Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

One reason was Mr Abbott sabotaging the push towards marriage equality, but it was also a painful, fateful day and a symbolic day on the fundamental human challenge of climate change. If ever a single day highlighted a government stuck in the past, up against Labor's responsible vision for the future, it was yesterday. If ever a single day highlighted a government wedded privately to climate change denial and political game playing up against Labor's vision to protect our children's future and provide jobs for tomorrow, it was indeed yesterday. If ever a single day highlighted a dangerous and cynical government putting itself ahead of the future survival and security of Australians, as well as humanity more broadly, it was yesterday. Yesterday's emissions reduction target announced by the Abbott government was a cynical political exercise and nothing more. It was a cynical and ham-fisted attempt to con Australian voters that Mr Abbott actually gives a damn on climate change and therefore actually gives a damn about their future health and security. It was indeed a cynical attempt to minimise and neutralise, at least on the Australian political stage, one of the most fundamental issues facing humanity.

This government knows it is losing the hearts and minds of concerned Australians on the crucial issue of climate change, and yesterday was a cynical attempt to con voters with a token one-off dog whistle that said: 'Trust us, folks. We've ticked the box on this climate change stuff. Now let's forget all about it all and talk about other stuff.' But Australians are too smart and too concerned to fall for that.

Independent polling commissioned by the Climate Institute and conducted by Galaxy Research in recent weeks shows that 70 per cent of Australians believe climate change is happening and nine out of 10 of those people accept that human activity like carbon pollution is to blame. That means climate change deniers and sceptics now represent less than a third of the Australian population. Furthermore, 65 per cent of Australians oppose cutting investment in wind farms and household solar, in stark contrast to the Abbott government's savage attacks on those crucial industries and their jobs of tomorrow. Fifty-nine per cent of Australians think our nation should be a world leader in finding solutions to climate change—in stark contrast to the Abbott government unveiling one of the weakest pollution reduction targets in the developed world. And, even before yesterday's weak and token gesture, 59 per cent of Australians believed the Abbott government underestimates the seriousness of climate change. Only 16 per cent think he is actually committed to it.

Labor will take real action on climate change, and we will not be intimidated by ridiculous, deceitful scare campaigns. We will fight to give young Australians a secure and healthy future, on a secure and healthy planet, in a secure and healthy economy that is geared towards the jobs and markets of tomorrow. We will fight climate change through an emissions trading scheme and a renewable energy target of 50 per cent by 2030.

Despite the Abbott government's immediate, predictable and deceitful scaremongering, the vast majority of Australians have shown support and understanding for Labor's vision. Essential Report polling in recent weeks has shown that 65 per cent of Australians approve of Labor's renewable energy target of 50 per cent by 2030. And it showed that even 45 per cent of coalition voters approve of Labor's target. Not only is the coalition's policy a woefully hollow con; it is also scarcely credible.

We and other Australians deserve to see the modelling and the data on which the government has based this poor decision. An emissions reduction target without scientific modelling and methodology to explain it is not really a target at all. It is just a token cop-out. It is just buying political time. Already, expert commentators are suggesting that even the Abbott government's target announced yesterday will be impossible to meet without some kind of market-based mechanism similar to Labor's proposed emissions trading scheme and renewable energy target. In other words, they cannot even achieve their weak, token target without adopting something similar to the very Labor policies they constantly mislead and deceive and scaremonger about. Only last week RepuTex modelling showed that, in the next decade, the Abbott government's policies will see Australia's emissions rise by 20 per cent—not decline, but rise by 20 per cent.

While tragic, the coalition's latest climate failure is no surprise. It continues a pattern of private denial, distraction and betrayal and it endangers Australia's very physical and economic future. The Prime Minister cannot undo the momentum around the globe that is being led by the United States, the United Kingdom, China and so many other countries. Let us just have a quick look at that momentum in regard to the time frame of 2005 to 2030. The United States has made a commitment to 41 per cent by 2030. Germany has made a commitment of 46 per cent. The United Kingdom has made a commitment of about 48 per cent by 2030. So the Prime Minister has to stop deceiving Australians. In contrast, Labor will keep faith with future generations on climate change. We will embrace the jobs and opportunities available with a clean energy future and we will pursue the genuine, proactive policies that help protect and employ Australians for generations to come.