen fit to land by saying, first, that climate change as it relates to infrastructure includes the economic, social and environmental impacts of climate change; and, second, prioritising infrastructure that would assist with adapting to or mitigating climate change—in other words, moving it up the merit order because it is going to be so important in protecting communities and protecting the economy and protecting the environment as it attempts to adapt. Third, there is the role of infrastructure in decarbonising the economy. I am probably as guilty in this respect as anybody. We have spoken at length about public transport but infrastructure is, among other things, the electricity grid that keeps everything moving. As I said in my second reading contribution, the role of infrastructure in urgently decarbonising the economy is a massive principle—you could say it is primary. That has to be front of mind for those assessors in Infrastructure Australia when they are considering which projects should be granted billions of dollars of funding and which should not. Finally, there is the impact of infrastructure decisions on the achievement of national and international targets to limit global warming. As everybody in this chamber is aware, except those who have chosen to simply blindfold themselves to what is going on, the infrastructure decisions that we make are locked into very long lead times. For example, if you build a coal-fired power plant today its investors will be assuming it will still be operating in the 2040s or 2050s, long after this technology will need to have been phased out if we are to have any chance at all of coming to grips with what is occurring all around us.

If on the one hand we have climate negotiators at international conferences arguing that Australia is doing its bit, as the rest of the world is now starting to do, and adopting very stringent targets around carbon reduction, eliminating the sources of emissions that are doing so much damage, we cannot at the same time have an industry portfolio and an infrastructure portfolio making long lead time capital investment decisions over 40 or 50 or more years that make it completely impossible to meet those targets. That is something that Infrastructure Australia needs to be very aware of when it is prioritising and choosing what to recommend and put forward. I hope Senator Conroy will have had a profound change of heart. I know he has been concentrating intently on my contribution, as I am sure Senator Johnston has. This amendment should be passed into law tonight.