Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on the matter of public importance, and I think it is with great pleasure that I follow One Nation and their friend Senator Macdonald in this debate.

I note Senator Hanson said, when she first started speaking, that today she spoke with reluctance, as it was normally her colleague the former Senator Roberts—who was of course found by the High Court to be ineligible to be a senator, a dual citizen—who swamped the chamber with his ridiculous theories and conspiracies. The speech that we just heard from Senator Hanson sounded just like something her former colleague would have said: full of conspiracies and lacking any empirical evidence. You can love coal, but to love Australia you should embrace all energy options. If you don't like things because of their colour, don't discount something because of its colour. Listen to the real scientists, listen to the energy industry and let's get people across the country back into work in our energy industry. Tens of thousands of jobs have been lost in our renewable energy sector since 2014 because of scaremongering and short-term anti-scientific policies. But we can do better, so get your head out of the smog and let the cool breeze of windmills and the warm glow of solar panels improve the energy security for this country.

This matter of public important reads:

The complete failure of the Turnbull Government to develop a climate and energy policy, resulting in Australia's emissions increasing since 2013 and contributing to an increase in global carbon pollution in 2017.

This is certainly an important matter of public importance for us to debate.

But, before I get into my argument, I just want to point out that there appears to be a drafting error in the motion. I hate to be semantic, but if we're going to attack the Turnbull government for their abject failure on climate and energy policy then we have to get our facts right first. According to the data I've seen—the empirical evidence, as former Senator Roberts would say—emissions actually decreased from 2013 to 2014 by six megatonnes. It's an important point. It demonstrates the worth of this chamber resisting attempts in late 2013 to repeal the carbon price, a carbon price that provided certainty to industry and investors, and the total emissions allowed in the Australian economy and let the market resolve how best to produce the energy.

I've also had to point out a much bigger mistake than a drafting error from the Greens, and it was back in 2009. Under the leadership of former Senator Bob Brown, the Greens voted against Labor's original Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. As it is today, climate change was an urgent policy area back in 2009. The commitment of the Labor Party to take action on climate change was a key factor in the 2007 election. Yet, for their own reasons, which make absolutely no sense, the Greens voted with the Liberals and Nationals. They voted with the member for Warringah, Mr Abbott, and opposed Labor's action—action that would have introduced a mechanism to ensure that prices were affordable, that our electricity infrastructure was reliable and that we promoted technology that is sustainable, low carbon and, where possible, carbon free. I say the reasons made absolutely no sense because, when the Greens finally did support Labor on climate change action in 2011, the mechanism within the legislation to reduce carbon pollution was almost identical to that in the earlier 2009 bill.

While there was that delay of two years, all that was really achieved was the creation of space for Mr Abbott to launch his dangerous, ill-informed scare campaign—a scare campaign that his former senior adviser Peta Credlin finally admitted earlier this year was all about politics and nothing about economics or the environment. It's important to point out that this delay of two years enabled Mr Abbott to take the leadership and commit the next five years to repealing the carbon price, only to fail to replace it with any credible climate change or energy policies when it was finally repealed.

So when the Greens get up in this place and say, 'We must take urgent action on climate change,' I do agree with them, but I remind them of their ideological move in 2009 that is a big part of how we ended up with such a failure of climate and energy policy in this country. While the Greens failures are clear, the failure of the Turnbull and Abbott government is much, much worse. Under their watch, Australian emissions have increased and we've been left without an energy policy for over four years.

The member for Wentworth once famously said that he would not lead a party that is not as committed to effective action on climate change as he was—I emphasise 'was'. In his lust for power, this Prime Minister has thrown out everything he once stood for publicly. He's thrown out his long-held, leather-jacket-wearing commitment to action on climate change. He's thrown out his support for renewables. He's thrown out his support for Australia as a leader in this space. Who do we have instead? We have a desperate Prime Minister, a hapless Prime Minister who has abandoned reasonable policy processes. He has abandoned his beloved proper cabinet processes and rushed out his so-called National Energy Guarantee without any analysis or modelling by the Department of the Environment and Energy and without adequate consultation with industry or with the states.

This is a timely matter of public importance because just yesterday the Global Carbon Project reported new data showing global CO2 emissions have risen for the first time in three years. Coinciding with that report on Monday, 15,364 scientists from around 180 countries signed an article appearing in BioScience that stated unequivocally:

To prevent widespread misery and catastrophic biodiversity loss, humanity must practice a more environmentally sustainable alternative to business as usual.

I repeat: over 15,000 scientists from around 180 countries have said that business as usual will lead to widespread misery and catastrophic biodiversity loss unless we stop what we're doing and curb our per capita consumption of fossil fuels. Unless we change the behaviours more broadly, our earth will become uninhabitable. This isn't an ideological dream. This is the revisiting of a study from 1992 by eight climate scientists who are supported by over 15,000 other scientists.

The report from 1992, which was at that point signed by more than 1,700 scientists, entitled World Scientists' Warning to Humanity, warned that humans were on a collision course with the natural world. The updated article, released on Monday, found that, across nine indicators, humanity is failing our planet, and Australia needs to do its bit—Australia needs to lift its game. This is something that our Prime Minister once understood. This shouldn't be a partisan argument. There have been Liberal members for the environment who have, in their own way, demonstrated care for our world. Yet, somehow, here we are, with the so-called most progressive Liberal Prime Minister in history, who has completely abandoned Australia's role as a strong middle power and completely abandoned the notion that Australia should do our bit to combat climate change.

Weeks after the launch of his National Energy Guarantee, the Prime Minister can give no guarantees about its effectiveness, no guarantees on its price, no guarantees on its reliability for energy supply and nothing on the sustainability of our energy sector—nothing. All that we know is that, under Prime Minister Turnbull's National Energy Guarantee, power bills will keep going up and up and thousands of jobs in the renewable energy area are at risk. As it stands, the Prime Minister's plan will strangle the renewable energy industry for a lousy 50c in three years time, and that 50c saving isn't even guaranteed.

On our investment in renewables, it's worse than business as usual. The National Energy Guarantee is so bad that Australia's energy mix will be comprised of only 28 per cent renewables by 2030. That's seven per cent lower than the Chief Scientist said would occur if we did nothing at all. It's a bizarre and dangerous policy, but it is true to form for this government. Under their watch, one in three renewable energy jobs has been lost and confidence and certainty in that sector has been shattered.