Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The committee is considering the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006 and opposition amendments Nos (1) and (2) on sheet 5151 moved by Senator Carr. The question is that opposition amendments Nos (1) and (2) on sheet 5151 be agreed to.

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

I asked a question in our discussion of this legislation on 1 December about the line of argument that if we make climate change a trigger, the minister will have to say no. I asked:

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 was interested in whether the minister’s opposition to the climate change trigger meant that he would have to say no to a whole lot of coalmining proposals and whether that in fact extended to other developments—for example, on Christmas Island. He did not answer the question. In fact, he turned it around to ask the ALP. I am quite happy to ask the ALP that question at some stage in the future, but I actually wanted to know what the government thought about it. I also wanted to find out whether that means that the answer on anything related to matters of national environmental significance will be no. And, specifically, I ask: does that mean the minister will be saying no to mining on Christmas Island?

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

I may well say no to mining on Christmas Island when I read the assessment. But we are making an assessment, so I can say either yes or no. I have a question to those who want to say, ‘Let’s put an assessment requirement into the act which will require every coalmine in Australia to be subjected to an assessment based on greenhouse impact’.

You can already accurately assess the greenhouse contribution of a coalmine, based on—as Senator Siewert would understand quite well—a fairly simple calculation about the greenhouse gas emissions from each tonne of coal. Depending on the quality of the coal, you will know exactly—give or take a small percentage error—what the greenhouse gas emissions will be for a coalmine when the coal is burnt. That is quite easy.

I do not think it is so much a question for the Greens to answer, because I think Senator Milne very explicitly and very honestly said that—I do not want to verbal her on this but I think she said—‘On a moral and ethical basis we would say no to coalmines, knowing that the coal will be burnt and will create greenhouse gases.’ The real question—I think I said last week—is one for either Beazley Labor or, potentially as it was then, Rudd Labor. I made the point that we do not take any joy out of leadership fights; we have been through a lot ourselves on this side. But there is an issue for Rudd Labor if they are proposing to apply a Commonwealth assessment for greenhouse gas emissions to coalmines. And this is even more interesting because Mr Rudd is from Queensland and he is pushing the idea of cooperative federalism. He needs to now tell Mr Beattie why he would put a new layer of Commonwealth assessment process across every potential coalmine in Queensland, if, in fact, a future environment minister—say, Peter Garrett in a Rudd Labor government—were not going to say no to opening a new coalmine in Queensland. I think it is a very important question for Labor to answer. I repeat the view that—and I do not want to go on ad nauseam; I would like to keep my answers shorter today—

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

You’re not doing a very good job then, are you!

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

I think I am doing pretty well so far; in 2½ minutes I have covered a few fairly crucial issues.

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

Waffle! You haven’t answered the question.

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

I actually answered it in the opening sentence—

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

Then sit down!

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

but you wouldn’t understand.

Jeannie Ferris (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Ferris interjecting—

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

He is an obnoxious character, isn’t he! The biggest greenhouse gas producer on the Senate floor is Senator Carr. But the real question then becomes—and it is a very awkward question; you do not wonder why Senator Carr would get obstreperous and short-tempered, because it is a big issue for Rudd Labor now—

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

You’re talking drivel now—absolute drivel.

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

We know that you get upset, Senator Carr. But you have got away now for about three years with having no policy on greenhouse except signing Kyoto—when the whole world is moving beyond Kyoto—and having a national emissions trading scheme to which the two big growth states in Australia have said, ‘No; we are not going to be part of it.’

So you have actually got to do some hard work. You have got to come up with some practical policies which will actually reduce greenhouse gases. Even putting a trigger into the EPBC is irrelevant unless you answer the question that the Greens have answered honestly. And the Greens and the coalition, from different perspectives, are sick and tired of the Labor Party getting a free ride on the environment. You cannot send Peter Garrett off to the Greens to say, ‘We’re anti coal,’ and then send Martin Ferguson off to say, ‘We’re pro coal.’ You can’t have Martin Ferguson going off to the uranium mining industry and saying, ‘We’re pro uranium,’ and then have Peter Garrett saying, ‘We’re anti it.’ You cannot get away with that for very long. The Greens are shining a light on your hypocrisy and your duplicity and so am I.

I have answered Senator Siewert’s question. I will get an assessment about mining on Christmas Island, I will look at that assessment, I will make a decision based on the science in the assessment and I will say yea or nay to mining on Christmas Island. I may say no, or I may say, ‘Yes, subject to a whole load of different changes.’ They are the sorts of parameters I would have on any environmental assessment.

Labor are proposing an amendment. They want to put a new assessment requirement on every coalmine—in fact, every industrial facility—in Australia. If a Rudd government gets an assessment on a coalmine in Queensland or the Hunter Valley—a Sonoma mine or an Anvil mine—and it tells them it is going to produce millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions when they burn that coal overseas, will the environment minister, be it Peter Garrett or Kim Carr—

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

Senator Carr interjecting—

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

I do not think Kevin Rudd would appoint a member of the Liberal Party as his environment minister—even though each of the Howard government environment ministers has done far more for the environment than any Labor environment minister has ever done. This government has been the best friend the environment has ever had; that is just a matter of fact. But, as Senator Siewert asked: when Labor puts the anti coalmining trigger into the federal environment law, the EPBC Act, will Rudd Labor pull it? Senator Carr wants to bring this to a vote as soon as he can. I think he owes it to Australia to tell us whether he, Kevin Rudd or Peter Garrett—or whoever the environment minister is—will pull that trigger. Otherwise, why have the trigger? It is a fair question.

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

And that was the minister ‘for’ the environment! The minister says that you can work out on the back of an envelope the amount of greenhouse gas that any coalmine in Australia is going to produce—whether or not it is exported overseas. But then he says he is opposed to a trigger. He argues himself into a corner. If it is such a simple matter to do an assessment of the greenhouse gas impact of coalmines—or thermal power stations or any other entity—then why not do it? One can only be left with the glaringly obvious conclusion that this minister for the environment does not want an assessment of how much greenhouse gas his action and his dereliction of duty will lead to in an age where climate change, as Senator Milne says, is at a tipping point.

If it is so easy to assess the greenhouse gas production from any coalmine—whether or not the coal is exported—why not do it? That is plain, clear information. The answer is that the minister would then have to act on that information. At the moment, he can fail to act in defence of the environment—as he so often does—whether it be the global environment or the environment of this great country of ours.

What is the minister’s assessment of reports that climate change is leading to the unhinging of the Ross icesheet in Antarctica and that, in coming years, this could rapidly lead to a sea level rise of between five and 17 metres around the world? Does the minister give any credence to these scientific reports coming from New Zealand? Which of the measurements—five metres or 17 metres—is true, or does the minister have some other assessment? What is the minister’s action plan for this nation in the event of that catastrophe? As the scientists are linking this to greenhouse gas production, does the minister not think it reasonable that we measure greenhouse gas production and expect action to prevent it so that such catastrophes can, in turn, be prevented down the line?

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

I take this opportunity to canvass some of these matters. The Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator Ian Campbell, is a former Manager of Government Business in the Senate. He spent a considerable amount of time in that job—in fact, some say he spent far too long in that job because the government did not have the confidence to move him from that job. I think he was in that job for six or seven years, so he would surely understand the importance of seeking to progress legislation in an orderly and timely manner at this time of year. I have no doubt that the government strategists—or what passes for strategy within this government—understand that principle. They would not have brought on at this particular time of year such a highly controversial piece of legislation, which has had so little public debate and consultation with the community, unless they understood that these are the circumstances in which governments seek to have legislation passed without proper consideration.

I am in fact quite grateful that the minister at the table is able to draw our attention to some of these questions. It is quite clear that he wants a protracted debate. It is quite clear that he wants these matters canvassed thoroughly and completely—and, if necessary, for some days—and I am only too happy to help them in that regard. It is quite clear that the minister wishes not to pursue the issues properly but to make tendentious points—which forces me to point out that the minister’s contributions are totally spurious. He makes the claim that the opposition is in the business of closing down mines. The minister understands that, in terms of the climate change trigger, we take the view that legislation of this type—409 pages of it—at this point in the 21st century ought to at least mention climate change as an issue. You would think that the government’s thinking would have advanced to a stage where the question of climate change had sufficiently registered with the geniuses who populate the government benches to be included in this legislation.

The government has failed to do what everyone else in the country is talking about, and that is to address the issue of climate change. That is what these amendments do. The government seeks to cover up its negligence and its incompetence by trying to misrepresent the opposition’s position by suggesting that, in a country which has 300 years of secure fuel supplies from coal, we would turn our back on the coal industry. The minister must think we are as stupid as he is to buy such a notion—300 years of fuel supply—that the coal industry is going to be closed down overnight, when he knows full well the opposition’s views on the question of clean coal and when he knows only too well my personal views on the work that CSIRO is undertaking and on other substantial research efforts being made within the scientific community in this country in terms of improving the efficiency and the capacity of our coal industry to respond to the whole question of the greenhouse gas challenge.

Senator Campbell has sought to propagate his ignorant and buffoonish attitudes up and down this country as if people were not awake to the sheer hypocrisy of this government and as if the public were not fully aware of the way in which this government has ducked and weaved on this issue over the last 10 years. This government has gone on its guts to the United States on these questions and moved its position according to the changes within US policy. This government has denigrated its own public servants, who as I have said on many occasions are some of the leading public servants in the world on these matters, and has vilified their work by suggesting that the whole Kyoto process is essentially a waste of space.

We know that the former environment minister did not share the current minister’s view, because Senator Hill understood the need for a climate change trigger. If Senator Campbell were to be consistent with the position taken by this government in 1999, he would be supporting these Labor amendments. On 10 December 1999 Robert Hill released a consultation paper on the possible application of a greenhouse trigger under the EPBC Act. At that time Senator Hill said that ‘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’. But this minister tries to hoodwink the public into presuming that this was never the position of the Howard government. People who know something about the issue know what complete nonsense Senator Campbell is saying. We used to have an environment minister who actually cared about the environment; we now have an environment minister strutting around the country preoccupied with playing political games with parrots and whatever device he can come up with to protect the political interests of the Liberal Party. He is not about protecting the interests of the environment.

When Senator Campbell was a Democrat, when he learnt his basic politics as a member of the Democrats, he understood the importance of these issues. But since that time he has moved somewhat across the political spectrum to the point now where he is on the extreme right of the Liberal Party. I understand that he has had some problems with Noel Crichton-Browne and a few others in the ugly faction of the right in Western Australia. He now feels he has to mouth these platitudes to try to recapture the ground they once held and thus sees the need to denigrate the work of the moderates within the Liberal Party—and, of course, Senator Hill was one of those moderates. Under the policies that are being pursued by this minister the reputation of those moderates is being destroyed.

We have an extremist government with an extremist minister pandering to the most reactionary elements of the business community in this country with the view to pretending that he has an interest in environmental questions. We have seen the appalling sight of the environment minister seeking to push the line in various committees of this parliament that somehow or another Labor is advancing a position which is anti coal because we are proposing that there should be environment protection measures—in this particular bill it is a proposal for a climate change trigger. No-one ever accused Senator Hill of being anti coal when he put up a position very similar to the one that the Labor Party is proposing now. I do not think anyone with any real understanding of the politics of this country would buy for a moment the minister’s slurs, the minister’s contemptible defamations, in terms of the Australian Labor Party’s attitude towards the coal industry; nor would anyone for a moment take the view that the Labor Party was not interested in ensuring the advancement of the coal industry to the development of clean coal. What Labor Party leaders have said time and time again is that the Labor Party, if elected, will go down the path of clean coal and renewables. It is as simple as that. The minister knows that but he is seeking to completely misrepresent Labor’s position, as he has done here tonight.

I say to the minister that, if he wants to continue this discussion, I am only too happy to oblige him. We will go round for round, pound for pound, for as long as it takes. But as a former Manager of Government Business in the Senate, the minister would understand the consequences of the actions he has taken. I am sure his colleagues, some of whom might occasionally glance at the television screen tonight while enjoying the Christmas cheer, would be very impressed with his performance. I am sure Senator Minchin would be very impressed with the sort of nonsensical, provocative and dilettante attitudes this minister is expressing.

In conclusion, we simply say that, when it comes to these matters, it is appropriate, reasonable and entirely in keeping with public sentiment that there be a simple measure included in legislation of this type that the minister should undertake an examination of projects on the basis of the merits of a particular project and should undertake an assessment in terms of the effect of climate change.

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

I would like to make a couple of points. Senator Brown asked an entirely reasonable question. I think the last 11 minutes that Senator Carr blustered and filibustered for did not raise a single question. He needs to answer the question: what will he do when he has an assessment that says the Sonoma coalmine in Queensland will produce X million tonnes when the coal is burnt somewhere? He needs to answer the question: what will happen when a future Labor minister is given an assessment that says that the Anvil Hill mine will create 10 million tonnes? He just blustered on and wasted 10 minutes. He did not answer that question. What he failed to address was the fact that many members of the Australian Labor Party, mostly in his own diminishing faction or mini faction, have gone on the record making it quite clear that they oppose coal. Mr Beazley was unable to do this in his time as leader, but it is time that the Leader of the Opposition made a clear statement in relation to coal.

A Labor Party member of the House of Representatives has written to me. Her letter, above her own signature, states quite clearly, and I quote:

The Hunter is one of the world’s carbon capitals and is home to a rapacious coal-mining industry. Anvil Hill is a key part of the Hunter Valley coal export expansion which needs to be stopped if the world is to avoid climate change.

I would say that Senator Milne and Kelly Hoare are of like mind on that statement. The Newcastle Council, the Waverly Council and Labor Party members have all said that we cannot have coal if we are to save the climate, when in fact sensible people know that coal, whether we like it or not, will form a substantial part of the baseload power provision for the planet over the next 25 or 30 years at the very least. There will be an expansion from about 4½ million tonnes of coal to 7½ million tonnes of coal—I might have that figure wrong; I might have about two noughts missing there. There will be an expansion of about 30 or 40 per cent in the extraction and use of coal for baseload power across the planet in that time. So the real challenge, if you are serious about addressing climate change, is in fact to realise that.

This government is putting hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars into renewables. Labor are not promising any money; they are just mouthing platitudes as usual. This is a big challenge for Kevin Rudd and his team. Rather than just saying, ‘Oh, we like renewables and we like clean coal,’ they should put up a budget for clean coal. Let us put a price on it and make a choice. He should say to the Australian people: ‘We’ll spend this much on education. We’ll spend this much on clean coal.’ Do not just say, ‘Oh, we like clean coal,’ or ‘We like renewables,’ put a budget on it. We have put up over $2 billion. We are spending that money. We are rolling out programs. We can be judged on our performance. I will be very happy to be judged on our performance of delivering practical programs to abate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases such as methane.

There is one other point I need to respond to from Senator Carr. Senator Hill did put out a discussion paper as promised in relation to the desirability of a greenhouse trigger. I think it needs to be put on the Senate record that every single state Labor government responded to that discussion paper, as did the two territory governments. Every single state Labor government opposed the greenhouse trigger. Senator Carr, being an active member of a faction in Victoria—as I said, a diminishing faction—talked about my factional allegiances and my role as Manager of Government Business. We know that Senator Carr’s record will show that he was the shortest-serving Manager of Opposition Business, probably for good reason.

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

That’s not quite true.

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

I am happy for you to correct the record, but you were opposition manager for a very short period of time.

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

Is that right? Check that again.

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

It seemed that way to me anyway. Maybe I was manager for too long. Maybe you are right and it is all comparative. But you were manager for a very short and ineffective time. I think the person who took over from you is doing a good job, as the person who has taken over from me, I suspect, is doing a better job than I did. I am happy to congratulate Senator Ellison and Senator Ludwig because I think they are managing the affairs of the chamber well.

Of course you will always get an interjection when a fact lands on the table that Senator Carr does not like. But every state Labor government says that they do not want this trigger. There was one government that said they did not mind the trigger. We could play the Senator Abetz game of ‘who said it’ but of course it was in fact Jon Stanhope. I think the mining and industrial activities within the ACT might lead you to wonder why that was. All of the other states said no. So the Labor Party, root and branch, rank and file, right across the country said no to this—and for good reason.

Senator Brown asked a serious question about the science. I accept the consensus of the science. We spent about $32 million of Australian taxpayers’ money on developing the best quality science across the country on a whole range of greenhouse gas and climate change issues. One of the most important reports was one by Professor Will Steffen that we commissioned from the ANU. We asked Professor Steffen to analyse all of the best research across the world to I guess, in a way, give us a lead towards which will be in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that we will see next year.

His predictions are that generally the last IPCC report’s predictions were more likely to come in on the earlier range rather than the later range in terms of warming. Professor Steffen made the point—and I do not have the report at hand—that, yes, you could get sea level rises of some metres if you see, for example, the Greenland ice shelf melt. I think the prediction is for something like 7 metres. But, when he was questioned on that, he said that sea level rise would occur over a period of 1,000 years. When questioned about sea level rises in this century, I think his report said that the consensus is around about half a metre over the next 100 years. From the preliminary briefings I have had about the intergovernmental panel, they would coalesce around that figure as well. I accept those figures.

I think that practical, sensible action domestically, tied with international agreements, processes and policies that deliver real outcomes, are a matter of vital significance for Australia and the world—contrary to what Senator Carr says when he verbals us as saying that the Kyoto process is a waste of space. Regardless of what he may think, perhaps he should sit down with Anthony Albanese one night and talk about what the Australian delegation did at the Nairobi conference. Mr Albanese was a member of the Australian delegation, and he saw what we did over there. If there were any parallel between what he said to me and what he says to his Labor Party comrades on the performance of the Australian delegation, Senator Carr could not possibly say that we were not deeply involved in the UN FCCC processes. The processes, contrary to what Senator Milne said on Friday, where we were deeply involved—

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

As observers!

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

No, we weren’t observers.

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

You were—you were watching the traffic!

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

Senator Carr, order!

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

One day, if Senator Carr ever—and God help the Labor Party if it happens—becomes environment spokesperson, maybe he will go on a delegation to the UN FCCC. He will realise that, in saying that, he is denigrating and reducing the efforts—I am happy to put my efforts aside—of a very dedicated, highly respected Australian delegation who worked in all of the processes of the United Nations framework convention over a period of two weeks and achieved all of the outcomes we set out to achieve. The core one was to get a robust and timely review of the Kyoto protocol, working shoulder to shoulder with European and other friends who are trying to get a global and comprehensive agreement on climate change action.

It saddens me that I would extend an invitation to a Labor Party spokesman to attend as a member of the delegation and that you either do not talk to Mr Albanese or that, if you do speak to him, he would say one thing to me and another thing to you. But I do not think that is the case: I respect the role that Mr Albanese played on that delegation, and he would tell you that Australia played a significant role in all of the forums of the UN FCCC. To describe our role as that of an observer is absolutely inaccurate, fictitious and a deep insult to the dedicated—

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

But true!

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

No, totally untrue, totally misleading, pure propaganda coming from a failed and hopeless member of the Socialist Left whose ideals on these issues—secure energy and climate change—belong back in the 1960s.

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

I wish to check: the minister said he accepted the science of the reports coming out this year. I asked specifically about the reports from New Zealand scientists about the Ross icesheet and the prospect of it melting and delivering a five- to 17-metre sea level rise around the world, with the West Antarctic icecap. I wondered if the minister could say whether he accepts that science.

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

My preliminary advice is that that science is not accepted by the intergovernmental panel or by scientists around the world. It certainly would be a risk, but I think that has come from one scientist. It has certainly come from New Zealand. I think there is enormous value—and I am someone who sees enormous value, as the government does, because we make a major contribution to it—in the concept of having a very good panel across the globe of the best scientists available from all of the different parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. I think that one of the great achievements of the framework convention is that it has established the intergovernmental panel, and it ensures that any piece of science, such as that which has come out of New Zealand on the Ross iceshelf, can be peer reviewed, can be evaluated and can feed into sensible policy. As I understand it, that is not what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will accept as being the sort of science that we should base policy on.

My understanding from preliminary briefings on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is that—if you want to get a window on what is likely to come out of that—the work of Professor Will Steffen from the ANU, in the document that I published and that we commissioned on the best available science on the planet, is the best guidance. I would commend it to Senator Brown if he has not read it. That, from my point of view as environment minister, is the science that I would most recommend to people and take forward in any of my discussions within the government or internationally. It does say that the assessments made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its last report were more likely to come in earlier rather than later. The science is coalescing around the fact that the planet is warming more quickly than the last intergovernmental panel said, at around 0.6 to 0.7 degrees of warming over the last 100 years and double that rate at the poles. So there is a high risk, if there is no action taken or if it is business as usual, of the Greenland icesheet melting. I know there is consensus on that. That is why the world needs practical, real, effective actions, and that is why the world needs an agreement that involves all of the major economies.

If we want to be serious about this, we need to recognise that the old Kyoto protocol, the existing protocol, does not have a pathway towards involvement in commitments by the most rapidly industrialising countries, and we do need that. You cannot have a new Kyoto agreement, a post-Kyoto agreement or a beyond Kyoto agreement—whatever you want to call it—that does not have a pathway towards commitments by rapidly industrialising economies such as China and India. That is not an excuse for not taking action domestically anywhere in the world. It is not an excuse for avoiding concerted international action. What it is, in fact, is an opportunity for a country like Australia to get deeply involved in finding a pathway towards those major rapidly industrialising economies getting involved.

Although Senator Carr and I think to a lesser extent Senator Milne seek to disparage the Australian government’s role, we have worked very hard over the last two years in particular to play a constructive role, and what I might call a bridging role, between the interests in Europe and the interests in our own region finding a way to get commitments from those rapidly industrialising countries. That is very much the focus of what we must do. Just having 35 or 40 per cent of the world’s economies involved in an agreement, and ignoring 60 or 70 per cent of the world’s emitters or economies, and particularly ignoring the rapidly growing ones, is to seek to ignore what can only be seen, by anyone who sits down for an hour or so and looks at the size and scope of the problem, as the real solution.

If you do care deeply about our planet, about our ecosystems and about mankind, that is the approach that we have to take. I think it is a sound approach and I think the Australian delegations at the last two conferences of the parties, the last two UNFCCC conferences and all of the associated inter-sessional forums have done well. I have been very proud to lead both those delegations and to be associated with people like Ambassador Adams and former Ambassador Bamsey, now the head of the dialogue on future action and playing on the international stage. They are great Australians who are working very hard not only for the Australian interest but also for the global interest.

Australia’s interests are intimately tied up with finding this international solution. You do not get the solution for Australia—you do not save the Barrier Reef from coral bleaching, you do not save our alpine regions from losing their snow cover and you do not save our river systems from losing their water inflows—unless you have a robust agreement internationally that delivers you reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. If you do not work hard to bring about that sort of agreement then you will not get that result. That is what Australia is doing and, judging by our results at the Montreal conference and our results at Nairobi, I think we have played a very significant and important role at both of those meetings.

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

I want to ask the minister: what is the Australian government’s policy position on the appropriate level for atmospheric concentration of CO by 2100? I have asked the minister this before, and he has never given me an answer. I would really like to know because, in the absence of a greenhouse trigger, which he is not going to support, and in the absence of a national target other than our Kyoto target, which everybody agrees is inadequate, I think we need to know what the government’s position is in relation to the appropriate level for the atmospheric concentration of CO by 2100.

The British government made a judgement about this. It decided that it had to go for something significantly less than 550 parts per million because at that level of concentration you would get more than two degrees of warming, which everybody agrees—I think there is now a consensus—is dangerous climate change. I was rather horrified to see today in the report brought out in a collaboration between ABARE and the CSIRO, The heat is on: the future of energy in Australia, that their base level scenario is looking at 575 parts per million by 2100. That is more than two degrees of warming. That is the Barrier Reef dead. As I said last week, I think it is already too late for coral reefs around the world; they have passed the threshold of dangerous climate change.

I think the Australian people and the community need to know what decision the government has made about what level of concentration of CO in the atmosphere it believes is appropriate. If you say you want to stabilise greenhouse gases in such a way that you get less than two degrees of warming then that means that you are accepting a policy position of substantial cuts by 2050—more than 60 per cent. The figure of 60 per cent was an original estimate by the Blair government. The science is now coming in showing that global warming is accelerating at a faster rate, and people are now looking at upping that figure. There are calls for policy positions that take us to substantially more than that. The Greens have moved for a policy position of an 80 per cent reduction on 1990 levels by 2015. I would like to know what level of atmospheric concentration the government has decided is the level it intends to aim for and produce policies to deliver.

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

That is the sort of question that you could speak about for at least an hour. I have been heavied by the opposition saying that by giving answers of three or four minutes I am somehow filibustering this debate, so I will be as succinct as I possibly can. The Stern report says, and I think it is right, that 550 parts per million is getting very risky. I agree with that. I think any national government, whether it be of the UK, which makes up around just over two per cent of global emissions, or of Australia, which makes up just over 1.46 per cent of world emissions, can have a legitimate debate about whether it is 450 parts or 550 parts. It is an important debate.

The reason we have the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is to help resolve those issues. When you have some of the best scientists from around the world, from all the participating members of the UN framework convention—Australia has very high quality representation within that panel—it is an issue best dealt with by that panel.

I am not trying to say that I do not think the Australian government should have a position or a target. I want to engage on this issue in a productive way but every time I speak for longer than a few minutes I get a lecture from the Labor Party saying that somehow I am trying to expand debate. They are a party that has a two-line policy on climate change; we are a government that have written hundreds of pages and spent billions of dollars on climate change, so we take it very seriously.

Let us consider what would happen if I were to say tonight, ‘We think you should see the world’s concentrations limited to 400 parts per million’—or go even lower if you want to be more extreme about it—‘and then adjust domestic greenhouse policy to a global target.’ The reality is that, if you set the target low enough, you could say, ‘To achieve that, Australia would have to make a contribution of, as you have said, an 80 per cent reduction.’ There are figures of between 60 per cent and 80 per cent. If you want to be seriously radical—and obviously this is not the real world—to make the case you could say: ‘Let’s have 100 per cent reduction in Australia. Let’s close down the whole of Australia.’

Quite frankly, when you start talking about 60 per cent or 80 per cent reductions, it is not a huge leap to go to 100 per cent. It illustrates the point—and it is a point that I made to Mr Blair when he was here in Australia a few months ago—that if you shut down the whole of Australia the expansion in energy production and consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from China alone would entirely wipe out the global greenhouse benefits of closing down the whole of Australia, within 10½ months. That is a scientific fact, because they are a building a new power station every six weeks in China. They are urbanising at the rate of a city the size of Brisbane every month. That is a fact that you have to deal with.

Mr Blair makes the point now in his speeches in Great Britain that, if he closed down the whole of the United Kingdom, the expansion of China’s greenhouse gas emissions would entirely neutralise the benefit of that decision within two years. I think that makes the point that it is incredibly important to have a thorough understanding at the national policy level of the impact of a certain level of carbon concentration in the atmosphere.

The fact is that the level of concentration of carbon dioxide in particular has been incredibly stable for some many thousands of years and it is now at a level that is substantially above that long-term average. My strong belief, and the government’s strong belief, is that the massive increase in the carbon concentrations in the atmosphere is contributing substantially to the warming of the atmosphere, that we must stabilise and then reduce greenhouse concentrations and that we must do that through sound domestic policy and by playing a constructive leadership role within the international community. I accept that 550 parts per million is very risky. Further to that, I look forward to the further advice of the intergovernmental panel, which we will receive very shortly.

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

I appreciate the minister’s remarks in that regard. The point is that when the United Kingdom made the decision to look at what they thought would be an unacceptable level of concentration they made it a 60 per cent reduction on 2050 levels to take into account emissions from developing countries. So they looked at the total global emissions and the total concentrations to see what the developed world would have to reduce their emissions by to take that into account. That is how they got to the 60 per cent by 2050. That is why I am asking about Australia’s position.

My greater concern here tonight is that we do not have a stated desired concentration level, because everything flows from that in terms of targets and how you get there. I particularly wanted to comment on it in relation to the adequacy of Australian government policy advice. I refer to this report, The Heat is on: the future of energy in Australia, by CSIRO and ABARE. I believe ABARE do the Australian people a complete and utter disservice when it comes to climate change. They do not believe that climate change is real. They do not factor it into any of their policy recommendations.

In fact, they are slowing down the capacity of the country to respond to climate change through their advice to government on issues like the differentiation between road and rail transport, their projections of oil prices and their suggestion that you can go to coal to liquids. They suggest that you can put climate change to one side. They actively say, ‘Put climate change to one side.’ They actively talk about carbon dioxide emissions as externalities. When the whole world is trying to come to terms with how you internalise the cost of carbon, ABARE are still fixed in some economic past and are giving the country bad advice.

So I would like to just put on record here that this report—this collaboration between CSIRO and ABARE—says:

A target for the stabilisation of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO) of 570 parts per million (ppm) by 2100 is investigated based on the A1T scenario from the Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) (IPCC, 2000). In establishing this anchor point, the EFF does not endorse it or suggest that it would represent on acceptable level of emissions or consequent climate change. The choice represents a compromise between the desire to explore significant global emission reduction and the need to work within the constraints of ABARE’s economic models.

So this whole report is based on a base level scenario of 575 parts per million, which everybody accepts is dangerous for climate change and is unacceptable. So what is the point in a whole body of work simply made on a compromise because ABARE’s models are so constrained, out of date and unable to cope with the whole climate change scenarios that CSIRO has to allow for ABARE’s inadequacies and write a report based on a concentration which we all know is totally unacceptable?

I do not expect the minister to be critical of ABARE in the same way that I am but, frankly, I think they are holding back Treasury’s capacity to respond to climate change. The fact is that the Treasurer has never mentioned climate change as a risk to the Australian economy in all his years as Treasurer, including in this year’s budget speech, and he has never mentioned oil depletion as a significant risk to the Australian current account—because, apart from anything else, whether or not you believe in peak oil, the fact is Australia is losing its self-sufficiency in oil and the import bills are going to blow out the trade deficit substantially in years to come, and are already doing so. Yet ABARE blithely advises Treasury: ‘Put climate change to one side. No problem with oil prices—we’ll just go to coal to liquids as a transport fuel.’ Frankly, they are so out of date they are an embarrassment.

I am frustrated that the policy advice that comes out of the Australian Greenhouse Office is somehow sidelined by a group of economists who have absolutely no relevance in global changed circumstances. I do not expect the minister to comment particularly but I would like him to take it on notice that this report is doing the Australian people a disservice. I do not disagree with a lot of its conclusions. It is basically agreeing with Stern that the cost of action now is nothing compared with the cost of not acting by 2100. They go through the kinds of things that we have all been saying. But I am horrified by the fact that they go through an exercise talking about 575 parts per million and then have to have a disclaimer saying that the authors do not endorse or suggest that it would represent an acceptable level of emissions or consequent climate change.

I encourage the minister to actually get from the government sources of advice something of a consensus about what they have determined is an appropriate level of atmospheric concentrations of CO and tell the Australian people now what that is. We have the latest IPCC report coming out in May next year. Each year that this goes on assumes that we have time to deal with it. I accept what the minister says about the fact that, if the Greenland iceshelf just melts, you might have 100 years or you might have 50 years, but if it slides off you do not have very much time at all. Those of us who remember defrosting fridges in our youth, before they had those new fridges, remember that all you need to do is get a bit of a vacuum going under loads of ice and the lot comes off at once. That is the fear about rapid sea level rise—so-called ‘climate accidents’.

We already have ravines being formed in the Greenland iceshelf with the water going right down underneath and starting to form that kind of vacuum underneath. If that occurs, and it slides off, just like those of us who have defrosted fridges in the past where you open the door and the whole ice sheet comes off the box, you know that that is the scenario that could well occur. That is what we are talking about with severe climate accidents in the short term and huge sea level rises overnight, which would be a global catastrophe of unimaginable consequence. We are talking about 43 small island developing states disappearing, given their low level. If you look at Bangladesh you see the security ramifications as millions of refugees try to get out of the way. Manhattan would be gone.

The whole lot is an incredible scenario. It is not a scenario that should be discounted, especially when you look at the science, with what they are saying about the west Antarctic icesheet, with what they are seeing when they are looking at the Ross icesheet and the fact that it collapsed rapidly, within a decade, once before in geological time. That is why I think it is really important that we start to get to some sort of consensus in Australia about a level of concentration that we should aim for, taking into account the growing emissions from developing countries. I do not disagree that China, India and South Africa have to be taken into account, but that is why the British overestimated the extent of the cuts that would need to be made in developed economies.

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

I think it is a good point that Senator Milne makes about the policy processes within the government of the United Kingdom led by Prime Minister Blair. They have done some substantial work on global impacts, both on ecosystems and, importantly, under the Stern review, on the economics of responding to climate change and the costs and benefits over the next 100 years. On receiving that information the Blair government and their new Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, David Miliband, both came out and changed their policy—for example, in relation to the role of nuclear energy in Great Britain.

As Professor Socolo has said with his Princeton University study, he believes that, of the seven billion tonnes of abatement you need to find over the next 35-odd years, about one billion needs to be from an expansion of the nuclear industry. It is to the credit of the Blair government and to the credit of the Howard government in Australia that they have looked at the science and there will be a debate about what is a dangerous level of carbon concentrations in the atmosphere that will go on for some time.

But I broadly accept what Nicholas Stern has said. I believe that the stabilisation range needs to be somewhere between 450 and 550 parts per million and that you need to be sensible and diligent when you know that you are playing with the potential scenarios that Senator Milne has outlined, that you could and are likely to get events that I think were dramatically exposed in parts of Al Gore’s movie and that the climate is not likely to be in a steady state—it is not likely to get a little bit worse, a little bit worse, a little bit worse; it is more likely that we will see some major weather events that could cause substantial actions. People call that the tipping point or they refer to what Senator Milne has said. So it is far better to be risk averse.

Again, to make the point, Mr Blair and David Miliband and the cabinet of the government of the United Kingdom have looked at all of that information and they have realised, although it is politically tough for them to do so, that part of their response must be to overturn the policy of turning away from nuclear. They have made the politically tough call for a party of the Left or Centre Left that they will move towards an expansion of nuclear power in Great Britain. I think they are to be commended for having a practical approach.

The problem for the Labor Party and the Greens in Australia is that they will quote all of the same figures and science that Mr Blair relies upon to make his decisions within his cabinet—the same decisions that many other governments around the world are making—but they will say no to one of the technologies that we need to at least stabilise greenhouse gas emissions. They will stand in the way of a liquefied natural gas project on the North West Shelf which can help stabilise greenhouse gas emissions. A senior member of the Labor opposition, Carmen Lawrence, the member for Fremantle, is now opposing the export of natural gas from the Burrup Peninsula and wants to close down that project which will make a substantial contribution. The Greens and some elements of the Labor Party are opposing carbon geosequestration. The Princeton University study looks at seven different technologies, each of which can contribute about a billion tonnes of abatement annually. The Greens and the Labor Party are saying no to about three of seven billion tonnes a year of abatement because of ideological problems with abatement methods.

I say ‘hear, hear’ to Mr Blair’s government. It has looked at the science and said, ‘Let’s take practical action.’ If you look at the policies of the Howard government, you will see that we are doing the same thing. We have brought on a debate about what will supply baseload power in Australia and the world in the future that is politically very tough for us. The Labor Party and other parties are creating a scare campaign around the location of a facility for low-level nuclear waste that fundamentally comes from the use of radioactive isotopes to save human lives through radiation therapy. When they are trying to score cheap political points on the location of a low-level nuclear waste facility with material that is primarily used for the treatment of life-threatening cancers in this country, you realise that the Left in Australia is ideologically bereft or ideologically handcuffed to a position that will not allow it to come to a practical and sensible position on climate change. If that is how they deal with low-level waste from the treatment of life-threatening cancers in this country, no wonder they cannot come to a sensible policy on Australia’s environment.

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

I am glad the minister raised the issue of Burrup because it allows me to tell him this directly in the chamber while he is listening and to set the record straight. The Greens and, I am fairly certain, Dr Lawrence and Peter Andren, because I heard them say it at the media conference today, do not oppose the development that is proposed in the north-west of WA. We oppose the development going ahead on that particular site. We have asked the minister to facilitate that development moving onto the North West Shelf joint venture site so that the development can go ahead and address the issues that he has been talking about to do with reducing greenhouse gas emissions and also so that we can save the rock carvings. I would like to firmly put that on the record while the minister is in the chamber so that he will no longer repeat the fallacy that we are opposed to that development and to exporting that gas to China. If the minister could take that on board, it would be very much appreciated.

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

I want to make it quite clear that the current leader of the Greens, Senator Brown—I believe his position may be under some threat in the party room ballot—has made it quite clear that the alternative site would be at the Maitland Estate. I do not know if Senator Siewert can say where she wants to shift it to, but shifting it to Maitland requires the construction of a new port at West Intercourse Island. What is on West Intercourse Island? Hundreds and hundreds of pieces of rock art. The Greens and Dr Lawrence, a senior member of the Labor opposition, say that they can take this action and it will have no consequences. The consequences of saying, ‘No, you cannot build it there,’ is that the project will not go ahead. It is not a cost-free action. It is not cost free for rock art because rock art extends over 27,000 hectares of the Dampier Archipelago and Burrup. They went to Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney to talk to the elites and pretended that building something in the north-west was going to destroy a lot of rock art. The reality is that, yes, some rock art will have to be shifted and disturbed, but it is 0.02 of one per cent of all the rock art throughout that entire province of 27,000 hectares where there is rock art everywhere. There are in excess of one million pieces of art and the Pluto proposal disturbs 164 pieces of it. They are trying to say that stopping the development from going there will still allow gas exports. All it will do is put up the sovereign risk for the entire industry, extend the approvals process, put another risk in place, put at risk people wanting to come to Australia to develop natural gas resources and put at risk the 80,000 people employed in an industry that creates $10 billion in foreign income.

Labor under Mr Rudd wants to take this sort of action and bring in an emergency listing when there is already a sensible heritage process in place supported by the Western Australian government—a cooperative federalist approach. Mr Rudd says that he wants cooperative federalism. The WA state Labor government and the federal coalition government are working together on an agreed process to handle the Burrup Peninsula to ensure natural gas exports can continue and that the rock art is managed properly in the future. This is something that Dr Lawrence did not come anywhere near to doing when she was premier of the state. She could not have cared less about the Burrup Peninsula when she was premier, but she comes here and wants to appeal to the cafe latte set in the inner suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra and so suddenly takes an interest.

The Labor Party will be condemned as hypocrites on this issue unless Mr Rudd comes out and says, ‘I will have no bar of a federal Labor Party putting yet another spoke in the wheel of natural gas exports.’ You cannot say, ‘I’m in favour of natural gas exports,’ and then try and close down the biggest project that is on the drawing board at the moment. You cannot take yourselves seriously. What you are trying to do is stop that project. It has taken years and years of work by hundreds of people to design this project and you say, ‘We’re just going to try and close it down but we can still have the gas industry.’ You think we can still have investment in the highly risky business of exploring for gas, developing it and trying to get the multibillion dollar investment in it. You say, ‘We still like exporting gas.’ Get serious, please; you cannot be taken seriously.

You are demanding that I take action to say, ‘Halt the development of this project.’ You are saying to me as minister that I have 10 days to decide whether I halt the development of the Pluto project and say, ‘No, you cannot continue.’ That is what Dr Lawrence has signed up for me to do—alongside you, Senator Siewert. You want me to say no to the project going ahead. But then on the other hand you say, ‘No, we like the gas industry.’ It is an absolutely absurd proposition.

I really hope if there is going to be a change between Beazley Labor and Rudd Labor, that Mr Rudd says to Dr Lawrence, ‘Get your name off that application.’ This is what Mr Rudd should say: ‘If I believe in cooperative federalism, if I believe in economic development and the benefits of economic development, you, Dr Lawrence, will withdraw federal Labor’s name from that application.’ That is the challenge for Labor. That is the challenge for Mr Rudd on his first day in the job. Please, for Australia’s sake detach the Labor Party from this idiocy that the Greens are progressing with. There is no need for Rudd Labor to be associated with the idiocy of the Greens in trying to stop the gas industry in Western Australia. It is a big test for Mr Rudd and I hope he meets the challenge; I really do for Australia’s sake.

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

I have never heard in recent times such a case of selective deafness. Did anybody else in this chamber hear me say, ‘We want that proposal to be moved; it is only a couple of hundred metres up to the joint venture site’? I have written—I did not say this just then but I said it earlier in the chamber—to each of the joint venturers asking them whether they agree to their site, that project, being co-located. I have received responses saying, ‘Yes, they’d be prepared to negotiate.’ Woodside have told me that they would be prepared to negotiate. I have written to the minister to ask him to facilitate that development. I called again in this chamber today for that compromise to be negotiated. I have not received an answer.

What I just heard was the minister saying that I am trying to close down that development. I am not. The Greens are not; we want it moved. Maitland may not be the answer. And by the way, Minister, you do not have to develop Maitland off West Intercourse Island; you can do it another way, and I have had other proponents tell me that. You can go to Onslow. But the most sensible place is 200 or 300 metres up from the current site—they want to develop it there. So please do not repeat that misconception that we are trying to stop this development. You have not answered my question. Perhaps I should pose the question: have you approached the joint venturers or sought to facilitate a meeting between Woodside and the North West Shelf joint venturers so that that plant can be co-located on that site and there would be a true win-win situation for rock art and for development?

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

I might draw to your attention, Mr Temporary Chairman Hutchins, because it may have escaped your notice, that we have now been debating this particular amendment for four hours. The minister at the table has managed to proceed, in the manner that he has adopted during that period, not one millimetre in four hours. As I have said before, as a former manager of government business, you would have thought he would know a little bit more about how to deal with legislation of this type. But he fails to appreciate the lessons—

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

What’s your suggestion?

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

I would suggest to you, Minister, that you actually address the legislation instead of behaving as the dilettante that you are and demonstrating to this Senate on a regular basis your complete ignorance of how to proceed to get legislation of this type through and debated properly. All we have heard from you—

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

This is your amendment.

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

That is exactly right. This is my amendment, and you have had the opportunity—

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

Why don’t you address your amendment? I’ll take a point of order.

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

Take as many points of order as you like.

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

Mr Temporary Chairman, I rise on a point of order going to relevance. The shadow minister responsible for something needs to address his remarks to his amendment. He is not doing so.

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you could address the amendment, Senator Carr.

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

Thank you, Mr Temporary Chairman. What I have here is an amendment which, as I have said, has been before this chamber for four hours. We have a minister at the table who has had the opportunity to actually canvass the question that has been presented and to explain why the government is opposing this amendment. All we have heard from him is abuse of other senators, gross misrepresentations, defamations of other senators and slurs on other political parties in a manner which is clearly indicative of the fact that he does not want to face up to the fact that this government has failed to address the issue of climate change with this particular legislation. There are 409 pages of legislation and you have failed to deal with this question. You have yet to explain why the government is not supporting these amendments.

What we have heard in its place is a bizarre journey about the minister’s recollections of his world travels as an observer to world events, as a spectator on the question of Kyoto. We have seen the minister try to explain his abysmal performance in regard to changing tack three or four times on the question of greenhouse, where he has come from being a greenhouse gas sceptic and a climate change sceptic to a man who now claims to have been a born-again convert, to a position where he says: ‘Nonetheless, despite that we won’t sign up to Kyoto. We won’t sign up to any commitments on an international basis. We’ll wait for the next phase of international treaty development. We will say, “Yes, there are some very interesting films on this issue.”’

This is the contribution we are hearing from this minister. His own colleague Mr Ian Macfarlane made the point that Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, was just entertainment. That was the position the government took shortly before the United States elections and shortly before the government’s receipt of their latest polling information with the change in the direction it has taken. Their focus group’s research came back and explained that the government’s attitudes on these questions were all wrong, that the Australian community was not going to tolerate the contempt that this government were going to show.

What the Prime Minister sought to do in dealing with this position was to suggest, ‘The government have new directions to follow and new ideas to explore. We haven’t really exhausted our agenda; we have this new notion of nuclear power.’ So the government commissioned their old friend Dr Switkowski to report on the matter of nuclear reactors. Dr Switkowski brought back a report that says there will be 25 nuclear reactors across eastern Australia. If I recall rightly, the report pointed out that these new reactors will not actually reduce the level of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions but will in fact increase them by 29 per cent by 2050. So, Minister, my question to you, given that you have this sudden conversion to nuclear power and despite the fact that—

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

Mr Temporary Chairman Hutchins, on a point of order: you called the opposition senator to order for not addressing his amendment. He is still not addressing it. He needs to do so, even though he cares so little about climate change that he calls Kyoto ‘Kie-oto’ and he cannot pronounce the name of the chairman of the nuclear inquiry, Dr Switkowski. He must address his amendment. He has to explain why Labor is proposing to put a new trigger into the environment law of Australia against the wishes of all his Labor comrades in the states. He is proposing a whole new layer of regulation. He has failed to do so and he needs to be brought to order once again.

The Temporary Chairman:

Order! Minister, you have an opportunity to reply at some point.

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

I am taking a point of order.

The Temporary Chairman:

I did not see that it was a point of order. Continue, please, Senator Carr.

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

The minister has told us that he suddenly has a new interest in dealing with this whole issue of greenhouse gas emissions. We are now going to embark upon the magical mystery tour of nuclear power for Australia. This is in the context of what the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, Mr Macfarlane, said when he said, ‘We could do this in 10 to 15 years.’ The Minister for Finance and Administration has indicated to this chamber that, given his extensive ministerial experience and his understanding of the Australian economy, particularly given his experience in the resources sector, he is an expert on the whole issue of nuclear power. He said that it would take 100 years to have viable nuclear power in this country as an alternative source of baseload supply.

At the estimates hearings I asked the minister some simple questions, given his commitment to these new issues, as this is the answer to the government’s problem, its failure to deal with the whole issue of greenhouse emissions and its failure to develop a climate change trigger within its legislation. I was thinking of proposing these amendments, and I asked the government: if this is the new answer to our problems, what advice has the government sought from its own greenhouse gas office in regard to the questions on nuclear power? Minister, perhaps you could tell me now: what advice have you sought? I acknowledge that the minister may well have had an opportunity to get advice since that time, but when he was asked this question at the estimates hearings he advised the estimates committee that he had not sought the advice of his own greenhouse gas office experts on the question of nuclear power. In fact, he went on to advise us that he had not even sought to have advice from his department on the environmental impacts of nuclear power. My recollection is that the department had not made a formal submission to Dr Switkowski’s inquiry. It had made some statements about the formal processes of approvals but no other statement.

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

Mr Temporary Chairman, on a point of order: it would be quite appropriate if we get to section 140A of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which deals with nuclear matters, to discuss these issues, but they have absolutely nothing to do with Senator Carr’s amendment. He is proposing an amendment to the Senate to put a new provision, a new section, into the law. He is being irrelevant. The Greens have been asking serious questions. He needs to address his amendment.

The Temporary Chairman:

Order! Minister, would you please sit down. You are not relevant there.

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

Mr Temporary Chairman, I will raise a new point of order: the issues that Senator Carr is raising are to do with environmental approvals in relation to nuclear facilities. He is asking whether I have received advice from my department. Those questions can be addressed if we are addressing section 140 of the act. That is where nuclear issues are dealt with. He is not being relevant to his own—

The Temporary Chairman:

Order! Minister, you will have an opportunity to reply. Please sit down. If you do not like my ruling, move against it, but please sit down and let Senator Carr complete his remarks.

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

The matters I raise are in response to the very matters that the minister himself has raised. What this minister has done is sought to canvass these issues far and wide, to slander his political opponents, to defame people and to make very crude and grossly inaccurate suggestions about the motivations of members of the opposition. He has raised these questions of nuclear power. He has raised allegations about what he claims to be Labor’s hostility to green coal. He has made a number of wild and woolly accusations, which he does on a regular basis, but he does not like it when someone comes back to him and says, ‘Minister, you are wasting the time of the Senate.’ You are grossly abusing your privileges as a minister of the Crown in this place. On behalf of this government, we now have a situation where four hours have proceeded on these issues and we have not moved one millimetre. We are going around and around with your puerile, offensive remarks, and you will be responded to blow for blow. That is a choice you make, but be under no illusions that, as far as we are concerned, we are not going to put up with these slanders.

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

Let’s have a vote then. Sit down and let’s have a vote.

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

You had that option when these matters were brought on but what you sought to do was to waste the time of the chamber.

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

Senator Ian Campbell interjecting—

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Minister, I would ask you to withdraw that comment.

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

I withdraw that he is a hypocrite.

The Temporary Chairman:

No, you should—

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

I withdraw it.

The Temporary Chairman:

Thank you.

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

Let’s have the vote. Let’s put the question.

The Temporary Chairman:

Minister, please let Senator Carr make his contribution without any interjections.

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

Let’s have a vote.

The Temporary Chairman:

Is this a point of order?

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

Yes, Mr Temporary Chairman. Senator Carr is saying that we are wasting time and that we have not moved very far. Now is the time for him to not seek the call and—

The Temporary Chairman:

That is not a point of order. Sit down please, Minister.

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

move that—

The Temporary Chairman:

Minister, please sit down. The more you interject the longer this debate is going to go.

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

I have stopped. Let’s have a vote.

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

So the minister has now got to the point where he says he wants a vote. He had that option at eight o’clock.

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

That is not—

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

You had that option at eight o’clock but you were such a clever man that you thought you would come in here and provoke, abuse, distort, slander, defame and behave as you might have done when you were in the Democrats.

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

Come on! So it’s blame the Democrats now.

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

I am sorry, Senator Bartlett; I understand you might find that offensive, but you have been a very poor tutor to this right-wing extremist. You have been a very poor student of Democrat behaviour, Minister. Clearly, that is where he learnt this level of infantile debate.

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

Mr Temporary Chairman, I rise on a point of order. How is this relevant to the amendments? I ask you, as to relevance, how this can possibly be relevant. Please bring this guy to order.

The Temporary Chairman:

Thank you, Minister. Senator Carr, go back to relevance, please.

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

I notice that parliamentary language is not being followed here. I am surprised by the bad manners of this senator. I simply say to the minister: if you raise these questions, we are entitled to ask questions. I think it is a simple and logical process. At eight o’clock you had the option, after two hours of debate, to put these questions. Now we have a situation, as a direct result of your provocative and inane comments, where you have stirred up a bit of interest in your performance. I can go on for some time about the question of your performance if that is the way you wish to proceed, and we have many other amendments to deal with before the end of this session. As a former manager of opposition business you would have understood this.

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

Mr Temporary Chairman, I rise on a point of order. Once again the opposition spokesman cannot bring himself to discuss the Labor amendments which deal with putting a new trigger into the federal environment law. He has been on his feet for 11 minutes and has not addressed the amendments.

The Temporary Chairman:

That is not a point of order, Minister.

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

He needs to be relevant.

The Temporary Chairman:

Thank you, Minister, but there is no point of order.

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

Mr Temporary Chairman, I was explaining why these were valid amendments which the government should support. I was explaining that the government’s reaction to them was hysterical. It was based on the government’s gross insecurities about the fact that people were examining the record of this government and the hypocrisy of this government when it came to the issue of climate change and how, in the beginning of the life of this government, the government found it was popular to talk about the issue of climate change, to examine the issue of climate change itself and to even propose in this discussion paper that there be a climate change trigger. Of course at that time the government was even contemplating signing up to the Kyoto protocol. But of course there was a change of government in the United States—and this government is not a leader but a follower; this government is essentially a derivative of the more conservative elements of United States politics—so this government felt that, as a consequence of the change of government in the United States, it would change its policies as well.

Ever since, we have seen a series of global change sceptics propagate their somewhat old-fashioned views, until this year, until very recently when the opinion poll research came in, when the government of the United Kingdom produced a report which achieved some considerable public attention and when the United States elections highlighted that there was a change in attitude even within the United States government. So this government felt it had to change its position again, but not in reality; it had to change its position only in terms of the language it was using. So we heard this minister, who had been relegated to observer status on the margins of various international conferences, trying to claim before the Australian public that he was doing much more than he was. He followed a pattern, as we saw from various examples such as the orange-bellied parrot issue and other appalling acts of stupidity, as the government tried to pretend it was doing one thing when in fact it was doing something entirely different.

So, Minister, we now have the situation where I have an opportunity to explain exactly why you have been such an appalling failure and, as we run into the break, question why you should in fact stay in the job that you are currently in. As I understand the matter, it is only a question of time—and I presume you do want this legislation passed before you are moved from the portfolio—before your appalling record catches up with you in the Prime Minister’s office. Minister, you asked me the question of why it was taking so long. I answer you now: you are the problem. You have had four hours and you have chosen to provoke the situation in this manner. As a consequence, after four hours not one millimetre of progress has been made. You know exactly why that is, and you are entirely responsible.

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

I have a couple of matters that I would like to clarify. I note with interest that the minister made the leap from Britain, having made a decision that two degrees of warming was too much—and therefore it would set a target of a reduction of 60 per cent in greenhouse gas emissions on 1990 levels by 2050—to say that is why the Blair government had adopted nuclear power. I believe that is not in fact the case.

Britain’s move to nuclear power is in fact about upgrading existing nuclear power plants. It would cost ₤70 billion to decommission existing plants—a substantial cost. But the reason for Britain’s move to nuclear power is energy security for the UK rather than the greenhouse effect. The whole of Europe is traumatised by Russia having turned off the gas. I think it is fairly clear to everyone that Australia has very different policy positions and opportunities because we are blessed with abundant energy—particularly solar energy—and a whole range of energy options. Britain does not have those options; neither do other European countries. They are completely traumatised by the Russians turning off the gas, and that is why the focus has switched heavily onto energy security at the same time as people are trying to address climate change. Britain has decided to invest vast amounts in nuclear energy—against the advice of its sustainability commission, which recommended against it. But I would argue that the British imperative is as much about fear of the Russians turning off the gas as it is about anything else.

I would like to point out again, in relation to ABARE and nuclear energy in Australia—and the minister is now talking up nuclear—that ABARE tried their level best with this report to put the best possible spin on nuclear. They had to try very hard, but the best they could come up with was one or two nuclear plants operating by 2050, not the 25 that have been talked about. But the report rightly says that, had ABARE assumed nuclear power costs to be in the upper half of the estimated cost range from international literature and not in the lower half—which is what they did to come up with their one or two power plants—some or all of the contribution of nuclear power would have been displaced by other technologies.

So the economic reality is: if you price carbon, nuclear is still not going to stand up against renewables without a huge government subsidy. And the government cannot give us a price, right now, on the decommissioning of Lucas Heights. We cannot even get a price on the one single facility that we have, let alone an estimate of what you would pay for your power. The Switkowski report proposed that the costs of decommissioning be put onto the consumer in the price of energy from any nuclear facility. We have got no idea what that would be. So you are stuck in this situation where, if you put a price on carbon to try and make nuclear viable, you still have to subsidise it to the hilt, and the cost will be even greater because you have to incorporate into the cost the decommissioning costs.

The realities are, in that situation, that the renewables will absolutely be the most cost-effective scenario in terms of energy supply. But, once again, Minister, I put on the record here that ABARE tried its best for you, as it constantly does; it tried to assume that nuclear would be in the lower-cost half of the estimated cost range, even though international literature shows to the contrary.

In fact, they say in the report that you would only get a higher uptake of nuclear power if you had early confirmation that carbon capture and storage was not going to work, and that would not suit the government’s analysis, even though we have no proven carbon capture and storage. They go on to say that there would have to be significant improvements in nuclear waste disposal capability. We do not have that. They do not have that at Yucca Mountain either. You would have to have technical breakthroughs in the ability of nuclear power to co-produce hydrogen and desalinated water, and a higher demand for these by-products, plus a reinvigorated UN supporting both a global treaty on nuclear materials proliferation and a new terrorism task force. I would suggest to you that the likelihood of those things coming together is remote. ABARE might be able to dream up scenarios in which all that occurs. Good luck to them, because it is not going to happen.

The reality is that, as the Switkowski report acknowledges, you are not going to have nuclear power in Australia. The private sector is not going to invest in it without bipartisan support. You have not got it. There is huge community opposition. And even if you brought all of those things on stream, the Achilles heel you have on climate change is that we have only 10 or 15 years to significantly reduce greenhouse gases, and nuclear will not be on-stream within that time frame.

By the time you built any reactor in Australia—given that all those issues were out of the way—you would be at the stage of locking in dangerous climate change, at least for 2100, within the next 10 or 15 years. And that is the big problem you have on nuclear: it cannot go anywhere near solving—it cannot even begin to solve—the greenhouse gas reduction issues in the 10 to 15 year time frame we have.

So I support the Labor amendment, but I would like to hear from Senator Carr about how, if the Labor trigger were in place—and, as the senator would be aware, ours is a much more stringent trigger, but let us assume the 500,000 tonne trigger was in place—this amendment would work in practice. If it were passed into law, how would an environment minister—having called in a project such as the Anvil Hill coalmine, which would generate 12½ million tonnes of carbon dioxide, an amount well over the trigger, by seven times or whatever—operate under the act if this trigger were in place? It obviously would be triggered by a development such as Anvil Hill. What would then happen? What would the minister do in relation to that information?

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

The whole question of the Anvil Hill decision has been a matter of some considerable discussion and speculation. The Labor Party does not share the Greens’ interpretation of the nature of that decision. The question is: what is a reasonable level of threshold in terms of emissions? We take the view that the threshold should be 500,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. The Greens have the view that it should be 100,000 tonnes. We say that the Greens’ position is, in effect, too harsh. We are seeking a higher target. That is essentially the difference in our political positions. We will look at each proposal on its merits. The minister alleges we are in the business of closing down all the coalmines in this country. We are not.

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

You’ll have a trigger, but you won’t use it.

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

We will look at the proposals and do a proper assessment.

Progress reported.