Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The senators are correct: I did not see any Liberal senators at this demonstration; I did not see Liberal senators standing up yesterday for meaningful action on climate change. That suggests to me just how out of touch the government is with community sentiment on this question, because the events over the weekend were attended by Australians from many walks of life. Our first peoples were well represented and honoured at these rallies. Faith groups were present at the rallies. Workers were represented—there were unions and representatives from migrant workers' groups present at these rallies. There were ordinary Australians from all walks of life who understand how very, very serious the challenge of climate change is, not just for Australia but for the globe.

What all of these people were asking for and what all of them expect from our government is that, when they attend the meetings in Paris this week, they will be putting forward a serious contribution on behalf of our nation that will allow the globe, the world, to start to take serious steps to address this existential threat. Sadly, those people are destined to be disappointed under the leadership of this Prime Minister. And of course we understand why that is: it is because, although the Prime Minister has made his personal views on climate change very plain on a number of occasions, he is hamstrung by a party room that fundamentally does not accept the seriousness of this issue, does not accept the science behind this issue and is unwilling to take any sort of serious action.

We do know what the Prime Minister thinks because he has told us very clearly what he thinks about Direct Action—the current policy mechanism. He said: 'The Liberal Party is currently led by people whose conviction on climate change is that it is "crap" and you don't need to do anything about it. Any policy that is announced will simply be a con, an environmental fig leaf to cover a determination to do nothing.' That is a pretty clear statement. Those are words of conviction, are they not? But this Prime Minister is unable to act on that conviction—unable or unwilling to because of the forces in his own party room. We have heard them speak out again and again and again, and today, in a number of our national papers, we see the coalition party room playing up again. Because the Prime Minister has headed over to Paris, he is not here to defend himself. But what we see are the same repeat offenders—the repeat offenders who do not accept the policy, who do not accept that we should be taking action, and, as is reported in the AustralianFinancial Review, they are about to go nuts. It is the usual crowd: it is Barnaby Joyce; it is George Christensen; it is Senator Canavan; it is the former industry minister Ian Macfarlane. And they are tweeting about it, they are briefing on it and they are speaking up about it because these are people who, fundamentally, are unwilling to support even the modest action that is proposed by this government in Paris.

I want to talk a little bit about the targets that Australia is taking to Paris under this government, because they are woefully inadequate. The Liberal Party has committed Australia to a 26 to 28 per cent reduction by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. This target is not compatible with the internationally agreed goal to limit warming to two per cent.

Even at two per cent, we know that there are serious consequences. There are serious consequences for Australia. There are serious consequences for our Pacific neighbours. There are serious consequences for many people in the developing world who do not have the resources to protect themselves from the impacts of climate change. But this government cannot even bring itself to bring forward a target which would meet that two per cent goal.

The Climate Institute suggests that actually the government's target is in fact consistent with a three to four per cent rise in global temperatures. If all the other nations of the world go to Paris with a target equivalent to ours, this is the outcome we are presenting not just to our generation but to our children. And the Australians who were out in force yesterday and out in force on Friday night in Melbourne—all of those Australians were saying no. They were saying: 'This is simply not good enough. This is not the role that Australia wishes to play in the global environment.'

Modelling by The Climate Institute also suggests that, under these targets, we will have the most pollution-intensive economy and the highest per capita emissions in the developed world by 2030. How shameful! We can do better than this. We should do better than this, because we owe it to our Pacific neighbours and we owe it to many people in the developing world, but we also know that it is in our own interests.

We have heard, time and time again, of the impacts that climate change will wreak on Australians—on Australian industry, on Australian farming, on Australian tourism and on Australian suburban life. We know about the impacts of drying already in the agricultural regions in south-western Australia and also in south-eastern Australia. We know that a drying trend is likely to have very, very serious impacts on agriculture in those regions, and we also know that farmers, in very practical ways, are preparing for that, but it will have a devastating effect on our agricultural industries. We know how worried the tourist operators in Northern Queensland are about the impacts of a warming ocean on the Great Barrier Reef, and we know how very sad it is for many Australians that that treasure, which we hold in trust for the entire world, is presently on a path of deterioration.

We know how worried the insurance sector is about the likely increase in extreme weather events, about the costs that that will present and about the challenges in constructing an insurance market that can respond to the level of damage presented by very extreme storms and by increased cyclone intensity; We know how worried the insurance sector is about that, and we know how devastating that will be for the many communities who will be affected by these events.

What is unfortunate is that we also know that as the rest of the world moves to decarbonise, right now Australia is not doing enough to get on board with this global trend—with this economic trend. We need to make substantial investments in renewable energy. Under Labor, renewable energy was booming. Australia rose to be one of the four most attractive destinations for global renewable energy investment, along with China, the US and Germany. Households with solar panels rose from 7,000 to more than 1.2 million. Jobs in the renewable energy industry tripled.

We made significant investments in renewable energy when in government. We established the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and we established the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. But it is a very different story under the Liberals. Under Tony Abbott, and, of course, continuing under Prime Minister Turnbull, the Liberal government has almost destroyed the renewable energy industry. Investment in large-scale renewable energy projects such as wind farms has fallen by 88 per cent. It is unbelievable that a government would preside over a collapse in industry performance at this scale. The intransigence, the indolence, and the indifference to this industry has been absolutely unbelievable. I say to those who are listening to this debate this afternoon that I understand how very serious this problem is, as do the people on this side of the chamber and in fact everybody except the people opposite. We understand that this is not a problem that will fix itself. It is a problem that will require real leadership, both domestically and internationally.

We are approaching a very significant global meeting. It is an opportunity for Australia to stand up, to take its place on the world stage and lead. But unfortunately we are sending overseas a Prime Minister utterly hamstrung by his party room—a Prime Minister who probably understands how serious this is but is unwilling to act and is incapable of acting. I say to all of you that Australians deserve much better than this.