Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move opposition amendments (1) and (2) on sheet 5151, on climate change:

(1)    Schedule 1, page 5 (before line 5), before item 1, insert:

1A After paragraph 3(1)(ca)

Insert:

           (cb)    to protect Australia from the adverse effects of climate change; and

1B After subparagraph 3(2)(e)(i)

Insert:

                 (ia)    establish a climate change trigger to ensure that large scale greenhouse polluting projects are assessed by the Federal Government; and

1C After paragraph 3A(a)

Insert:

           (aa)    decision-making processes should consider and minimise where possible the adverse effects of climate change on Australia;

1D After section 3A

Insert:

                 (ia)    establish a climate change trigger to ensure that large scale greenhouse polluting projects are assessed by the Federal Government; and

3B Climate change

                   (i)    possible higher temperatures and lower rainfall in southern Australia;

                  (ii)    possible more frequent extreme weather events such as storms, heatwaves and droughts;

adverse effects of climate change means changes in the physical environment or biota resulting from climate change which have significant deleterious effects on the composition, resilience or productivity of natural and managed ecosystems or on the operation of socio-economic systems or on human health and welfare.

climate change means a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.

climate system means the totality of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere and geosphere and their interactions.

emissions means the release of greenhouse gases and/or their precursors into the atmosphere over a specified area and period of time.

greenhouse gases means those gaseous constituents of the atmosphere, both natural and anthropogenic, that absorb and re-emit infrared radiation.

25AA Requirement for approval of climate change actions

                   (i)    the action is not a controlled action; or

                  (ii)    the action is a controlled action but this section is not a controlling provision for the action.

25AB What is a climate change action?

25AC Requirement for decisions about climate change actions

These amendments moved by the opposition will restore the five-yearly review of the matters of national environmental significance to ensure that the EPBC Act evolves to be able to consider new triggers for environmental protection. The opposition takes the view that legislation has to be able to adapt to changing circumstances and it is unfortunate that legislation of this type and complexity has been negligently put together in such a form whereby in 409 pages the government has failed to deal with the issue of climate change. It is the view of the opposition that the EPBC Act needs to be able to consider new triggers for environmental protection.

This was the view that former senator Robert Hill took. In 1999, when discussing the EPBC Act triggers, he stated:

... it will be an evolving situation reflecting community attitudes and what really is the best and the most appropriate mix at the time.

The act provides for a five-year review to assess the need of any new matters of national environmental significance, the key environmental challenges that trigger the act. The most recent review, undertaken in April 2005, failed to produce a report that was seen in public. There may well be a report but the government has not published its evaluation of the act, and so we can see by the amendments before the chamber that no new triggers have been added. In failing to publish the results of the review, the minister, in our judgement, has failed to fulfil his obligations under the act.

Section 28A is quite explicit. It states that every five years after the commencement of the act the minister must cause a report to be prepared on whether this part—the matters of national environmental significance—should be amended. It goes on to say that before the preparation of the report is completed the minister must cause to be published in accordance with the regulations, if any, a draft of the report and an invitation to comment on the draft within the periods specified by the minister.

As far as I can tell, Minister, none of that has occurred. In my judgement, if that assessment is correct—and I look forward to the minister responding to my question in that regard—and if the minister has not been able to fulfil the requirements of the act, he is in breach of that act. As far as I understand, rather than repealing this section of the act there needs to be an attempt made to strengthen the provisions, particularly in the case where it becomes a climate change trigger.

The Labor Party’s view is that the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006 should be delayed until the minister is able to table the findings of the current review into the matters of national environmental significance. So I look forward to the minister’s response to that inquiry and ask him whether a report was prepared on the review. If so, why has that report not been published? Why has the minister not met his requirements under section 28A of the current act with regard to the preparation of a report, ensuring that there is an opportunity to comment on the draft within the period specified by the minister?

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

Just for clarification, Senator Carr has moved opposition amendments (1) and (2) on sheet 5151. Senator Carr, you referred to the minister’s report in your remarks. Are you moving the relevant amendment as well?

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have moved amendments (1) and (2).

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

You asked me a question about the minister’s report, just in discussion, and that is the subject of your amendment (3). Climate change is, of course, an incredibly important issue. It is probably the issue that the Australian government’s environmental agencies and a range of other departments and agencies spend more time on than any other environmental matter. In fact, we are investing in excess of $2 billion on climate change measures. In terms of the climate change trigger issue—which will certainly be the subject of some Greens amendments, as I understand it, if not a Labor amendment—the issue really is: what is the most effective way to address climate change?

The point I make is that the climate change debate focuses—if it is focused where it counts—on two really important global challenges. Firstly, there is the challenge of providing substantially increased energy for the world. We know that, for example, there are many hundreds of millions of people in the world who do not have access to reticulated energy and do not get the benefit, as all of us do in this chamber, of being able to plug in an appliance, switch on a light, go to a refrigerator and get food that has been preserved because it has been kept cool, go to a hospital that has power provided to it or go to a workplace or an industrial facility that has power provided to it. So there are large numbers of people who do not have access to energy. We know that it is in the best interests of mankind and poverty alleviation in the developing world, and job security in the developed world, that there is an expansion of the energy used and produced in the world.

The International Energy Agency says that we will need to roughly double the amount of energy produced in the world in the next 30-odd years. However, we also know from science and particularly the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that, while we go down the path of producing substantially more energy, we will have to do so with substantially reduced greenhouse gas emissions. We know that to just stabilise greenhouse gases where they are at the moment—and we know that that is already causing climate change at an unprecedented rate in human history—we will need to find abatement over the next 35 or 40 years of around seven billion tonnes per annum. To simplify and clarify the issues facing mankind, we need to double the amount of energy we produce and consume, and halve the amount of greenhouse gas emissions or produce that extra energy with no additional greenhouse gas emissions. So climate change is a substantial challenge, as is energy security.

The issue of a greenhouse trigger is important. It is one of the regulatory tools you could use. When the government looks at it, you have to ask yourself: what is the policy benefit of putting what is a very blunt instrument into federal law? We saw with the Anvil Hill decision in New South Wales this week—the decision of Justice Pain—that it has focused Australian attention on what the costs and benefits of such a crude regulatory tool might be. It would ensure that all greenhouse actions all of a sudden become subject to federal environmental assessment and approval.

In terms of assessment, I think the Left of politics—the Labor Party and the Greens—say, ‘You should know what the emissions are going to be.’ What they ignore is 10 years of diligent hard work by the Australian government’s Greenhouse Office in developing in this country a very high-quality, very thorough, very accurate Kyoto-compliant greenhouse gas measurement database and the establishment of a greenhouse measurement tool—we need someone from the Greenhouse Office to get the acronym. We have a database which can collect information on greenhouse gas emissions from across Australia—from government and industry—and have it published for the world to see. We have the best measurement systems, not only in industrial facilities in Australia. We have established these measurement facilities through the Greenhouse Challenge program and its successor program, the Greenhouse Challenge Plus program.

Also, through the extension of the government’s energy efficiency measures, through the energy efficiencies opportunity legislation, we have made it mandatory for the top roughly 250 energy users in Australia to do energy efficiency audits and to publish those audits and plans. The concept of saying that we need to now require a whole new raft of assessment and approval for every greenhouse gas emitting industry across Australia would be massive duplication with no benefit in achieving what I talked about in the first part of this speech—balancing the needs of Australia and the world to produce more energy for poverty alleviation and job security with the need to do that with substantially lower greenhouse gas emissions.

There is fundamental philosophical policy difference on this between the Left of politics—Labor and the Greens—and the coalition. People such as Martin Ferguson, though, give credit to the government for taking practical actions—for example, working with our AP6 partners on practical measures for developing a more informed debate about the role that nuclear power can play and developing an informed debate about clean coal and carbon capture and storage technologies. Some Labor members engage in that debate in a constructive way. But most Labor people say to the public that we can somehow solve the problem if we amend the law by putting a greenhouse trigger in it and sign the Kyoto protocol. Of course, anyone who has spent some time looking at the challenges posed by greenhouse gas emissions, climate change and the need to balance energy provision and greenhouse gas abatement would know that the problem will not be solved by simply putting another few paragraphs into the federal law—legislating the problem away—or by signing an international treaty. That treaty, I might say, would, during its first commitment phase, see greenhouse gas emissions rise by 40 per cent. The world—including all the major economies—has recognised that the Kyoto protocol is ineffective at creating effective global action.

Labor’s two policies—which, I think, are supported by the Greens—are effectively to address climate change by legislative action and by signing the Kyoto protocol. They are saying they will just pass a bit of law through the federal parliament. What will that do? I do not want to verbal the Greens. Senator Milne puts a lot more thought into this issue than the Labor Party do. At least she is absolutely consistent in her position, whereas the Labor Party have deeply conflicted positions on the role that coal technologies and nuclear technologies can play. When it suits them, Labor try to narrowcast their message to Greens constituencies by saying they are anti-nuclear and anti clean coal. When they want to talk to industry or other parts of the country, they send Martin Ferguson. He says to the forestry industry that Labor like forestry, and he says that Labor like uranium mining and coal. If they want to send the other message, they send Peter Garrett to say that they are anti clean coal and anti-nuclear and they think they can solve the problem by building wind turbines.

Labor will not get away with that for long. You could perhaps do a bit of narrowcasting 100 years ago when the media was not all-pervasive and instantaneous. But you cannot get away with sending Peter Garrett to one corner of the country to sell one environmental message and Martin Ferguson to another part of the country to sell another message on the same day. Sooner or later, you will be called to account. Sooner or later, you will have to come up with a policy that will address the substantial issues of providing the world with clean energy for poverty alleviation in the developing world and job security in the developed world, and doing so with reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

The people of Australia will not put up with a political party that pretends you can meet this historic intergenerational policy challenge by signing some law through the parliament and signing the Kyoto protocol. It is a challenge that requires a multitrillion dollar investment, a sophisticated approach at a national level and a sensible management approach—the sort of approach that the Howard-Costello team brings to this massive challenge for Australia. The Labor Party thinks you can look the Australian people in the eye and tell them that you can wish the problem away by passing some law through the parliament and signing the Kyoto protocol.

The problem is far bigger than that. It is a challenge that requires serious, well-funded, well thought-through solutions—not sloganeering, chanting and wishing. That is why we reject these amendments. We reject the notion of effectively putting into Australian law what I would call the ‘anticoal amendment’. This would apply the Anvil Hill treatment to every coal mine, power station and industrial facility across Australia—and I know that the Greens motivation is to close down the coal industry.

I want to put one very important fact before the chamber on this occasion. I will limit my future interventions to be far shorter, but I want to cover this ground because it goes to the very core of climate change at the moment. Coal is portrayed by the Left of politics as a dirty, grubby, horrible fuel, although many of the people who are employed in the coal industry—there are some 5,000 of them across Australia—are historically Labor voters. I doubt that they will vote Labor in the future, because Labor and the Greens together could close that industry down.

Whether you like it or not, whether you want to demonise it or not, coal is the baseload fuel supply for Australia and it supplies around 80 per cent of baseload energy for the world. You can wish that away and pretend that it will go away, but the International Energy Agency has said that the amount of coal used, as a proportion of other energy sources, will go up over the next 25 years. The amount of coal that is burned will increase from roughly four billion tonnes to 7½ billion tonnes in that time.

You can try and wish that way, you can hope it is not true, you can write a letter to President Hu in China and say, ‘We think you should stop burning coal,’ and you can have Justice Pain across the country saying, ‘No, we are going to shut the Anvil coalmine,’ but the reality is that if you are serious about climate change you are going to have a serious policy that deals with the carbon emissions from burning coal, not a policy that says, ‘Let’s do away with coal mines.’ It is more sophisticated, it is harder and it requires more hard work to do that, but I say to the Australian Labor Party and the Greens: get serious about climate change by having a policy that addresses the reality that coal will be a part of our lives for the foreseeable future and that the technological challenge and the investment challenge is to capture the carbon, to clean the coal and to make it a clean energy source, not a dirty energy source, for the future. Recognise the fact that, if Justice Pain, the Labor Party and the Greens had their way and you closed down every coalmine in Australia, the amount of coal burned across the planet would roughly double in the next 30 years regardless. It will not make any difference. It might make you feel good to put 5,000 people out of work and close down that industry, but it will not save the world from climate change.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I support the notion of a greenhouse trigger in the EPBC Act, and I note that the Greens have an amendment to do just this. The Labor Party’s proposal is for a trigger of 500,000 tonnes. The proposal of the Greens is more stringent, at 100,000 tonnes. By that, I mean the Labor Party’s proposal says that if a development proposal were to emit more than 500,000 tonnes then it would trigger environmental assessment under the EPBC Act. It would be a controlled action. The Greens are saying that should be 100,000 tonnes.

I note the Minister for the Environment and Heritage did not really discuss the trigger. I would like to get back to the specific trigger, because the Howard government has done a complete backflip and there is the opportunity to do another backflip and go back to where it was in the year 2000. I will read to the chamber what Senator Hill said:

In line with the Prime Minister’s May 1999 commitment, the Government has consulted widely on applying a Commonwealth greenhouse trigger under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act in relation to new projects that would be major emitters of greenhouse gases. Under the draft Regulations released in November 2000, the trigger would apply to actions likely to result in greenhouse emissions over 0.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in any 12-month period. The Minister for the Environment and Heritage is considering the views of State and Territory Ministers and key stakeholders on the proposed trigger.

Then Senator Hill actually released the details of the trigger on 5 May 2000, when he put out a press release ‘Greenhouse trigger design released’. He then gave the details of the greenhouse trigger. At that time the Greenhouse Office did all the work that was involved in inserting a trigger into the EPBC Act. Senator Hill went on to say:

Consistent with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the National Greenhouse Strategy, it is proposed that ‘greenhouse gases’ would be defined to include carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol. Emissions from proposed projects would be estimated using accepted methodologies used for the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, those being developed for the National Carbon Accounting System, or where necessary those agreed between the Commonwealth and the proponent.

So the work was already done, the trigger was determined to be 500,000 tonnes and the regulations were out there—it was all in place. The reason for it was cited by Senator Hill, and this is why I want particularly to ask the minister why the government changed its mind and, having changed its mind once, why it cannot change its mind back again. Senator Hill said:

Diffuse emissions arising from a large number of small and dispersed sources are not intended to be subject to the greenhouse trigger.

That is why he set it at 500,000 tonnes in any one year. He went on to say:

All direct emissions (those that are within the boundary of an action) would be considered in determining whether an action is a controlled action. Major sources of indirect emissions would be considered where these emissions are one step upstream from the action, ie directly attributable to activities that are outside the boundary of the action and provide inputs for that action. Emissions from activities that use the outputs of the action (downstream emissions) will not normally be considered in the triggering process. However, during the assessment and approval processes, the option of examining all emissions from upstream or downstream processes at least one step removed from the action will be retained, to allow consideration of any net change in Australia’s emissions that may flow from an action.

This is the whole point. How can an Australian government run an inventory of Australia’s greenhouse gases and then determine whether it is on track to meet a target if the national minister does not have the potential to examine any major project proposal that is likely to result in more than 500,000 tonnes a year? That will significantly affect whether we are on track to meet a national target. If the federal minister is in charge of meeting a target and yet all these development proposals are being put forward around the country which allow for more than 500,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases to be emitted, then how is he ever going to keep track of whether or not he is on target? If you are not on target, then surely the minister can say, ‘We cannot afford any more of these large emitting proposals because they are going to blow out our national target.’

That was Senator Hill’s logic. The work has been done. The logic is sensible, everything was in place and then it all went away. The government abandoned it. Now we have the minister telling us that this is an anticoal proposal, this is an anti-jobs proposal, this will shut down industries and so on. Senator Hill did not think so. The Greenhouse Office did not think so. Nobody else thinks so. I feel sorry for the minister trying to justify a position that I actually think he does not believe in. He knows full well that this is what Australia needs to do and must do. What we have to do is somehow create the space for the government to change its mind and save face. Ultimately, that is what is going to have to happen.

The reason the Greens are moving for a much more stringent target than 500,000 tonnes is that at the time Senator Hill set that proposal—1999—the world was not aware of how rapidly greenhouse gas emissions were going to increase in terms of parts per million in the atmosphere. Scientists were also not as clear five or six years ago as they are now about the accelerating rate of climate change. The minister said that, while Australia is on track to meet an eight per cent increase on its 1990 levels, that is still not certain. We are going to have to take more action. I would be interested to know what other measures the minister has in mind to put into place to meet what is now clearly a trend that is not going to see Australia meet its target, even though that target is incredibly generous. We are the only country that got an increase on 1990 levels; everybody else accepted a decrease. But we are not going to make it. I am interested in the minister’s proposals anyway as to how we are going to stay on track for that target.

As for this notion that anybody is demonising coal, coal is a fossil fuel. Coal is a major driver of greenhouse gases around the world. Coal is one of the reasons that we have global warning. That is the fact of the matter. It is not a matter of demonising or not demonising; it is stating a fact. We have to get to renewables; we have to get to a low-carbon economy. We do not need to be driving coal exports. As to Justice Pain’s decision, the minister has misrepresented Justice Pain. She is not closing down the coal industry. What her decision said was an environmental impact assessment of a project was inadequate because it did not take into account the greenhouse gases that were going to be emitted from that project. In the case of the Anvil Hill coalmine, it was 12.5 million tonnes a year, which is 0.1 per cent of total global emissions.

I would like the minister to explain to me how Australia is going to stay on track to meet its target and reduce its greenhouse emissions if the minister does not have to take that into account, if that is not referred to him. Queensland can go and approve new coalmines; New South Wales can; anybody can do what they like around the country. And the federal minister is left with how we are going to get our greenhouse gases down when everybody around the country is approving projects that are going to increase greenhouse gases. That is why this issue about the net change in Australia’s emissions that might flow from any action needs to be taken into account by the federal minister. What Justice Pain is saying is that it needs to be taken into account in environmental impact assessments. Then a decision can be made as to whether you are prepared to take that risk or incur that damage. Her decision of itself does not shut down anything; it requires that that be taken into account.

This greenhouse gas trigger would require the federal minister to take it into account. It is a question of how far you want to go. I do not believe that half a million tonnes is stringent enough given the rate of climate change and given the real concern of the scientists. As I said in here yesterday, it is too late for the world’s coral reefs. They have already passed their threshold of dangerous climate change. We are going to see coral bleaching occurring more frequently than every five years. We know that the reefs cannot recover in that time. We also know that the acidification of the oceans is such that the corals are already weakened and we know that there are several coral reefs around the world that are dead and now covered in algae. That is the future for the world’s coral reefs. All we can do now is to try to strengthen the reefs’ resilience in the face of climate change by stopping other forms of pollution and other forms of development to give them their best hope. But we are now faced with the reality that it is too late. And 100 million people around the world depend on coral reefs for their livelihoods. This is extremely sobering. We also know that the rate of melt on the Greenland iceshelf and the west Antarctic iceshelf is much faster than ever was anticipated previously. And we have scientists this week who have just got their results from the Ross iceshelf, saying that their study demonstrates that the sheet broke up once very quickly previously and it could happen again. That is the context in which we are talking about a greenhouse trigger.

Other countries, such as Germany, have made a rapid transition to solar. They have done that by helping people make the transition from jobs involved in industries which were heavily carbon dependent. They switched them across, retrained them and assisted them to move into other industries. The great benefit of solar is that the skills can be transferred. In solar, you have the high-level jobs, which are in the universities, in R&D, and in the high-level engineering areas. But you also have maintenance, installation, retail and all the other jobs. It is not beyond the wit of Australians, surely, to work out a just transition for people working in certain industries to get them across to, and working in, the new low-carbon economy—a carbon constrained economy.

Let us not devalue the debate on climate change and the seriousness of this issue by starting at, ‘We love coal and jobs and you hate coal and want to put people out of work.’ The government, the Senate and the House of Representatives have a responsibility to the Australian people to do our best to secure their future. That is what dealing with climate change is about. That is why I support this trigger. I am going to support a 500,000-tonne trigger. I hope that the Labor Party will reconsider its position and vote for the more stringent trigger that I have put on the books here as an amendment, which is coming up a bit later. I believe that what Robert Hill, the former minister, thought was appropriate five years ago is no longer appropriate. We need something that is more stringent than that. I would like the minister to specifically address this issue. I would like him to specifically tell me why it was a good idea for the Prime Minster and Robert Hill to support it in 2000 but it is not a good idea to support it now. How is the federal government going to keep a handle on Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions if there is no requirement to check it? How are you going to keep a handle on that if you have no capacity to look at proposals that generate large volumes of greenhouse gases so as to work out any net change to Australia’s emissions that might flow from such proposals?

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thought the evidence to the committee from the department was that the minister would have power to look at that under the existing provisions of the bill, but that is something that Senator Ian Campbell will no doubt respond to as he speaks. I do not have a running sheet in front of me, so I am not quite certain exactly which amendment we are dealing with—

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are dealing with opposition amendments (1) and (2).

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. I just wanted to take the opportunity to ask the minister, Senator Ian Campbell, what the government’s response is to the three recommendations of the majority report to the parliament. The minister might remember—I raised this in my speech in the debate on the second reading—that I do not think the committee has yet heard what the government’s attitude is to these recommendations. Recommendation 1 related to the issue of heritage properties within the Australian Capital Territory that are on designated Commonwealth land. It appeared there was an unintended consequence from the bill that needed some correction. The second recommendation related to issues with the wording of proposed new section 179(6). The third recommendation was simply a recommendation which hopefully the minister will be able to use in negotiations on the budget. There was quite a deal of evidence suggesting that perhaps the department was a fraction underresourced to do the very significant work expected of it in relation to this bill. At an appropriate time, I ask if the minister could indicate what the government’s response is to those three recommendations by the majority committee.

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

I thank Senator Ian Macdonald and Senator Milne. I have some detailed responses here for Senator Macdonald and I might just review them. It may even be appropriate that we seek to incorporate them in the Hansard rather than boring everyone by reading them into the Hansard. I might let Senator Macdonald and others have a look at them and see if it is appropriate, for the information of everyone, to do that. On the resourcing side, I think Senator Macdonald would not be surprised to know that particularly the resourcing of the compliance section of the department for EPBC matters is something that I have been keen to get onto a secure footing. He would respect that that is part of the budget process—but people cheering from the sidelines are always of assistance in that cause, and I appreciate his support. It is very important, when you have got an act that is internationally recognised as one of the best environment laws anywhere in the world, that it is properly resourced. That is something that I strongly support. I will have a look at those other bits.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Temporary Chairman, I am sorry about this and I will not interrupt the debate very much, but could the minister just indicate particularly whether the second recommendation is being adopted or if there is a reason that it is not? If it is not, I might have to go and prepare my own amendment in relation to it, so I am anxious to understand. I thought the government might have got back to the committee with its response to these things. If there is a reason that it should not be adopted, I would like to hear it. If it is going to be adopted as an amendment, I would like to hear that. If it is not, I will have to do some rapid work in preparing my own amendment.

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

That is entirely reasonable. The proposed amendments are in relation to commercially harvested fish—is this the issue?

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes.

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

Thank you. The proposed amendments are consistent with work recently accepted by IUCN, the World Conservation Union. In its guidelines, released in July this year, the IUCN noted the issue which the government is seeking to deal with in its amendments to the EPBC Act—namely, that a species of fish could become eligible for listing as threatened simply because it has been actively fished down to a target level. What the amendments seek to do is recognise this and provide a mechanism by which any such fish species that has fallen below appropriate levels can be managed to sustainability if an appropriate management plan exists to maximise its long-term survival in nature. The mere existence of a management plan which provides for the conservation of the fish species is not sufficient in itself to cause the species to be listed. The fish species obviously needs to be threatened. The government recognised that there are many commercially fished species that are not threatened that are covered by management plans that aid the conservation of the species. The EPBC Act will continue to provide the regulatory underpinning for the protection of such marine fish species. Should the recovery targets of a management plan not be achieved, the EPBC Act provisions will allow for the threatened species listing of that particular marine fish species to be upgraded to a higher level of threat with an accompanying higher level of protection.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Ian Macdonald interjecting—

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

I think there are actually some questions that Senator Milne asked the minister—

The Temporary Chairman:

Should we call the minister first, Senator Bartlett? Is that all right with you?

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

Yes.

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

I think Senator Ian Macdonald asked: does that mean we are going ahead with the amending bill in its current form? The answer to that is yes. Senator Milne asked a series of questions that I believe I have already answered in relation to the greenhouse trigger. She asked what has changed since what former Senator Hill—then environment minister and now ambassador—did in 1999-2000 in relation to the action of a trigger. I have gone into some extraordinary detail to explain how Australia has one of the most thorough—and Kyoto compliant—greenhouse gas accounting systems, which is one of the reasons we are able to report accurately to the world, down to a very fine grain, what our greenhouse gas emissions were in the latest accounting period, which for the latest report I think will be 2005. We are also able to give a very accurate prediction as to what they will be during the conclusion of the first commitment period out of Kyoto, and that is 2008-12. We have indicated in all of our reports up to date that we are on track to meet our Kyoto target and that in fact we will be one of the few countries in the world that will meet their Kyoto target or are on track to do so. As soon as it is ready, we will make our latest report.

I would like to answer Senator Milne’s question with another question. Let us say you know what the greenhouse gas emissions are from the Anvil Hill coalmine and from the burning of that coal by third parties who may import that coal from Australia or use it domestically. Let us say you know what those greenhouse gas emissions are because they are required to be assessed, as Justice Pain has said to the developers of that coalmine. As I have said quite accurately, if you put this trigger into the law today it would require every facility and mine and industrial activity across Australia above the trigger, including Anvil Hill mine, to be assessed. What would Senator Milne do faced with the information, knowing what the greenhouse gas emissions would be from the coal mined at Anvil Hill? That is the nub of the question. That is the nub of the policy issue. When you have made this assessment and you know how much greenhouse gas will be emitted, what would you do with that assessment? Would you approve that mine or not?

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted that Senator Campbell posed that question, because I would have a national greenhouse cap for Australia. I would then have an emissions trading scheme and a combined range of feed-in laws, a carbon levy or tax and a whole range of initiatives including an energy efficiency target, a vehicle fuel efficiency target and so on—none of which we have—and within that context, as a federal minister with a trigger and the ability to assess those projects, I would have a look at any project and see what that was going to do to Australia’s capacity to meet its target.

In particular, I do not support the Anvil Hill coalmine, but that is a separate issue from the capacity to assess a particular project. I argue that, regardless of the project, you should be able to assess whether its greenhouse gas emissions are above 100,000 tonnes—or in this case 500,000 tonnes—but I do not support expanded coalmining in Australia. It is totally and absolutely unjust.

Climate change is a justice and ethics issue. How can you possibly support putting 12½ million tonnes of additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from a project in Australia? How can you possibly support that, knowing what we know about the need to stabilise greenhouse gases? We need to rein in the particles per million in the atmosphere. We know that at 450 parts per million we will get a two-degree rise. They are trying to stabilise it at 550 parts per million by 2050; the likelihood is that we will not do it.

All this talk about mining is about profits from export industries. I am saying we need to change the Australian economy so that it makes a transition to a low-carbon economy. I am saying that people currently employed in activities which generate vast amounts of carbon should be retrained and that we should give stimulus to those new industries which are capable of employing lots of people and building strength in the economy instead of hollowing it out. The government’s whole strategy has been to take us back to the sheep’s back. Our whole export income is dependent on digging up and cutting down.

We have lost the manufacturing sector and we are not building competitive advantage in new manufacturers, which we need to be doing. We are driving offshore all the new technologies. We have said bye-bye to the Roaring Forties. They have gone to China. Great! They are reducing global emissions by being in China but it is not assisting the Australian economy. Dr Shi took his solar business into China, where he became a billionaire. He is making a fortune in China. He could be doing that in Australia.

Origin Energy developed the SLIVER cell technology. It would have taken $100 million to commercialise it here but, no, it will probably go offshore. There has been a great march offshore from all the innovative technologies that are not being developed here and not creating the jobs. I think it is actually immoral to be arguing that Australia needs to maximise its profits from uranium mining and from coalmining in order to give tax cuts to people in Australia at the same time as we are seeing the devastating impact of climate change on farmers in this country and on ecosystems in this country.

You just have to look at the drop in agricultural production. That is a direct result of intensified drought and changed rainfall patterns—and no doubt there will be extreme fires this summer—because of what the Howard government has failed to do in the last 10 years. There are huge costs to the Australian economy. The absolute hypocrisy of this is shown in Queensland, where Peter Beattie, the Premier of Queensland, on the one hand is expanding coalmining, making the whole global climate change situation worse, and on the other hand talking about building cyclone bunker shelters from Cairns down the coast to protect coastal areas from the extreme weather events caused by climate change which is caused by his coalmining escapades and new coal-fired power stations.

Then we have the Great Barrier Reef dying, with a huge impact on tourism and a huge impact on ecosystems. And out comes the proposition that we make some floating pontoons and sail cloths and pump up some cold water from underneath to try to keep bits of the reef alive—not for their ecosystem value but for the fact that they may support the few resorts that still have access to that part of the reef. How stupid is that? We have to get consistent here. This nation needs to be committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and recognise that we cannot expand coalmining. That is not a possible option in a country that is supposedly responsible.

As I said yesterday, the rest of the world is going to take action through the World Trade Organisation to declare any Australian export as having achieved a subsidy because we have not ratified the Kyoto protocol and because we are not being seen as a globally responsible citizen. There will be European companies which will say that Australian exports are subsidised, and therefore we will start to see trade barriers as a result of this freeloading that Australia is engaged in globally with greenhouse gas emissions.

So there are a lot of actions that you can take, but I would separate the two issues in terms of a federal environment minister. Whilst the minister said that the greenhouse gas accounting inventory allows the government to see what the emissions are from any project, it does not allow the federal government to intervene in determining the environmental impact—and whether it is appropriate or not—of any of the proposals that might be generating those emissions. Even though you can say, ‘Okay, that is emitting so much, and it is in the inventory,’ it does not give the federal minister any power in relation to the environmental impacts of any of those large-scale proposals and the accumulated impact in terms of the total environment of greenhouse gas emissions.

I am delighted that the minister asked the question because I think it is a moral and ethical question as to whether Australia should continue to expand its coalmines. The only reason the government is so focused on a technology that is not proven—that is, carbon capture and storage—is our huge dependence as an economy on coalmining and coal exports. If we were not in that position, we would not be so blinded to the fact that our major energy source in this country is solar radiation. In fact, coal is just a battery, if you like, of former solar radiation laid down as coal in previous epochs. We have the best solar radiation resource in the world, we have some of the best technology in the world through the University of New South Wales and the ANU, we have fantastic capacity not only in solar but also in wind, geothermal and so on—and we are blinded to that because there are a few large companies in Australia that have huge profits which are closely aligned to the government. There is a mutual arrangement such that on the very day that the nuclear report came out, for example, the Prime Minister came rushing out to reassure the coal industry that he would not be putting a price on carbon in the immediate short term. He had to reassure his coal industry friends that taking action to try to make nuclear viable would not adversely impact on the coal industry.

I think Australia has to get beyond this absolute dependence on export income from fossil fuels, because it is not a feasible proposition. It is exactly the same as Easter Island did before it drove itself into the situation where there was no life left on Easter Island. Easter Island kept on cutting down its forests in spite of the fact that it was all rapidly coming to an end. It is exactly the same situation here: we are expanding coalmining as global warming is accelerating, and that is an indefensible proposition if you believe that we have any moral or ethical responsibility as a global citizen to ensure survival not only of the human species but of the ecosystems on which we depend.

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

Before the minister responds I will throw a few more things in. This is one of those debates and issues where we probably have four distinct perspectives, which makes it perhaps a little more complex to differentiate. That no doubt explains the enormous interest from the press gallery at the moment, all clustered around listening to this detail about the most crucial environmental issue of our future! They are probably in their offices listening on the radio. This is an important issue, of course, and many people quite rightly call it the most important environmental issue facing not just our country but our globe. We have two amendments before the chair. The debate has ranged rather more widely than the specifics of the amendments; I think the amendments are serving as a proxy for the entire issue of climate change. All the amendments seek to do is put a specific trigger in the current legislation to require that the greenhouse impacts or climate change impacts of a project be assessed if a certain threshold is reached. The Democrats and the Greens both have an amendment that has a lower threshold than the ALP amendment. The Democrat amendment has a life cycle component as well as an annual threshold.

I think there are two issues. There is the issue of whether or not there should be a trigger in the federal environment law. The Democrats’ position is similar to the Greens on that, and it is a position we have had since the act was first put into place. Senator Milne has outlined a lot of valid points in that regard, although Senator Milne also has a view that the whole EPBC Act is a waste of space, is useless and should be scrapped. Why we would want to add a trigger into a useless act is another matter, but the Democrats’ view is that the act is not useless. It is quite strong and having an extra trigger would make it even stronger.

The other point—and I think Senator Milne asked this question but the minister has not answered it—which I think is valid is: what has changed from the government’s point of view? It is a question to which the Democrats deserve a response from the minister—if I might say, even more so than the rest of the chamber—because it was the Democrats that supported this act coming into being. That was for a lot of reasons, but in part we did it with a public commitment from the then minister, which he started to follow through, of seeking to include a greenhouse trigger down the track. Indeed, if we want to look at anniversaries, it is almost the seventh anniversary.

It was 10 December 1999 when Minister Hill released a consultation paper about the possibility of putting a greenhouse trigger into the act. He stated on record, including in this place in August 2000, that the government had a preferred model and that it was consulting with the states and others about putting it into the act. Obviously that did not happen, otherwise we would not be having this debate now, but all of us at the time thought it was a good idea. It seemed from Minister Hill’s statement that he thought it was a good idea but he wanted to consult with the states first, not surprisingly, for reasons such as Senator Milne has said. States like my state of Queensland were not keen on it at all, but the fact is that the government did have a preferred position, a preferred model, for putting a trigger in the act, and now clearly it has the view that a trigger is a bad idea, to paraphrase the minister’s statements both today and in the media during the week. I think it is at least appropriate, given the history of this legislation, to get an indication of why it is now not seen as a good idea.

The other point I would make from the Democrats’ perspective is that I am certainly not suggesting, and I do not suspect anybody is suggesting, that putting a greenhouse trigger in the EPBC Act will on its own somehow make a major shift in Australia’s performance in dealing with the climate change threat. It would be one measure as part of a whole package, and I do not see the amendments that Labor has put forward and the Greens and Democrats have foreshadowed as intrinsically, necessarily, anticoal.

If some of the suggestions that have been put around concerning the possibilities of geosequestration et cetera do actually have some validity—and that is still far from proven—and there could be a dramatic reduction in emissions from coal, it does not necessarily follow that amendments like this or even proposals of capping total emissions for Australia would therefore lead to the end of coal. It is a neutral amendment. It does not single out any industry; it simply singles out emissions, which is what we should be looking at. I do not see it as an anticoal amendment beyond the simple fact that coal emits a lot of carbon. If it can be made to emit a lot less then that would be a good thing. Of course, we do need to be careful that, whatever the activity or resource, if we can make it emit half as much that we then do not go, ‘That’s good, we’ll consume twice as much.’ When we increase efficiencies, we tend to be in the habit of counterbalancing that by increasing consumption.

To move away from the coal debate, another very relevant example is from my own state of Queensland. It is completely inadvertent but nonetheless ironic that this Labor Party amendment will insert a definition of ‘adverse effects of climate change’ in the act straight before the definition of ‘Australian aircraft’. If there is one area of activity that is not being given much attention at all it is the climate change impacts of air travel. Perhaps we can all ponder that as we jump on our planes tonight and all jet back to wherever we live for the weekend and then all jet back here again. Perhaps Senator Campbell might be staying here over the weekend?

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

Senator Ian Campbell interjecting—

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

No? Oh well, I was going to give you a plus there! I use that example to demonstrate that this is about a lot more than just picking on coal or any particular industry or activity. It is about all of us realising that we are going to have to change our behaviour significantly. There is a proposal from the Brisbane Airport at the moment to build a second runway. There is some controversy locally about that because of aircraft noise. I appreciate that some people have concerns about that, although frankly if you compare it to a lot of other capital cities we are doing quite well in Brisbane. It is a very good airport; I am not against the airport. The simple fact is that, by building that second runway—quite logically, to increase capacity—it will facilitate a huge increase in air travel into Brisbane and air travel more broadly. That will lead to a huge increase in the use of what is a very significant emitter of greenhouse gases and, at least according to some of the science, in a way that has a greater impact than if it were emitted at ground level. But that is not being factored in in any significant way in what is an extremely large environmental impact assessment for Brisbane Airport.

Again, this is not to single out one development and say that it is bad and we should make ourselves feel good by stopping it or singling out one particular activity and saying, ‘If we ban this, everything will be fixed.’ I use this simply by way of an example, firstly, to demonstrate that it is a wide-ranging issue and an omnipresent one, which is why we need to be starting to assess it more comprehensively in our environmental impact laws, and, secondly, to indicate that, at present those sorts of things are really not being looked at in any significant way in environmental impact assessments because they are not comprehensive enough.

In some respects one could argue there is a second tier greenhouse check at the moment because, of course, triggers that already exist are World Heritage areas—including, of course, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, which we all know or should know is at risk of significant damage due to climate change—and threatened species, which are already on the brink of extinction. If there are significant changes in their habitat due to climate change, those are the sorts of things that can push them over the edge. There are second tier components, if you like, that are there. But I guess the simple fact is that seven years ago the view of the then Minister for the Environment and Heritage and the federal government was that they had a preferred position about a way forward—to have this as part of the triggers in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act—and that has now changed. It would be useful to know why it is the case if, indeed, that is the case—it certainly seems that way.

To repeat, this on its own will in no way address climate change but I think it is an extra way to help us all shift our mindsets, attitudes, behaviours and the way we automatically assess the impacts of everything. We are going to need to make some significant shifts. Frankly, I do not think it is going to be as easy as some people suggest it can be, but it is very much necessary. This on its own will not make it happen but it would help in pushing it in the right direction.

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

I thank Senator Bartlett for that intervention. The reason I answered Senator Milne’s question previously with another question is that it goes to the nub of answering Senator Bartlett’s question of why a trigger is put into the legislation to require an assessment of effectively every coalmine and every other industrial facility across Australia if making that assessment then leads to the obvious decision that I am required to make virtually every day as the Minister for the Environment and Heritage: whether or not I approve the project. You make an assessment as part of the environmental approvals process. Senator Milne has been honest enough—although in a very longwinded way—to say that, if she were in the position of the minister for the environment, with this power, she would say no to the Anvil Hill coalmine. She said that, morally and ethically, she would have to say no to it. That is an honest answer.

Labor wants to put this provision in the law. Mr Albanese, and I presume Mr Beazley or Mr Rudd, if he is successful next week, would want to put this into the law. Either Mr Beazley or Mr Rudd, whoever leads the Labor Party next week—and I do not seek to make cheap politics of that; it is never—

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But you are anyway.

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

I am not. The turmoil that the Labor Party is going through is not a fun process. We have been through it in the past. Whoever is the leader in the future, the Labor Party needs to answer this question. You cannot, as the Greens and I both accuse you of, narrowcast your message and walk both sides of the street on this issue. You cannot say, ‘We’re strong on climate change. We’re going to put a trigger in the federal law. We’re going to have a private member’s bill.’ It is good stuff to wave around the Waverley Council and Newcastle City Council, whistling to your friends in the green movement, trying to get Green preferences. The real question is: if you are going to put this provision in the federal law, will you use it?

This is a terrific debate to have. You have to deal with the facts. If you are serious about climate change you have to look at the real world. I had a terrific meeting with Dr Llewellyn from the United Kingdom fusion project. Europe, America, India and China are getting together to develop this new fusion technology to produce energy, fundamentally from hydrogen. It is a $5 billion investment. It is an international collaboration, and he is saying: ‘It may not work. It’s a multibillion dollar investment but it’s got the potential to provide baseload power with no emissions.’ He also said: ‘All we’ve got at the moment is coal and nuclear power. We’ve got to solve the climate change problem or we have to make this investment in fusion. It’ll take 10 years. We’re going to build this massive plant, and America, China, India and the European Union are investing. It’s a massive project to develop a whole new power source. It requires a nuclear process, and I think Australia should be involved. It would be very good to get Australia involved.’ But if you applied the Greens logic, which is ‘Geosequestration is not proved and it’ll take 10 or 15 years to prove it up’, you would not waste your time.

You have to invest in all of these different technologies, and carbon capture and storage is one of them. We know that there has to be an expansion in nuclear power, we know there has to be an expansion of solar energy and we know we have to be pushing for geothermal. We need to do all of those things, and the government in Australia is investing very heavily in each one of those technologies in a technologically neutral way.

We also have to address the situation, say, if Senator Milne did become the environment minister. The Labor Party really need to answer this question. I think they should do it today. This is a test for Labor—and I put a press release out saying it was a test for Mr Beazley a few days ago. It really is. If you are going to put a trigger in the law—this is a simple question, and I think the Greens and I would like to have this answered—and it tells you that a coalmine like Anvil is going to produce millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide when they burn the coal, what will you do when you have to make that assessment? If you say, ‘Have a carbon market,’ that is not the answer. Senator Milne knows that. You do not need a trigger in the federal law to have a carbon market. We have the OSCAR web based carbon collection system that we have developed in Australia—I got the acronym right.

We know—and Justice Pain knows—how many megatonnes of carbon will come from the Anvil mine. We know what the answer is facility by facility, mine by mine, because we have the best tools anywhere in the world, developed by the Australian government’s Greenhouse Office. We know all that. We do not need to go through these assessment processes. If you are going to have a trigger, the question for Labor is: when you know that a facility is going to produce greenhouse gases, what box will you tick on the approvals brief that you get when you are minister? You will get a brief like the one I am holding, coincidentally. It will say ‘agreed’ or ‘not agreed’.

I have a decision right before me, as we talk, to approve a road, coincidentally—a very good road, by the way. It will have an assessment in it. I think Senator Siewert probably knows what the road is. It will say, ‘This mine will produce X million tonnes of greenhouse gas.’ It will have ‘agreed’ or ‘not agreed’. This gets to the nub of Senator Bartlett’s point—and the Greens have been honest enough to say that, if they knew that the Anvil mine was going to produce that amount of greenhouse gas, they would say, ‘No. It is morally imperative not to approve it.’

The question for Mr Albanese, Mr Beazley, Mr Rudd and Senator Lundy, here today representing them all, is: when Labor knows that you have got multiple millions of tonnes of carbon coming from a coalmine, what will you put a circle around—‘approved’ or ‘not approved’? Having a trigger and assessing every single industrial facility across the country is only one thing. It is yet another layer of red tape, another layer of bureaucracy. It does not help the environment one iota. It does not save a single tonne of carbon. It just employs a lot more people in Canberra to do a lot more assessments.

You talk about the moral and ethical issues in this. You could in fact make yourself feel moral and ethical and not just close down Anvil Hill, Sonoma in Queensland and every new coalmine proposed; you could close down all of the operations that mine 301 million tonnes of coal in Australia this year. Regarding the rate of expansion of coalmining in the world, estimated by ABARE and in the World Energy Outlook of the IEA, as I said yesterday in the parliament, we have mined as a world around 4,980 million tonnes of coal this past year, 2005, and the world is expected to mine 7,557 million tonnes of it in only 20 years time.

The expansion in the world’s coalmining will entirely eliminate all of the coalmines in Australia in only three years. It shows you how ludicrous it is to shut down coalmining in Australia or shut down a single coalmine in Australia. I might have to say this every day that I am in this job: if you are serious about climate change, you cannot kid the world that closing coalmines is a solution. You have to recognise the fact that around 80 per cent of the world’s energy will come from coal even in 20 years time. That might be really hard for Senator Milne to appreciate. She might desperately prefer for the whole world to shift across to solar in that time or to another energy source. I know we are going to have to provide substantially more energy from renewable sources in the next 20 years. We are going to have to substantially improve all of the technologies we use to reduce emissions in that period.

But I also know that if 80 per cent of the problem is caused by burning fossil fuels then to not address a substantial amount of your effort towards stopping carbon emissions from that fossil fuel means that you are effectively giving up on the problem. I think I have a particularly hard political case. It would be a lot easier to be in the Labor Party or the Greens and to say: ‘Coal is horrible. The coal industry is making too much profit; they’re all corrupt, immoral and unethical people’—I do not think Senator Milne is really saying that—but a chunk of coal is pretty dirty stuff. You can say to the Australian people, ‘This is really dirty stuff that is causing pollution; let’s stop it, let’s shut down the mines.’ I think it is a hell of a lot easier to make a case if you are a Labor or a Green politician. I have the difficult job, and the government has the difficult job, of telling the truth to the Australian people and saying, ‘If you’re serious about energy and climate change, cleaning up coal has to be part of the answer.’ It is a difficult case to make and I have to make that case.

Senator Milne was talking about the strides that Germany is making towards renewables. Even the European Union’s use of coal will go up at the same time. They will go from 176 million tonnes to 185 million tonnes during that same period. So they will invest in more renewables; Australia will invest in more renewables. I really want the Labor Party to answer this question. It is their amendment that we are talking about. You are going to get a new trigger if you get your way. If you get your numbers on the vote on this amendment and you get the trigger, I want to know what a future Beazley or Rudd government will do when the brief comes to you for the Anvil mine, or any other future coalmine, which says it will put millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere? Or answer Senator Bartlett’s question: why would you put the trigger in if you are not going to use it? That is a fundamental question for the Labor Party to answer today before they vote on this legislation.

I do not think it is fair to Australian companies, investors or the Australian government to misrepresent the position of government or industry in relation to investments in renewables. Senator Milne knows, because I have given her chapter and verse on what we are investing in renewables. I believe the Australian government has invested around $6 million in the Origin Energy SLIVER cell project. I have raised the issue of Origin sending it offshore. Origin has said, ‘No, there is absolutely no plan to send it offshore. We plan to develop it here in Australia.’ I have raised it with Grant King, the head of Origin. He said, ‘No, we’re doing it here. We’re very appreciative of the federal government grant.’ I said, ‘Do you need any more money to keep it here?’ He said, ‘No, we’re very appreciative of the grant. We’re investing in the solar project up in Newcastle to develop solar concentrators.’

The Chinese gentleman you referred to has made a fortune in China because he has cornered the silicon market. The best solar technology going into China at the moment is Australian. It is being made at Homebush Bay by BP Solar. They are producing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of solar cells. They are leading the world, using Australian people and Australian executives. To date, the biggest solar facility built in China was built by BP Solar. So, if you are going to go around the world, please give some credit where it is due. Australians do very well in this area. Can we do better? I would love us to do better. I want more money to go into it. But do not talk Australia down. We are doing so well in so many areas.

In Nairobi my team helped lead the world towards a review of the Kyoto protocol. We could not have worked harder in all of the forums in Nairobi. Senator Milne went over there and put Australia down all the time. The team we had over there included Howard Bamsey, leading the international dialogue on future action, and Ambassador Adams. We worked hard, 18 hours a day, trying to move the world to a robust, timely review of the Kyoto protocol—working with our friends from Europe and the developing world and chairing the umbrella group. In the umbrella group we worked with Russia, Canada, Iceland, Norway and the United States, trying to get sensible outcomes, moving the world to a comprehensive agreement in the post-Kyoto period.

Aussies working hard, doing the work to move the world towards a sensible situation, never get recognised. We are held in very high regard because we work and work, yet you have an Australian senator who goes to Nairobi, puts that effort down and misrepresents it. I regard it as quite un-Australian, but it is also quite inaccurate. I think Senator Milne should have a good think about whether she wants to continue with her game of putting down the efforts of Australia and the efforts of people from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, my own department and the Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources, which, year after year, work so hard to get a substantial international agreement that will actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions and not see them increase, as they have under the first commitment stage of the Kyoto protocol.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will just clarify for Senator Ian Campbell that article 9 of the Kyoto protocol is the review of the protocol. Australia has not ratified the protocol. The discussions to review the protocol were dealt with under article 9 and the decisions were made on article 9 on the last night in Nairobi after the minister had left. Whilst I recognise the work of Mr Howard Bamsey—he was chairing the dialogue which, as the Chinese pointed out, was not a negotiating session—the only product to come out of the dialogue was an oral report in Nairobi, and there will be a written report next year. There is no process for bringing the two together. It is a parallel process, so it is quite ridiculous to suggest Australia is leading the world in that regard. We are not in the discussions. We are an observer to the protocol. Australia is allowed to speak at the behest of other countries—

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

You should be ashamed of yourself. You’re putting down the efforts of very good Australians.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not putting down the efforts of anybody. When I go around the world I point out that the leading solar technology in the world is coming out of the University of New South Wales and the Australian National University, and I talk at all times about the huge potential for improving the Australian economy by expanding the work in renewables.

But what I particularly wanted to address was fusion. I heard the minister talk about fusion. I too went down to the fusion laboratory a while ago only to discover that, whilst it is true that all of those other countries are putting a huge amount into fusion, Australia is not. In fact, the concern is that Australia is again going to lose some of its best and brightest because the excitement in physics around the world is in the fusion experiment that is being conducted by these other countries. Unless Australia has some role in that global fusion project, we will in fact hollow out the physics departments in Australian universities because there will be no excitement about physics here.

In fact, it was put to me that Australia would in no way realistically be able to match what other countries are putting into the fusion project. But it was argued that Australia should go into partnership with one of the countries involved in the fusion project so that we can develop a collaborative relationship, and Australian physicists and people in the physics departments would be able to benefit in that way. I think that is eminently sensible. I would be interested to know how the minister is going to advance Australia’s involvement in that particular technology and keep that university capacity that we have in Australia. I think that issue is important.

In terms of carbon capture and storage, I do not see the justification for taxpayers’ money going into subsidising the fossil fuel industry. It is the fossil fuel industry over 100 years which has made immense profits out of externalising the true cost. In other words, carbon dioxide pollution from coal and oil over the last 100 years has now resulted in greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, which is having a severe adverse impact and costing billions around the world. Those companies have benefited enormously by making profits without having to take into account the costs.

I argue that, if the coal industry wants to spend its own money on carbon capture and storage and if the oil industry wants to spend its own money, that is well and good. They can go and experiment all they like. But it should not be carte blanche to continue business as usual while the technology to capture carbon is unproven, because all you are doing is exacerbating the greenhouse gases and not reducing them over the years it might take. The bigger point here is that we have only 10 to 15 years to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We cannot wait for the coal and oil industries, with government subsidies, to prove up a technology. We have to put in place the technologies that we know can reduce emissions today and get those reducing emissions. Then the coal industry can go and spend its own money—the profits that it has made on the back of the community for the last 100 years.

That is where ABARE gets this so wrong all of the time. ABARE is still stuck in the old economics that externalises pollution and does not regard it as a cost. So it privatises the profits and socialises the costs. That is what the coal industry has done for 100 years. Now the coal industry continues to do it, wanting government subsidies.

I want an answer, as does Senator Bartlett, as to why the government will not pursue the notion of a trigger. We have an inventory, as you say. But why will you not pursue a trigger? What you are almost admitting to is the fact that you know and this chamber knows that coalmining does lead to the emission of a large amount of carbon dioxide and, if that were taken into account, you would have to not allow them to proceed. That is an acknowledgment of why it is a bad idea to be approving coalmines. You just do not want to be in a position to have to disprove them because you know that it is morally and ethically indefensible in a world with climate change.

While I am on my feet about the emissions, it would be very useful to the chamber if you could table documents on the volume of greenhouse gases emitted from forestry operations in Tasmania in particular, but certainly in Victoria and New South Wales as well. Also, it would be good to have that separated out in terms of regeneration burns and conversion from old-growth and native forest to plantations. That would be a very useful statistic for us to have. I would appreciate the inventory which can take us down to the very last gram, according to your explanation earlier, so as to have that on the record.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to ask the minister if he could tell us how many controlled actions the government have approved and how many they have said no to. Could I also ask that the response that the minister gave to Senator Macdonald’s questions on the government’s response to the committee report be tabled so that we do not have to wait for Hansard to get a copy of that?

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

I think the terms are the number of proposals that are referred to us, the number that actually get made controlled actions, the number that are approved with conditions, the number that are approved without conditions and those that are not approved at all. So there are a range of things. Two thousand referrals have been made, resulting in decisions that approval was required in relation to around 420 development proposals. There were 200 assessments completed and 150 approval decisions made. One hundred and twenty fisheries have been assessed and changes in management made. Nearly 200 new species, communities and processes have been included on the list of threatened species and ecological communities. You wanted to know how many have not been approved. I think there were four that were not approved. I think that, of the 150 approval decisions made, 90 per cent of those would be with conditions.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Siewert, we are just checking on the request that you made for the documentation.

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

I can table that.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am just having trouble, I must admit, with the line of argument that if we make climate change a trigger the minister will have to say no. Does that mean that we can expect him to say no from now on to all the other actions that are considered under the current triggers? I am talking about Ramsar, all the threatened species—he knows the list of triggers as well as I do. I am specifically interested in mining on Christmas Island. Can I expect the minister to be saying no to that mine that affects a number of critically endangered species?

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

I was actually asking the Labor Party to tell the chamber when they have this trigger, when they get into power—

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When will that be?

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

For your sake, I hope it is very soon; for my sake, I hope it is a long, long time. What I want to know is: what will the Labor Party do with this power? Why would you make all these assessments as part of every assessment, depending on where the chamber ends up on its amendment—100,000 tonnes or 500,000 tonnes of carbon—if a future Labor environment minister would not stop a facility pumping 10 million tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere or one million tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere? What would the Labor Party’s decision be on the Anvil Hill coalmine? That is what I want to know, and I think it is a fair question. They are the ones proposing the amendment.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The answer, as far as the Greens in office are concerned, is that we want to take it on the criteria that Senator Milne outlined earlier, and if it were injurious to the environment, as Anvil Hill is, then it would not proceed. I ask the minister what he thinks of the power station in Victoria which, according to the report of Sir Nicholas Stern, is putting out greenhouse gases which, in a carbon constrained world where a price was put on carbon, would be costing $1.6 billion annually. That is the impost on the environment. Does the minister believe that calculations of the damage done by pollution, under the polluter-pays principle, should be taken into account? Besides the environmental impact, should the actual potential economic impact be assessed before such projects are given the go-ahead?

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It seems that for some reason the minister has got a bit lost in his efforts to try to talk this out today. That is okay by us; we are happy to keep debating and moving through the long list of amendments on this bill. It is a bill that fails dramatically on just about all fronts. I note that the former environment minister, Robert Hill, clearly understood the need for a climate change trigger. On 10 December 1999, Robert Hill released a consultation paper on the possible application of a greenhouse trigger under the EPBC Act. At the time he stated:

Introducing a greenhouse trigger would provide another measure for addressing our international responsibilities in relation to climate change and ensuring Australia meets its Kyoto target.

I think that Robert Hill at least understood the need for a climate change trigger and he knew that it was a part of a comprehensive approach that does include Kyoto, emissions trading and support for renewable energy.

But I think that the time when we had a minister who understood the need for a climate change trigger and, indeed, the impact of climate change has long gone. The moderates in the Liberal Party have obviously taken a hiding and we have got an extreme government with a pretty extreme environment minister, who is now trying to tell a new story, a story that does not include a climate change trigger. I was appalled, and I know my colleagues were appalled, when the environment minister told the Senate the day before yesterday—and I think that he may have reiterated it yesterday—that Labor’s push for a climate change trigger was an anticoal amendment to the environment protection law. Isn’t that interesting? Senator Hill was never accused of being anticoal. Labor does support Australia’s coal industry and supports measures to develop clean coal. As our leader, Kim Beazley, has stated:

If the Labor Party is elected we will go down the path of clean coal and renewables. It is as simple as that.

And it is as simple as that. I note that the shadow environment minister, my colleague Mr Albanese, has referred to the importance of clean coal technology in at least 73 speeches and media releases. I think that that is a pretty clear message. I also note that Mr Albanese was the keynote speaker at the Clean Coal Conference, to which the government did not even bother to send a representative—and that really says it all. On the point about environmental assessment, of course it is about looking at each proposal on its merit. What we are dealing with here is a minister scrambling about, trying to find some cover, given the dramatic change in this government’s position since Senator Hill was environment minister.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister is still doing his sums, I think, on the cost of Hazelwood power station at $1.6 billion a year and whether he believes assessments like that should be done or whether pollution should be zero rated—that is, not accounted for in any measured economic way at all. If so, what other parts of the market does he think should be assessed at zero? The other question that Senator Milne asked was about the greenhouse gas emissions coming out of logging in Tasmania, Victoria and southern New South Wales in the wake of the minister’s assurance to the committee that the Australian government had a system of assessment of greenhouse gas emissions which was the best on the planet and that the figures were readily available.

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

As I recall from our national greenhouse gas accounting publications, which I am quite sure are available on the internet, figures for forestry in Tasmania are available on the internet, and I would refer Senator Milne to those. I approved of the expansion of Hazelwood, which was a proposal that came from the Victorian government—so I have approved it. I approve of the idea of developing—as we are doing with one of the Low Emissions Technology Demonstration Fund grants—technologies that reduce the carbon emissions from burning coal.

I believe that a substantial and very important part of the solution to meeting the policy balance, which I described in my first contribution in this debate, is to provide secure energy sources for the world and Australia and to maintain job security and economic security for Australian families whilst doing so in a carbon-challenged world which demands that we produce substantially larger amounts of energy, both here in Australia and around the world, but with substantially lower greenhouse gas emissions. To do that you need to address the emissions from fossil fuel. In the case of Hazelwood, you need to address the emissions from burning brown coal. Part of that process must be to seek to dry out that coal—to clean up that coal—before you burn it and, in future, gasify the coal to get it to a much higher energy coefficient level and then capture the carbon and store that carbon safely. That is the serious challenge.

How you achieve that in terms of balancing the investment in the up-front infrastructure with finding mechanisms to address the ongoing and increasing costs associated with running that additional technology—the additional plant and equipment you will be required to apply to a place like Hazelwood or, in fact, many other power stations around the world like it—is something that the government is addressing. The Prime Minister has recently indicated that he is going to appoint a task force which will look at the interaction of emerging global emissions trading systems, pricing systems and market mechanisms that can be established in Australia. I think that announcement by the Prime Minister is a very sensible step forward for the government. I expect that he will announce details of that shortly. It recognises the issues that were brought starkly to the world’s attention by Sir Nicholas Stern’s report. The important part of his work was to say to the world: there will not just be damage to ecosystems and potential damage to human habitation as a result of dangerous climate change if we carry on business as usual but, quite clearly, there will also be—as Senator Brown and Senator Milne would have recognised for a long time—substantial economic impacts. Delaying action will heighten those economic impacts, so there are benefits to acting early.

It is a hackneyed cliche to say so, but it is accurate in this case: regarding the course that Australia is setting—in the case of Hazelwood, in collaboration with the Victorian Labor government; in the case of another fossil fuel cleaning up and capturing project, in collaboration with the Queensland government; and, in the case of the Gorgon gas project in Western Australia, in collaboration with the Gorgon partners—we are providing substantial leadership in funding the sorts of breakthrough technologies you will need to stop carbon going into the atmosphere from fossil fuels. But that does not, in the mind of the government, provide the only part of the answer. You will need pricing signals and market mechanisms. The challenge that the world needs to address is: how do you do that in a way that does not push the carbon into another jurisdiction? That is the challenge the world has not substantially answered yet and it is a challenge in which the Australian government wants to play a positive part.

The announcement by the Prime Minister about addressing the need for a comprehensive post-Kyoto agreement, which we have called new Kyoto, allied with his announcement about a business and government task force to address the need for an appropriate market mechanism working globally and within Australia, was very well received by people around the world, particularly our European friends. It demonstrates the continuing commitment of the government to innovate in the area of climate change policy.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just want to follow up on the inventory. I went to the UNFCCC website to look at Australia’s sector by sector report. The 2004 report is there, but if there is a 2005 report I could not see it. When I looked specifically for forest regen burns and the contribution in particular to that, I could not see that it is differentiated. So, whilst I appreciate that some of the information might be in various forms, I would appreciate it if the department could table that. As the minister said, if it is readily available it should not be too difficult to find the regen burns and forestry activities for Tasmania, Victoria and southern New South Wales.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Likewise, having found the same shortage of information, I ask the minister: who did the assessment on the Tasmanian forests? Are forward assessments not thought sensible in view of the fact that something like 20,000 hectares of native forest will be cut down and large parts of those burnt in the coming 12 months? What is the minister’s knowledge on the tonnage of greenhouse gases coming out of the destruction of native forests in Tasmania for the current 12 months—or the current financial year, if he does not know the answer for the calendar year? I do not think he will have either of those figures, and he should have. The question is: which independent assessor is providing the information upon which the minister relies?

Secondly, the minister mentioned families and their security—and that terminology is the Howard government’s mantra. I mentioned that, by not bringing in a polluter-pays principle, $1.6 billion per annum was being put on the sideboard for Australia’s children to pay. The government are not even assessing it. The minister does not know the cost of exudates from these power stations. He does not have any idea of the economic ramifications of it. But he is very happy to leave that to our children to pay. I agree with Senator Milne that something is lacking in ethics and morality here. It is easy to talk about the security of families and children, but they have a right to inherit from us a proper assessment of the damage done by the actions of this government and, in that particular case, the coal industry.

Finally, the minister has talked about the number of assessments the government is doing. We know that the first thing the Prime Minister wanted was an assessment of the nuclear option—because his imagination did not go to the more obvious and readily available options. Could the minister advise the committee whether he has put a request to the Prime Minister, through cabinet, to do an assessment of the energy efficiency potential in Australia—the jobs that would be created and the cost benefit to the domestic retail, industrial and agricultural sectors? That would free up huge amounts of electrical energy that could be used by new customers. It is the cheapest way of doing it—looked at one way, it is neutral; if you look at it another way, it is positive—and it is a great creator of jobs. What is the assessment on that—and who is doing it? Has the minister asked for that assessment to be done by an independent authority? We should not just take the information that is available in the marketplace—like the Prime Minister did for nuclear energy—but look for an independent and authoritative assessment of energy efficiency.

Then, of course, there is alternative energy. Senator Milne has been pointing to the tragic loss of fantastic solar and other technologies to overseas—because the Howard government has failed to get behind it. I wonder if the minister has put a recommendation to cabinet for an independent assessment of the alternative renewable energy sector. What jobs would be created? What is the potential export income? What are the environmental advantages over coal, including less-clean coal—or so-called clean coal, which is a misnomer? What are the advantages even if, in decades down the line, there turned out to be potential for sequestration—not for current power stations but for some of the newly ordered power stations? That would be way after Sir Nicholas Stern’s time line for action. This action needs to be taken now, not in some future halcyon age when there will be answers which would allow this government and its allies to continue to burn coal at the expanded rate that is currently projected.

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

I welcome the questions. I will ask the Australian Greenhouse Office to brief Senator Milne—and Senator Brown, if he is interested—on how we bring together the emissions data for our annual global report on emissions for forestry and land use activity in Tasmania and the other states referred to.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just tell the committee.

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

Senator Brown says he does not want the briefing.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Chair, on a point of order: I did not say that at all. The minister heard me say, ‘Get the information and tell the committee.’ The committee is asking the questions here. Answers to the committee are what is required, not private briefings.

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

I am happy to get that information from the Australian Greenhouse Office on how they get the information that is provided to the world at large on all of Australians greenhouse gas emitting operations. I know, from reading the information thoroughly myself, that the change in land use and forestry activities in every state is reported on. I think it is entirely valid to ask how those reports are put together. If Senator Brown wants the whole chamber to be familiar with that, I would be happy to provide that information.

Senator Brown also asked about energy efficiency measures. He is quite right in pointing to the fact that energy efficiency can deliver substantial abatement at very low cost. The government has put in place a range of measures to ensure that the household sector—which creates about 20 per cent of Australia’s emissions—and the industrial sector have in place a number of policy measures to achieve energy efficiency.

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Lundy interjecting—

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

I would be very happy to, but, if you ask a question about energy efficiency, you deserve at least some answer. We have brought in minimum appliance standards for the household sector. Once again, that is a policy initiative of this government that has been put in place with the cooperation of the states and the electrical appliance industry in Australia. I suspect that Senator Milne and Senator Brown might find that this is one initiative we have taken that can be applauded. It is also an initiative that has been replicated around the world. We have worked with international associations for the use of the standards that apply in Australia’s minimum appliance standards. Our energy appliance labelling regime is also being replicated right around the world.

There are a range of energy efficiency measures being incorporated in the Solar Cities program, and we have announced the rollout of the first three at this stage—one in New South Wales, one in Queensland and one in South Australia.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Temporary Chairman, on a point of order, I would like to help the committee if I may. The question was: has the government established an inquiry into how energy efficiency is going? We will get a debate here about how far behind the rest of the world Australia is if the Minister for the Environment and Heritage keeps going this way. The question is: has he put a submission for an inquiry to cabinet to assess how well we are doing?

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator, you know that is not a point of order but I will draw the minister back.

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

I am saying that, rather than having yet another inquiry, we are in fact taking a whole range of actions across the household sector and the industry sector through regulatory approaches—for example, through building codes. Senator Brown may know that or he may not. He may be spending his time concentrating on policies to make drugs more available to young people. He spends a lot of time on processes to increase taxes on family homes. Now he is talking about increasing taxes on energy. We know that in the past he has promoted policies to make drugs more freely available to children and young people in Australia. Perhaps he should come to grips with climate change policy in Australia. We are changing building codes to ensure that buildings in the future are more energy efficient.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Temporary Chairman, I rise on a point of order. The minister has engaged in a pretty despicable representation, so I will ask for the opportunity to correct the record.

The Temporary Chairman:

That is not a point of order, Senator Brown.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Then I seek the opportunity to correct the misrepresentation.

The Temporary Chairman:

It is not a point of order, Senator Brown. You will have a chance to continue the debate.

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

Senator Brown always gets upset when we draw attention to the Greens’ policies on drugs and on taxes on the family home. Every time I mention it I know I can get him to rise in his place and take a point of order, but I will not stop mentioning the fact that the Greens misrepresent their own policies by pretending they are green when in fact most of their policies are quite destructive social policies that would actually tear communities apart.

On climate change, which is an incredibly important issue, and addressing energy efficiency, which is an incredibly important and effective way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we are ensuring that we have more energy efficient buildings through building codes and we are also encouraging, through best practice in both residential and commercial construction, energy efficient buildings. This is an incredibly important way to mitigate future greenhouse gas emissions in Australia and, indeed, around the world.

The Energy Efficiency Opportunities Act 2006, probably another key environmental measure that Senator Brown totally missed, requires Australia’s large energy consumers—I think anyone using over 0.5 of a petajoule, which is the top 250 energy users, who use about 80 per cent of Australia’s energy—to do an energy efficiency audit. If you read the papers and can get past the social pages, you will find advertisements throughout Australian newspapers reminding Australian companies that use that amount of energy that they are required to undertake those energy efficiency audits and then, once they are done, produce a plan to introduce energy efficiency actions within their companies and report against them annually. That is a mandatory requirement.

What you see in Australia, rather than the Greens saying, ‘Oh, let’s have another inquiry,’ is that we are taking action. We are taking action at the household level. We are producing green guides for people who are renovating their homes. We have a guide where anyone who is doing a home renovation can get access to information from the Australian Greenhouse Office website which will show them how to do renovations in a greenhouse-friendly manner. We are also doing that for commercial buildings. We are ensuring that when people buy appliances they can put energy efficient appliances into their home. So there is action both at the household level and at the commercial level to ensure that energy efficiency opportunities are used as one of the key measures.

It is important to understand that you cannot just do energy efficiency and you cannot just do renewables. We know that you need to have a substantial increase in renewable energy in the world if you are to address dangerous climate change. You need to do that, you need energy efficiency, but you cannot do that without addressing cleaning up coal or capturing carbon and storing it. The Greens and some people in the Labor Party say, ‘Let’s just close down the coalmining industry; let’s close down Hazelwood power station; let’s not build any more power stations that burn coal,’ when in fact the answer is that you do need energy efficiency measures, you do need clean coal technologies, you do need carbon capture technologies, you do need fuel switching. You need to sell Australian natural gas to China, Japan, Korea and North America and see as many facilities as possible in those countries switching to gas from coal or oil. But again we have the Greens saying: ‘No, we don’t want a natural gas industry in the Burrup. We want to stop that industry because of impacts on rock art.’ The Australian Greens, who pretend they care about the environment, are saying: ‘No, we can’t spent money on carbon capture and storage. That’s an inappropriate thing for the public to spend money on.’

We cannot even have an inquiry into nuclear power. That has been out of bounds for 30 years in Australia because of the ideological hang-ups of people like Senator Brown and people in the Labor Party. We are saying you need a whole range of technologies, and yet the Greens would rule out carbon capture and storage. They would rule out the gas industry and they would rule out the nuclear industry. So there you have three billion tonnes per annum of abatement across the globe and the Greens are saying no to it. You wonder just how serious they are about climate change.

We know they are serious about drugs policies that hurt families; we know that they are serious about tax policies that hurt families. From their actions and their policies, we know that they are not serious about climate change. I will not be lectured to by Senator Brown on the need for an inquiry into energy efficiency when this government sees energy efficiency as a substantial and important part of a portfolio based approach to addressing climate change that includes action on renewables, action on energy efficiency, action on carbon capture and storage, action on making vehicles more efficient, action that encourages fuel switching and action that encourages land use changes—such as stopping deforestation. Land clearing in Australia has virtually come to an end under this government and the planting of new trees has never been greater. We are on track to plant somewhere between 750 million and a billion trees under this government, all of them out there growing and sequestering carbon in a very natural way. We have also had the political boldness to say, ‘If you’re serious about climate change, you also need to use nuclear power in the world. Let’s address Australia’s role in the nuclear fuel cycle.’ You need all of these seven technologies, but the Greens would rule three of them out because of ideological baggage.

Progress reported.