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

I rise to speak on this matter of public importance about our Prime Minister's continued denial of the reality of climate change and his continued mealy-mouthed approach to meeting our global responsibilities to assist countries that will suffer from our profligate use of fossil fuels. I am from Queensland, where it has been obvious to all both observing and protesting against the Prime Minister's refusal to put climate change on the G20 agenda that he was totally out of step with the world and out of step with community expectations. Of course, when China and the US reached agreement on emissions targets the Prime Minister was totally gazumped and shown for the laggard and the spoiler that he is.

The Greens welcome this acknowledgement and this step forward, although this important commitment does not absolve President Obama from needing to refuse approval for the Keystone tar sands oil pipeline from Canada, and for deeper and binding cuts to emissions. That said, the Greens warmly welcome the announcement of a fund to assist with climate adaptation for less wealthy nations, which stand to suffer unfairly from the impacts of climate change.

But Australia, the highest per capita emitter in the world, is too greedy and self-interested to stump up and contribute to this fund. Mr Tony Abbott's excuse? Apparently we are already doing enough. This is, of course, after this government has axed more than $7 billion from foreign aid, which includes some climate programs. To add insult to injury, Tony Abbott is trying to count the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation funding, which his government has a bill in the parliament to abolish. Also, Mr Tony Abbott wants to count his big polluters' slush fund as a meaningful contribution. This slush fund for big polluters, with its pathetic five per cent target, is just more subsidies for fossil fuels.

Today we see that in Queensland our premier will bankroll the building of a 500-kilometre railway for Indian coal company Adani, to open up the Galilee Basin—the mega-coal basin that would see coal exports through the Great Barrier Reef world heritage area more than double. Why is it that the Queensland government has to kick in the dough? It is because nobody else will. No investment bank will touch this poor investment. This is a bad investment for Queensland, and Premier Newman is simply propping up a dying industry that the world increasingly does not want a part of. Perhaps the worst part of this is the audacity of Premier Newman's decision to fund this propping up of fossil fuels from selling Queensland's public assets. Flogging off Queensland's public assets to give more free money to coal industry is not going to go down well with Queenslanders. Queenslanders do not want privatisation in any event, and we certainly do not want free money going to coal barons to trash the reef and the climate. Of course, we are told that the coal is to help bring Indians out of poverty—it is a public service—except for the fact the coal will be too expensive for them to afford, the fact that they do not have an electricity grid in many of those areas and the fact that air quality from coal pollution is killing more than 85,000 Indians per year. Fossil fuel subsidies are not new. Recently, a report found that federally Australia gives more than $4 billion in fossil fuel subsidies. In fact, we are the second highest in the G20 when it comes to propping up the fossil fuel sector.

We know that climate change is real. It is affecting us already with extreme weather events. The irony of a November heat wave on the G20 weekend just gone was not lost on anyone, except perhaps our Prime Minister. Climate change is affecting our industries that rely on a healthy climate, like agriculture, and of course tourism. I hope people are familiar with the fact that the Great Barrier Reef has already lost 50 per cent of its coral cover in the last 27 years. That is due to extreme weather events, to coral bleaching and also to the crown of thorns starfish. All of those threats, plus the new one of the dredging and dumping bonanza for more coal ports in the reef, are either being driven or worsened by climate change. Our reef is the largest living organism that can be seen from space and in climate change it faces the biggest threat it has even seen. We must safeguard this natural wonder—this economic generator of $6 billion and employer of 63,000 people. Even President Obama, in his very well received talk at the University of Queensland at the weekend, lauded the beauty of the Great Barrier Reef. He said he wants his daughters and grandchildren to come to see it, and I share those sentiments. Instead, Premier Newman wants to put new and expanded coal ports in the reef, with all the associated dredging and dumping and climate impacts.

Unfortunately, they are still treating the reef like rubbish tip. Minister Hunt's commitment to stop offshore dumping comes with so many holes it is meaningless. The dumping cannot happen in a marine park, but never mind about the rest of the world heritage area. It is only a ban on capital dredging. Never mind about maintenance dredging. Also, it is only future projects. Never mind all of the projects that are currently on foot.

The solution is clear, and it is shining down on us every day. Concentrated solar thermal power, solar photovoltaics, wind, wave, tidal and geothermal energy. Renewable energy is job rich and can fill our energy needs cleanly. Globally, there is an unstoppable momentum towards clean renewable energy, and not even Mr Abbott can stop that. Australians love clean energy. Indeed, in Queensland we have the highest proportion of solar PV on our roofs, with more than one in five households being part of the solution.

Our government is wrecking that attempt to a sustainable future by axing the carbon price, the mining tax, attacking the renewable energy target, defunding ARENA, saying it will abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, and by driving the expansion of dangerous unconventional gas-fracking, which is ruining our land and water, for export corporate greed. This government has a tin ear to science and to the community and that is why the Australian people will confine them to the dust bin of history at the next election.