Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Understandably, there has been a lot of comment this week about the speech given to the House of Representatives by the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Mr Tony Blair, and I want to reflect on a couple of aspects of his speech. One was his references to the need for action on climate change and global warming, an area where quite pointedly Australia has been amongst the worst performers in the world both in our per capita emissions and, probably more unforgivably, in our lack of political will at the national federal government level to address this issue both locally and globally. The evidence is stacking up day after day that this threat to our planet is as severe as people have feared, and perhaps even more imminent than people had suggested. It is one of the clear examples where clear, long-term vision and leadership is needed at a political level as well as throughout the wider community in other areas of endeavour that have significant influence, such as business and industry, the media and other sectors of our society.

There is very little doubt that this is a very severe environmental threat to our planet, but it is of course also a very strong economic threat to our planet. There are more and more studies being produced that suggest that the costs of trying to address the impacts of climate change will be much greater than any short-term costs that may occur in implementing some of the measures that need to occur to reduce greenhouse emissions. Our failure to act in the face of such overwhelming evidence is unacceptable and, from the point of view of future generations, may well be unforgivable.

Given Mr Blair’s address, it is worth noting that, despite his actions and rhetoric in this area being a long way ahead of the federal government, according to a report in the UK paper the Independent, four senior UK government ministers will finally acknowledge that, despite the UK Labour government’s targets of significant reductions in greenhouse emissions, they have actually had an overall increase in emissions in the last decade. This shows that even where there is clear intent and desire to reduce emissions many countries are falling short. It shows, again, how much further behind the pack Australia is and how much more unforgivable it is that we are failing to act in meaningful and substantial ways. I note also that at the same time, according to the Independent, an all-party parliamentary climate change group is setting up proposals and taking submissions about the possibility of developing a nonpartisan and much more comprehensive approach to climate change issues. The real problem, of course, in expecting the political system in many countries to act to address climate change is that it can leave one governing party or potential governing party open to political attack from its opponents.

We are seeing that here in Australia, where the current government is trying to position itself as being in favour of economic prosperity and business, and attacking the Labor Party—let alone parties like the Democrats that have been talking about the need to act on greenhouse issues for over a decade—for being willing to risk economic prosperity and employment in Australia for these environmental outcomes. It is clear now that there is always a risk that the lure of short-term political gain and winning or hanging onto government will win out over the much more important long-term goal of preventing environmental and human disasters from occurring down the track. That is what we must do, and we need to look at ways to remove climate change from an area of partisan short-term political advantage and move it towards an area where there is an across-the-spectrum recognition of the need for comprehensive action.

One of the proposals being put forward looks at stabilising atmospheric carbon emissions through measures such as carbon rationing, and the Global Commons Institute has developed a policy known as Contraction and Convergence. It seeks to do this, in effect, by each individual getting a carbon allowance each year. The same could be applied to industries, companies or countries. That would set in place a market mechanism that would very quickly act to stabilise global emissions. The real problem is that the actions that are being taken are not going far enough and they are not going fast enough. As the evidence mounts up, the imperative to act is becoming more and more immediate.

I also noted the comments made by Mr Blair with regard to global poverty and global trade with less developed countries. When he was talking about the need for Europe to open up its markets to Australian produce and to join Australia in more open trade there was a loud rousing chorus of ‘hear, hear!’ from the government benches and others. When Mr Blair mentioned getting Japan to open up their markets to trade there was more ‘hear, hear!’ Similarly, when he talked about the USA opening up their markets there were rousing sounds of approval. When he then spoke about allowing African countries and poorer countries to be able to trade without impediments with countries like ours and other richer countries there was dead silence. When he spoke about ensuring there was more prospect for economic opportunity in African countries and poorer countries there was dead silence.

That is a sad indictment of all of us. I am not seeking to take a cheap shot; I am just seeking to emphasise how different issues dominate the political mindset in Australia at the moment. Trade is seen as an opportunity for enrichment for Australia. That is all well and good; we all support more prosperity for Australia, although I would link it to my previous comments about the need to generate prosperity without generating further environmentally damaging outputs such as carbon emissions. It is time to acknowledge once again that in the same way we cannot expect our planet to survive as we know it today without acting to reduce greenhouse emissions, we also cannot expect our planet to survive as we know it today if the enormous, almost incomprehensible, gap between life opportunities, between the well off and the non-well off, between the wealthy and the totally impoverished is not reduced.

Millennium development goals have been accepted at the United Nations level. Australia has played a part in that but Australia is not playing an adequate part in meeting some of the most basic aspects of those goals, such as increasing our overseas development assistance. I should emphasise that it is not just a matter of increasing the amount you spend so you can feel good about yourself; it is important that overseas development assistance be spent effectively. We can certainly improve our action there. One of the most extraordinary and little remarked aspects of the AWB scandal is the fact that a large amount of Mr Flugge’s wage when he went to Iraq to ensure our wheat markets were maintained came out of our overseas aid budget—a quite extraordinary use of aid money.

Having said that, we should not only fix up how our aid money is spent but also significantly increase the amount that we provide. We are well short of the globally accepted target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income. Whilst other countries are also short of that, many of them have set targets and a process to get to those targets. Australia is still languishing below 0.3 per cent. That must be addressed. A timetable must be set for getting our overseas development assistance up towards 0.7 per cent. (Time expired)