Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

That was not an invitation to the Australian Greens or my Labor colleague from Tasmania, who shamefully voted against the forestry industry on the last motion. I will turn to the urgency matter before the Senate proposed by Senator David Pocock relating to the Middle Arm industrial precinct. Anyone would think when you look at these matters before the Senate and listen to the claims that are made about the coalition and, to a degree when they're pretending to be pro-jobs and pro-economy, the Australian Labor Party that we actually want to go about trashing the environment, that there's some hidden agenda and that there's something we gain from doing that. The reality is that no-one wants to do that.

Humans have an impact on the environment by their very nature of existence. We all drive cars that use fossil fuels—well, some of us do; I know that some of my colleagues do drive EVs. We fly on planes. We use timber for building houses. We eat fish and meat. All the things we do as humans have an impact on the environment. As technology improves we should minimise that impact.

I don't believe that fossil fuels are in any way inconsistent with the notion of sustainable development. There is a problem we have here. There is an idea that we must just turn off the tap on gas or coal, which supports the majority of energy generation in this country. It powers our factories and keeps the lights on for the majority of mainland states in particular. If we turn off the tap on these resources and what they do in terms of energy generation and future exploration for such resources, what are we replacing it with? No-one has been able to point out to me the sustainable base load dispatchable and renewable alternative to what we are castigating here, and that is fossil fuel. It is an important part of the mix, and we cannot deny that. But I don't buy the claims about this.

In supporting this project the Albanese Labor government is rightly backing in a project that we in government supported as well because it is about economic opportunities for all parts of Australia—in this case, the Northern Territory, a part of the country we want to ensure has a strong economic future—and so I commend the government on its support of this project. I do have doubts about their capacity to deliver it, but we will keep an eye on that over time, particularly with this ethereal project and property management branch in the Department of Finance—I am struggling to figure out what they do—who will be managing this project. We will come back to that another time. The fact is, it is an important project, an important part of a suite of measures to support the economy to access resources we need to have a functioning economy and keep the lights on.

That is not a bad thing, but these concerns around sea level rise make me think of something that was said back in 2007 by my good friend and former senator Dr Bob Brown. He went down to Salamanca on Hobart's waterfront and painted a red line on the side of those beautiful sandstone buildings in Salamanca Place—quite the crime, in my view. He said that because of John Howard's light-touch carbon tax at the time—or however he described it—sea levels due to global warming were going to be four to six metres higher than they were then. That was 16 years ago, and last time I went to the Salamanca Market the waves were not lapping at the first-floor windows of Salamanca, and so I have to say that we must be cautious about alarmism. Yes, take note of warning signs but respond appropriately. Don't shut down the economy and deprive Australians of the opportunity to have a strong economic future.

There are competing interests here, and we need to manage them in the best interests of our country, including the Northern Territory where we have large numbers of disadvantaged Australians, so giving them economic opportunities as well as managing the environment—they're not inconsistent with one another. We can do both, but we must accept that, in order to grow our economy, sometimes we have an impact on the environment. We should minimise that, but we can't pretend we won't have an impact on the environment or shouldn't have an impact on the environment and development won't come at a cost. To do both is important. To do both well is what a mature government does to make sure that Australians have all the opportunities that are available to them and that they have the best standard of living, so we can't support this matter of urgency.