David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I stand in support of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Climate Trigger) Bill 2022 and thank Senator Hanson-Young and the Greens for bringing it forward. Climate change is having a catastrophic impact on our environment. Clearly, in 2024 in Australia, that is a plain fact. Our incredible scientists have gathered so much evidence that the impact is now beyond dispute, despite what you may hear in this chamber. Back in 2021 the State of the environment report summarised the evidence on just how bad things are. In the report, Professor Graeme Samuel said climate change has:

… a profound impact on the environment … Habitats, ecosystems and biodiversity; water systems and resources … will all be affected by rising temperatures and changing climate patterns.

Professor Samuel saw the work of scientists like Professor Lesley Hughes, Professor David Lindenmayer, Professor Tim Flannery, Professor Will Steffen, Dr Joelle Gergis and many others and recognised that the writing is on the wall. If we don't address climate change, the natural world will rapidly deteriorate. It's already happening. It's happening under our watch.

The thing we seem to forget in this place is that, if nature goes down, we go down with her. We are part of nature, but you wouldn't know it from the speeches we hear here and the decisions that get made in here by the major parties. If the science isn't enough, just look at the recent string of extreme weather events that have wreaked havoc across the country. Who will ever forget the 2019-20 bushfires? Forty-six million acres, three billion animals, and human lives lost. The 2021-22 floods. More than $7.7 billion of damage. Significant impacts on the Great Barrier Reef. And we know that this is going to get worse. This is not a new normal. Unless we see bold action here, using our place on the world stage as a middle power to push for action, it is only going to get worse.

Clearly, everyone acknowledges—well, maybe not everyone, but most people—our environmental laws aren't working. One of the glaring holes in our environmental laws is not looking at the impact that fossil fuel projects will have on the climate. We have known this for a long time. As Senator Waters said, the now Prime Minister, the Hon. Anthony Albanese, sponsored the Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change (Climate Change Trigger) Bill 2005. In introducing the bill, the Prime Minister said:

We need action and one of the actions that we need, which has been acknowledged by the government for many years, is this amendment to the EPBC Act.

That was in 2005, and here we are with the Albanese Government arguing against it, despite what we've seen over the last 20 years, despite what we're living through, and despite what we know climate change will mean for young people, who watch us roll out language that would seek to absolve us of any responsibility. As members in here we are incredibly privileged. With that privilege comes responsibility—I would argue responsibility to young people and to future generations.

This morning we've heard government senators saying that they're doing a lot of work on climate change, using other policy levers—the safeguard mechanism, various funds to promote climate policy et cetera. None of what has been said is an argument that goes to the need for climate change to be incorporated into our national environmental laws. All that stuff is well and good, and we need to do this. We need to have climate change in our national environmental laws. I'm concerned that the government is dancing around the issue and distracting from the key problem that we're dealing with here: the lack of direct consideration of climate change in the EPBC Act. In their submission to the bill, Doctors for the Environment Australia said:

To not include strict emissions allowances in an Act which is designed to protect the environment is a fundamental failure of duty of environmental care.

We've heard from the major parties that they don't support this, but my challenge to the government is: if not this mechanism, then what? Climate change must be integrated into our national environmental laws.

In 2005, now Prime Minister Albanese said:

It is time to act. It is time for procrastination to end … We cannot any longer afford to be complacent on this issue.

In 2024 we're seeing his government procrastinate. We're seeing ministers roll out this shopping list of things that they're doing but saying, 'No, we couldn't possibly put climate in our national environmental laws.' It's just so out of line with what Australians want. Australians want their elected representatives to actually deal with the problems at hand, to show some leadership, to show some guts and to stand up to the fossil fuel industry.

I fear that Senator Canavan's contribution and even that of the government forget that this is a moral issue. We are dealing with a moral issue here—the obligation to act in the face of a massive global problem. And surely for us that means doing everything we can possibly do. The contributions we've heard from the government and the coalition seem to ignore the fact that we're one of the highest per capita emitters in the world in terms of our consumption as Australians. As Senator Canavan talked about, we're one of the biggest fossil fuel exporters in the world. You cannot tell me that we don't make a difference. We should be doing everything we can and then, at every opportunity on the global stage, pushing the international community to follow us, but we haven't been doing that. We spent a decade in denial and delay, and now we've got a government that wants to get by with being able to say, 'Well, we're better than the coalition.' That's no bar to measure yourselves by. There's too much at stake here—far too much at stake here. We're currently failing Australians, and we're failing future generations. History will damn us if we do not see a change and if we don't show the leadership that's required in what is truly a crisis—the climate and biodiversity crises.

I'd also note that in some of his contributions Senator Canavan's rhetoric isn't even in line with his own party's commitments to net zero. This is the party that's meant to be looking after farmers. The government's own ABARES data shows that the average farmer is down 20 per cent on their profits since the year 2000 because of climate change. Why aren't we making decisions for them? Why are the major parties doing the bidding of the fossil fuel companies? I dispute the fact that we've got a huge amount out of exporting gas. Last time I checked, we hadn't received a single cent of petroleum resource rent tax from offshore energy—not a single cent. That is deeply embarrassing because that's our gas. Once it's gone, it's gone. Why aren't we collecting that and using it to fund the transition, to fund adaptation, which is woefully underfunded?

Last year we saw the government patting themselves on the back over a $200 million fund at the same time experts were saying we need to be spending in the order of $3 billion or $4 billion a year when it comes to adaptation. We're hearing that Labor accepts the science; they just don't seem willing to listen to the scientists or to the experts. We're hearing them talk a big game on climate and biodiversity, but we're not seeing the changes necessary; we're not seeing the courage. I know this is devastating for many Australians—particularly young people, who know what's at stake. Climate change is no longer this big thing out there; Australians know that this is about the people and places we love. All those things are on the line. Climate scientists have been warning us that we have this narrow window in which to act. What we do now will literally affect the future of humanity. What a moment to be alive, and what a moment to have some sort of ability to influence that.

We hear this rhetoric from the major parties. On the one hand: 'Here's all the things we're doing. Look how good it is. But we don't actually need to take it as seriously as climate scientists are telling us.' And then there are, I fear, really damaging talking points from someone like Senator Canavan, who is basically saying: 'Why bother? Let's make hay while the sun shines. This isn't a moral issue; this is about why Australians should have to suffer at all.' That is despite us knowing we are the developed country that stands to lose the most from climate inaction, and we potentially stand to gain the most from bold climate action. So what are we doing in this place?

One of the things that really stood out in Minister Gallagher's contribution was the fact they are spending $1.2 billion to save the Great Barrier Reef. That will not save the Great Barrier Reef from climate change; we know that climate change is the biggest threat to the Great Barrier Reef. We've had successive governments, coalition and Labor, lobby UNESCO not to list it as 'in danger' and then not take seriously the very thing that is endangering it. You couldn't make this up! What does it say about us as a country, as a people, willing to watch the Great Barrier Reef die, potentially in our lifetimes for some of us? Surely, if we truly loved it and if we truly believed we were here for a long time, we would be doing absolutely everything we could. We would see a wartime effort here at home in Australia to transform our economy, and then a using of every avenue when it comes to trade and diplomacy to push the world along. But I fear we are not seeing that.

The other thing the government will point to is the safeguard mechanism. It sounds good: we have this mechanism, it's giving us a downward trajectory, there are fairly strict rules in terms of emissions for new entrants. But we know that, just recently, through the sea dumping bill that the major parties supported in this place, they have created a massive loophole in the safeguard mechanism at the behest of Santos, to allow them to offset their emissions by piping their emissions underneath the ocean. And now we hear that the government is considering allowing them to claim that their Barossa project is a backfill project, that it's not a new project but just an extension of an existing one—which, again, would allow them to get around the safeguard mechanism.

So I simply do not buy the argument that the government is giving. It is out of line with what I'm hearing from people here in the ACT and it's out of line of what we see in poll after poll about Australians loving this place and wanting to look after it. This is serious business. This is something we should see both major parties supporting—to take seriously our moral obligation.