Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator Ian Campbell. Will the minister inform the Senate of what action the government is taking to manage the impacts of climate change? Is the minister aware of any alternative policies?

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Eggleston, from Western Australia, a state that has an enormous stake in getting the energy and climate change equation right. There are two approaches in Australia. Firstly, there is the government’s approach, which is directed at practical measures, real projects, research and development, and deployment of world-leading technologies to solving the issue of climate change, and then there is an alternative approach.

For the record, I remind honourable senators that the government will be investing $1 billion in low-emissions technology demonstration projects, many of which will be announced in coming weeks. We are in the process of investing $100 million in the Renewable Energy Development Initiative, which is already funding projects like that of Geodynamics in Innamincka in South Australia to develop geothermal, which has the capacity to power the whole of Australia from renewable sources. There is also the rollout of the $75 million Solar Cities program, which will transform entire suburbs, the first one of which will be in Adelaide and will be announced shortly, across to solar energy—solar power, clean energy from the sun. There are also a range of other programs.

Only yesterday I was able to announce with George Bush’s Chief Climate Negotiator, Dr Harlan Watson, under the US-Australia Climate Action Partnership, a collaboration between Australian company Solar Systems, which is developing parabolic solar concentrators, and the Boeing company of the United States, which is using satellite based photovoltaic technology—three times more efficient than anything available anywhere else in the world—to develop US-Australian collaboration around solar energy. Two months ago I went to Newcastle and opened Australia’s solar energy institute—a world-leading solar thermal demonstration project which increases the capacity of gas to store solar energy in what is now called ‘solar gas’. And, yesterday, the Prime Minister announced another massive expansion of Australia’s investment in renewables: an investment of $123½ million to expand the Renewable Remote Power Generation Program, which will see solar cells rolled out across regional and remote Australia and further investment in wind turbines in regional and remote Australia.

Senator Eggleston sought information about an alternative policy. There is one. Labor put out what they call a ‘blueprint’. It is not a policy or a discussion paper; it is a blueprint. Labor said that they were going to cut emissions in Australia by 60 per cent in the next 45 years. It is interesting that Labor have not quite caught onto the fact that a unilateral cut of 60 per cent to Australia’s emissions without any of the money going into technology development would have catastrophic effects on the Australian economy. ABARE, in an independent report released two weeks ago, showed that Australia’s gross domestic product would be reduced by 10 per cent, wages would be reduced by 20 per cent and the price of petrol would go up by around 100 per cent—all of this to unilaterally cut Australia’s emissions to 1.46 per cent of world emissions, when China will replicate Australia’s entire emissions in one year. Mr Beazley’s policy is for a carbon trading scheme without a carbon price. You cannot have a carbon trading scheme without a carbon price. So what does a carbon trading scheme with a carbon price—which is the Beazley policy—equal? It equals a carbon tax—a new tax on Australian households, a new tax on motorists, a new tax on energy, a new tax on industry, a new tax on jobs—to drive carbon emissions to Asia and jobs offshore.