Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the urgency motion that was moved by Senator Di Natale. I make the point to those who might be interested in this process—and I am sure the wider Australian community is interested in our coastlines and particularly the Barrier Reef and, in my case, the Kimberley region of north Western Australia—that this coral bleaching event that has been reported and commented on today is certainly a severe challenge but it is a global challenge. We know that the same thing is happening across the Pacific. We know that it is happening in areas such as Hawaii, the Seychelles and, closer to home, in Indonesia. We also know, of course, that we are in the midst of experiencing a global El Nino phenomenon. Australia is taking action. It is taking serious action.

In this debate we mention the Great Barrier Reef and the north Kimberley, but it is interesting to note that even the corals in Sydney Harbour have recently been reported to be experiencing this phenomenon. On Christmas Island—where nobody would suggest that there is any coalmining or similar to it—there has been significant bleaching recently in Flying Fish Cove on Christmas Island. The Australian Institute of Marine Science estimates that 70 to 75 per cent of corals in shallow water, less than eight metres, in excess of 30 to 40 per cent of corals between eight and 20-metres depth and, unexpectedly, at least 10 per cent of corals at depths of 30 to 50 metres around Christmas Island have been affected. It is less so on Cocos Island. Further to the west north-west there has been limited bleaching of the coral reefs. It is a widespread issue and we see that it is largely due to the El Nino effect.

We will now explore to what extent the Adani coalmine is likely to have an impact on this. But, before doing so, I do want to draw to the attention of the Senate the action that Australia is taking and has taken. We were one of the first countries to sign up to the Paris climate change agreement recently, when my colleague, the Minister for the Environment, Greg Hunt, was in Paris to sign that. Australia is now on target to beat the five per cent below 2000 levels, which we are committed to, by 2020. In fact, there is a prediction that we will exceed it by almost 80 million tonnes. The fact that we obliterated and got rid of the $15.4 billion carbon tax has largely been to the advantage of all Australians, especially when it comes to their electricity and other power prices.

As to the health of the reef, Minister Hunt has required the independent expert scientific panel on reef science, led by our former Chief Scientist, Professor Ian Chubb, to report to him. Last week we announced $60 million worth of projects under the Reef Trust, which will improve water quality and reef resilience. Under that same Reef Trust, the coalition has already committed to spending nearly a $100 million from the $140 million that has been put to one side. So there is very, very serious concern in this space. There will, for example, be no capital dredge spoil in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park as a result of decisions by the coalition. There is funding for crown-of-thorns starfish culling programs, working with farmers in the catchment area to control run-off and improve water quality.

When we speak of coal—and the Adani coalmine has been brought into question in this particular space—I want to draw the Senate's attention to work that was reported to us recently from the Grantham Institute, the IEA's CCC. It relates to the impact of annual savings of carbon dioxide emissions. In China, the annual saving of carbon dioxide as a result of the Chinese changing from low-energy, high-sulphur coal to high-energy, low-sulphur coal, including that provided from Australia, has been some 400 million tonnes. That compares or contrasts with the figure of less than 25 million tonnes by all of the emissions trading schemes of the EU in that equivalent 12-month period—400 million tonnes of carbon dioxide saved versus less than 25 million from the EU. As I mentioned, Australia has the highest energy content coal in the world at 6,190 kilocalories per kilogram. For example, by contrast, for the United States west coast it is 5,000 and, for lignite, 4,100. Indeed, we have the second-lowest sulphur levels, at 0.7 per cent. So it is the case that, in wanting to see the emission of carbon dioxide driven down internationally, we have seen that a change by the Chinese from low-energy, polluting coal to high-energy Newcastle coal has had this remarkable effect.

It is the case, when you have a look out to 2040, 2050 and beyond, that both China and India, and Asia generally, will be relying on coal well into the future. I come from a state where LNG sales, production and exports will get to the stage by 2018-19 where we will be the highest exporter of LNG in the world. This, of course, is tremendous news for the environment. It has been shale gas in the United States of America that has allowed that country to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by moving to the use of natural gas in electricity generation. But the figures in front of me for coal generation in East Asia out to 2040 are that China will expand by at least 1.3 times, South-East Asia by 4.3 times and India by 2.7 times. So the point that I want to make in this discussion is that we will have coal into the future. We need to make sure it is clean, high-energy, low-sulphur coal. We in this country are lucky to be able to supply that to those markets in those countries for which gas and coal, but particularly coal, will be supplying their electricity demands into the future.

Renewables are, of course, of interest. I have long been an advocate of solar energy. In fact, in my welcoming Senator Dodson to the Senate, he may or may not know that I was chief executive at Rottnest Island in the late 1980s to the mid-1990s and instituted, I think, some seven or eight uses of solar energy in that context, including the provision of solar hot water systems into every tourist house on the island. The contrast for me is industrial wind turbines—on which, if time permits, I will conclude my contribution.

But what has happened, of course, is that in Europe they now have an energy crisis in terms of costs as a result of decisions they have taken with renewables. Between 2005 and 2014, residential electricity rates in the EU went up by an average of 63 per cent—78 per cent in Germany, 111 per cent in Spain and 133 per cent in the UK. In that time, the US domestic electricity price went up by 32 per cent. Ours went up initially by some 40 per cent until we got rid of the carbon tax, and we reduced the domestic electricity price by some 10 per cent, so we are also back to somewhere about 32. The fact is that Europe cannot afford its renewable energy, and it is now having to make decisions relating to it. We have seen severe power shortages, job losses and the bankruptcy of major green-energy giants like Spain's Abengoa, which had received a couple of billion dollars of subsidies from the Obama administration. Spain now is confronting some $27 billion from failed wind and solar projects, and there has been an estimate of a loss of two jobs for every so-called green job that has been developed.

We must move forward logically. We must move forward in circumstance in which the countries and the participants—be they domestic, residential or indeed industrial—can afford what we are looking at in this context. Some of the content that has been presented about the proposed Adani mine is disappointing. It is 300 kilometres inland from the Queensland coast. I do not think anybody would be pretending that it is having a direct effect on the Great Barrier Reef or indeed on bleaching around the Kimberley coastline.