Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I oppose the Carbon Farming Initiative Amendment Bill 2014, which is just another piece of destructive legislation to add to this government's long list. They continue to dismantle, one bill at a time, the six years of good work done by the last federal Labor government. This bill is the vehicle for introducing the Abbott government's so-called Direct Action Plan, essentially a $2.55 billion taxpayer funded slush fund for polluters—polluters like Mr Clive Palmer's nickel refinery, which may well be eligible for grants from the Emissions Reduction Fund the bill establishes.

The Carbon Farming Initiative Amendment Bill will do nothing to advance Australia's climate change credentials and very little, if anything, to reduce Australia's harmful carbon emissions. Everybody knows that Direct Action is a dud. Scientists, economists and experts everywhere tell us that it will not deliver on Australia's emissions reduction targets and that it will cost the taxpayer more than Labor's plans to reduce harmful carbon emissions.

Prior to the 2013 election, Labor fulfilled our international responsibilities and our responsibilities to future generations. We did our part for climate change abatement by setting achievable emissions targets, by building the policy infrastructure and by investing in our future. Under Labor, wind power generation in Australia tripled. Under Labor, the number of jobs in the renewable energy sector tripled. Under Labor, the number of Australian households with rooftop solar panels increased from less than 7½ thousand homes to almost 1.2 million. Under Labor's carbon price legislation, carbon emissions were reducing. It was working. But Palmer and the Abbott government voted to get rid of the carbon price, and now they have colluded to rip off taxpayers with the dud scheme contained in this bill.

The bill seeks to amend the previously successful Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Act 2011 to establish an emissions reduction fund by allowing for a broader range of activities to be eligible to earn greenhouse gas offset units—Australian carbon credit units—under the Carbon Farming Initiative by reducing regulatory requirements associated with the development of methodologies under the Carbon Farming Initiative and allowing for the Clean Energy Regulator to purchase greenhouse gas emission offset units from qualifying projects on behalf of the Commonwealth. It also makes minor amendments to the Australian National Registry of Emissions Units Act 2011 and the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007 and provides transitional provisions for projects earning greenhouse gas offset units under the Carbon Farming Initiative arrangements.

These amendments will not be enough to do anything meaningful about Australia's climate change and harmful carbon emissions. While the rest of the world moves towards a carbon restrained and hopefully carbon-free future, Australia is embarrassingly languishing behind. Far from making positive headlines, as the Labor government used to do in the environment sphere, the Abbott government is being touted internationally for being the first country in the world to remove an existing successful price on carbon. And now we have this Direct Action joke—a grubby deal between the Abbott government and Clive Palmer, a deal that pays polluters and has no sanctions that will stop polluters from polluting.

Currently over one billion people are living in nations or provinces where a carbon price or emissions trading scheme operates. It is expected that within the next two years three billion people will be living in a nation with such a scheme. Our top five trading partners have ETSs at national or subnational levels. Another eight of our top 20 trading partners also have ETSs at national or subnational levels. That means that 13 of our top 20 trading partners have emissions trading schemes applying to their economies right now. And then there is us, for whom things seem to be going from bad to worse. We are going from the widely accepted path of genuine emissions reductions—a price on carbon—to a scheme that will not work. What kind of a joke will Australia be at next month's G20? As a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol—the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change—we were required to nominate a greenhouse gas emissions reduction target. Australia's target for the period 2013 to 2020 is a reduction in emissions of five per cent compared with 2000 levels by 2020. Admittedly for some people that target was not enough. But, as I said at the beginning of my speech, it was a responsible target.

Yesterday's news of this dirty deal between the government and Clive Palmer is terrible news for the environment and puts our commitment to the protocol at risk. RepuTex's report confirmed that the deal struck between Mr Hunt, the Minister for the Environment, and Mr Clive Palmer will, at best, deliver 20 to 30 per cent of the emissions reduction needed by Australia to get to that five per cent target by 2020. An independent analysis confirms that the deal announced yesterday is hopeless for Australia's future. The government is going to have to spend, on Ken Henry's estimations, $4 billion to $5 billion per year between now and 2020 to meet the five per cent reduction—either that or we give up entirely on any substantial attempt to reduce Australia's carbon pollution.

While the United Nations has said that climate change should be the No. 1 priority for all leaders to consider and that it is the defining issue of our time, Mr Tony Abbott and his colleagues on the other side of this chamber continue to overlook the evidence, continue to disregard the scientists and experts, and continue to ignore the statistics. The President of the United States, Barack Obama, says that climate change is one of the most significant long-term challenges, if not the most significant long-term challenge, that the planet faces. But Mr Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister of Australia, does not believe it is an important issue.

I would like senators to cast their minds back to 2009, when Mr Malcolm Turnbull composed an opinion piece for the Sydney Morning Herald entitled 'Abbott's climate change policy is bullshit'. Five years later, absolutely nothing has changed—except that the person Mr Turnbull was referring to is now the Prime Minister of Australia. The policies and the views are still the same, and if Mr Abbott's own party members can write opinion pieces so dead against his views, why should Australians be subject to them?

The truth of the matter is that the carbon pricing scheme that was in place was working. Economic growth was solid, inflation was under control and emissions were actually being cut. People do not want Direct Action, and neither does business. In fact, a Fairfax Media survey from this time last year of 35 university and business economists found that only two believed that Direct Action was the better way to limit Australia's greenhouse gas emissions. I am not sure whether one of those was Mr Clive Palmer! Thirty, or 86 per cent, favoured the former carbon price scheme—Labor's carbon price scheme. And a Senate inquiry into Direct Action did not hear from one single expert who could support the government's plan or show any confidence in its capacity to reach Australia's emissions reduction targets. The Senate committee recommended: that the government not proceed with the Emissions Reduction Fund, as it is fundamentally flawed. The committee recommended this on the grounds that there is no legislated limit, or cap, on Australia's emissions in line with emissions reductions targets; that    there is insufficient funding to secure enough abatement to meet Australia's emissions targets now and into the future; and that    there is a lack of a robust safeguard mechanism with stringent baselines and penalties for exceeding baselines.

Even the government's own department is not confident in Direct Action, repeatedly telling a Senate estimates hearing that they are unable to confirm that the policy will reach its targets. The government, however, keeps declaring their unwavering confidence in the direct action policy, despite having no evidence to support their position. The government continues to fail to produce any research or modelling to underscore their confidence. Independent modelling has proven the government's climate change policy will cost billions of dollars more than Mr Tony Abbott claims and has no chance of meeting Australia's emissions reduction target. Their policy is a con, an environmental fig leaf to cover a determination to do nothing meaningful or systemic to address climate change. All of the experts are agreed—and probably aggrieved. Mr Tony Abbott's and Mr Clive Palmer's policy con will not reduce carbon pollution but will cost households more. With all the experts once again lining up, when will the government listen and start moving forward on climate change instead of doing grubby deals and moving backwards?

Since before the 2013 election, Labor have argued that the most effective way to reduce Australia's carbon pollution is to put a cap on emissions that decreases over time and let business work out the best way to operate within that cap. There has, again, been much discussion about emissions trading schemes in the last few weeks. While the scope, size and linkages with other schemes can vary, the fundamental principles of an ETS—the cap on pollution and underpinning price mechanism—are the most widely supported climate policy measures across the world. If Labor had been elected last year, Australia would be operating within a system like that right now. Instead, the Prime Minister is making Australia the only country in the world to take reverse action on climate change and to stop doing anything worthwhile about climate change at all. My colleagues in the Labor Party and I will not let this legislation pass without a fight. I am speaking not only on behalf of myself and the Labor Party but also for my constituents, for my state and for the future of Australia's environment and children. However, it seems that no matter how many of us speak against the government's position on the environment and its weak position on climate change, the Prime Minister is not willing to listen. It is with great sadness that, at some point tonight or tomorrow, this bill will pass, but I will be pleased to have on record my opposition to it.