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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

The Department of the Environment and Heritage Australia state of the environment report 2006 is a very important document and a reasonably sizeable one. It is certainly a document that I cannot do justice to in the very short time I have available to speak to it tonight. I think every member and senator of this parliament should endeavour to read it, because it is a five-yearly snapshot of the state of play, as the title obviously says. One very important thing that I believe needs to be emphasised is that the report makes it clear that, whilst it endeavours to give a snapshot of the state of play, to a significant degree, we do not actually know what the state of play is. The report says:

Each of land, biodiversity, coasts and oceans, inland waters, and natural and cultural heritage lacks more than half the data needed to make a comprehensive national assessment.

So, if we lack more than half the data, we are at not actually sure. To me, that signals a significant problem. The report also says:

It is the emphatic opinion of the 2006 Australian State of the Environment Committee that the future role of a national state of the environment committee should be to provide data interpretation and commentary, using accessible, up-to-date, relevant national data. The year 2006 must be the last state of the environment report that starts with a committee-initiated process of indicator and data selection. Environmental data should be continuously updated and made publicly available on the web. This will require strategic responses that are tailored to national, state and territory and regional needs, and that are sufficiently understood and accepted to be sustained into the future.

That would enable us to have the capacity to assess the state of the environment on an ongoing basis, not just every five years, and to do so from a position of much more complete and comprehensive knowledge. Having said that, I certainly do not want to suggest that there is not a lot of data that is available and that is very useful. This report pulls it together.

In shorthand, a couple of key areas need to be emphasised. Firstly, whilst it looks at the state of the environment rather than looking solely at the threats to the environment, there is no doubt that climate change presents the biggest overarching threat to our natural and our marine environments and, indeed, to our urban and social environments. A failure to address that serious threat will clearly show up in major declines in the state of the environment into the future. There is a clear amount of data detailed in the report that says we are doing far less well than we should in living sustainably in the urban environment. There is a lot of untapped potential, if you can forgive the pun, particularly in recycling of water and also of waste products. There is still enormous scope for improvement in efficiencies in energy consumption, in transportation and in water usage, and we need to be doing a lot better than we are.

Outside of the urban environment, I am pleased to see the report notes the significant role that Indigenous Australians play in environmental stewardship. There is a big overlap between areas that are amongst the most ecologically important and healthy parts of certainly the terrestrial environment and those areas that are Indigenous land. That is in part an indication of the skills of Indigenous Australians in maintaining stewardship of the natural environment but it also shows the opportunities that are there. The responsibility is on governments to do a lot more to support the capacity of Indigenous communities in regard to environmental stewardship. There are win-win opportunities here, not only in providing more opportunities that have synergies with Indigenous cultures and maintaining cultural diversity alongside biodiversity, but also in maintaining that broader health of the natural environment along with it.

Those are a few key points that I think we need to draw attention to. We can do a lot better in our urban environment. We can do a lot better in supporting Indigenous Australians in their stewardship, particularly in a lot of the more remote areas of Australia. There is a lot more to the report than that, but five minutes is not really sufficient to deal with it. Perhaps another speaker will reserve their remarks and we can have another go at it later.

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

I rise tonight to take note of the Australia state of the environment report 2006. I want to build on a couple of things that have been said. The first is that it is an absolute disgrace that the government has not got in place a data monitoring and collection system such that you can actually ask people to comment on the state of the environment. I put it on the record that the government says it has spent $10.3 billion between 2001 and 2005 on the environment, and yet we have a situation where we absolutely do not know what the state of the environment is. Australia is not equipped with the national capacity to monitor and assess the condition of the environment on an ongoing basis—what an indictment of the government and the environment minister.

So what we have is a glossy, coffee table production of out-of-date science. On climate change, the report gives climate change progressions in figure 21—it is a 2001 document. What use is that to us in 2006? Climate change has accelerated at a great rate since then. It is appalling. And, what’s more, it is clear that the whole section and all the work on climate change was written as an apology for the Howard government’s position that they did not believe in climate change, that the Prime Minister was a sceptic of climate change and that he did not believe in extreme predictions of climate change. In fact, the report was clearly written at a time when the excuse of the Howard government was that the science was undecided about whether we were having climate variability or climate change.

But of course in the last two months things have rapidly altered. Out came the Stern report. Out came the world’s scientists. The Howard government was completely isolated, and has had to admit that climate change is real. But it was too late for this document, and so we get embarrassing statements—for example, about the drought. The report poses the questions: how much is current variability due to climate change? How much is it natural variability? It goes on to talk about our need to increase our climate literacy. Well, we absolutely do, and the reason that Australians are not as climate literate as they might be is that for a decade the Howard government has not put in place appropriate policies.

An example of the report’s out-of-date science, apart from the climate predictions, is the statement that, ‘A possible impact on climate change is a change in how often coral-bleaching events occur relating to the Great Barrier Reef.’ But the latest science says that it is already too late for the world’s coral reefs. Why are Australian scientists not reporting on that in this particular report? Why are they not saying what the world’s scientists are saying, which is that coral reefs are beyond the threshold of dangerous climate change and from here on in it is decline? They are saying that we have to take the pressure off the reefs by getting rid of pollution and other pressures on the reefs and trying to make them as resilient as possible. But the fact is that acidification of the oceans as a result of the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed has already weakened the corals. The coral bleaching is real. Ocean temperatures are hot. The reefs do not recover if the bleaching events occur more frequently than five years apart. It is already too late. I am disgusted with this report. What it does is play to the notion that we are not sure whether the drought is just climate variability or whether it is climate change.

That whole notional view gives a lie to what is going on with climate science and it gives false hope to people in rural Australia, particularly in marginal areas, that suddenly the drought is going to break, everything is going to be all right again and we are going to go back to how it was. That is completely wrong and frankly I am sick and tired of anecdotal half-measures being equivalent to statements by the world’s leading scientists who write the IPCC reports. Uncle Bill up the road’s view of what the climate is doing is an equivalent response to that of the world’s leading scientists, and that is not good enough.

I want to talk about Minister Campbell’s wedges. He talks about Princeton University and says, ‘We have to have nuclear and we have to have carbon capture and storage because they are the seven wedges required.’ That is wrong. Princeton University gives 15 wedges on its diagram, seven of which need to be employed to achieve deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. It is a complete misrepresentation of the science to suggest that they argue either nuclear or carbon capture or both are essential. They do not. And before anybody reports on Senator Campbell’s statement of his seven wedges, they should look at the academic research. It is the minister’s attitude that underpins what is wrong with this report. It does not give us a view of the environment and it cannot name one single area where the environment has improved. (Time expired)

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

I also rise to take note of the Australia state of the environment report 2006. Like my colleague Senator Milne, I am dismayed at this report. Although it is quite obviously a greenwashing of the government’s handling of the environment, it does actually contain some issues and facts that the government cannot run away from. For example, in the water section it talks about how the increasing demand for water is placing significant pressure on Australia’s inland water system. Unfortunately, this section dealing with inland waters did not address the issue of climate change, despite the fact that just yesterday the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs reported on its water inquiry and stated that climate change was playing a significant role in water security management.

The report also highlights the fact that water consumption has increased by 10 per cent—so much for our efforts to reduce our water consumption. It also highlights the fact that our riparian vegetation is suffering significantly and is continuing to decline. It states that 80 per cent of the remaining red gums on the Murray River flood plain in South Australia are stressed to some degree and that 30 per cent of them are severely stressed, and this severe decline has occurred in the previous 12 months. So just in the last 12 months, we have had even further decline in our riparian vegetation.

The report also talks about our wetlands and the stress that they are under. It says:

The impact on wetlands has been dramatic. As many as 231 nationally important wetlands are under pressure across Australia. Of the 64 Ramsar wetlands, latest assessments indicate that 22 have changed in ecological character or have the potential to change …

The report also highlights the fact that there has been an increase from four to 14 in the percentage of our fisheries which are at severe risk. This highlights the flawed approach this government takes in its fisheries management and the fact that it will not put any species in our commercial fisheries on the threatened species list because if it did that, of course, it would have to actually do something about protecting them adequately. The facts clearly demonstrate the government’s approach is flawed.

The report also highlights the fact that clearing has occurred at the rate of 1.5 million hectares this year and the government claimed, ‘Oh, that’s okay, because it has decreased.’ It is still 1.5 million hectares and we know that clearing vegetation is the biggest cause of biodiversity loss in this country. So much for the work that the government is doing on reducing clearing and protecting our biodiversity.

What I particularly wanted to highlight is in the water section. Despite the fact that this is a greenwashing, the report also highlights some significant issues around the government’s processes and programs to try to protect our natural environment. I will read some quotable comments. The report states:

These programmes have addressed local and regional needs, but Australia needs a systemic approach that develops sustainable systems of land management that address fundamental environmental problems.

It goes on:

As important as these programmes are, they provide little ground for complacency—the magnitude of human impact often exceeds the scale of restoration programmes.

It continues:

It is likely that the Murray River will require at least three times this volume of water if there are to be significant improvements in the entire river environment, rather than just improvements to the parts that are targeted to receive environmental flows …

Moreover, analysis shows that so-called ‘best management practices’ might not achieve sustainability or the desired catchment management targets. This is partly a product of the small scale and fragmented nature of various investments in inland water, riparian and catchment management. Past investments in these programmes addressed local needs, but did not often address the larger, strategic needs for improved practices and sustainable solutions.

It then goes on:

… it should be noted that the success of many excellent, small-scale habitat and species restoration programmes is easily compromised by unsustainable large-scale land and water use patterns.

So much for NHT and the government’s much heralded environment restoration programs. They are clearly being undermined by poor governance, bad policy, overallocation of our water resources, mismanagement and failure to deal with land clearing and wetlands decline. The picture is an indictment of the approach that has been taken: ‘Let’s throw some money at small-scale projects but not deal with the underlying causes.’ It is quite clear—for example, in the Macquarie Marshes and the Gwydir wetlands—that the government has been unable and unwilling to deal with the causes that have led to the problem, overallocation and failure to deal with other broadscale issues in the catchment. I seek leave to continue my remarks later. (Time expired)

Leave granted; debate adjourned.