Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the joint position adopted by the committee to look at the opportunities in the Northern Territory arising from aquaculture, but I just want to take up some of the issues that Senator Macdonald has failed to raise in his report on the challenges that the Northern Territory faces. One of the big challenges that the Northern Territory faces is climate change, and one of the challenges that the Great Barrier Reef faces is the bleaching of coral as a result of climate change. Work by the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology has predicted that by between 2030 and 2070 Northern Australia is likely to experience hotter temperatures, more intense rainfall and more intense cyclonic events. These are issues that cannot be ignored when you are looking at the development of the Northern Territory.

Time and time again I have heard Senator Macdonald basically deny the existence of climate change. He has got a form of words that he uses constantly to try to say that he is not in the climate denier camp. But from my understanding of what Senator Macdonald has said over the years on this issue, he really is living in the past on this issue.

These are the issues that we have to deal with: an increased risk of salt water inundation and erosion in coastal territories in the Northern Territory, while inland areas will experience more high temperatures and they will have more drought, flooding, dust storms and bushfires. The scientists from the CSIRO are saying this. Although the Northern Territory produces half of Australia's run-off, it is considered to be water limited for two reasons. Firstly, there is high evaporation and evapotranspiration for most of the year. Secondly, the potential for water storage is constrained. I welcome the report, but we just need some realism about the challenges that the Northern Territory will face in terms of climate change.

The other area I think needs to be looked at in the Northern Territory in the years ahead is the issue of trying to improve the living standards of people in the Northern Territory—as we want to improve living standards around the country. Yet the policies that this government, the Abbott-Turnbull government, have been proposing certainly do not go to improving the living standards of Australians. What would a GST have done for the Northern Territory? A GST would have harmed rural and regional Australia more than most other places. Yet, what do we hear from the National Party? Zip, nothing. They are quiet about a GST. They have said nothing. They came in here and were not prepared to take on the Liberal Party—the big brothers of the National Party—and were prepared to impose a GST on people in rural and regional Australia, including people in the Northern Territory. There will be $80 billion pulled out of health. If we are talking about creating an aquaculture industry in the Northern Territory, surely you need to have a decent health system and a decent education system. If you are going to grow the Northern Territory, you do not do that by pulling $80 billion out of health and education around the country, including in the Northern Territory. You do not cut back the pensions for Australians, as the 2014-15 budget was about to do. It was about to cut back the pension for pensioners in this country and increase the pension age to 70. These were the things that the National Party and the Liberal Party sought to impose upon the Australian—