Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Abetz, the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources. Does the minister recall asserting last week that a target of cutting greenhouse emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 would ‘ensure that every child would live in poverty by the year 2050’? Is the minister aware that a 60 per cent reduction target has been supported by the CSIRO, as Australia’s top scientific advisory body; the Australian Business Roundtable on Climate Change; and Dr Ziggy Switkowski, the Prime Minister’s own nuclear adviser? Haven’t these experts concluded that Australia will be able to cut emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 and still maintain strong economic growth? Can the minister now explain what makes him think that he is right and business and scientific experts as well as the government’s own advisers are all wrong?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We as a government have always been consistent in relation to this very important issue. The important situation for those opposite to take in mind is that you cannot simply pick and choose bits and pieces of people’s quotations. The good Dr Ziggy whom Senator Webber seeks to quote is also somebody who has put on the table for our consideration nuclear power as an answer to reducing greenhouse gases—a proposal that the Labor Party are refusing to accept or consider in any way, shape or form. Therefore, if she wants to rely on the good Dr Ziggy, can I suggest that she accepts all of his medicine, which of course does include nuclear power.

What is also very interesting in relation to this is that we as a government were concerned about climate change and, as a result, we set up the Greenhouse Office in 1998. Since that time, those opposite have asked 34 questions in relation to greenhouse gases and global warming. That seems to be a pretty good number of questions, until such time as you ask: when were they actually asked in this place? Out of the 34 questions since 1998, 30 of them have been asked in the past 12 months. Year after year has gone by since 1998 without the Labor Party asking a single question on this very important issue. We on this side, however, raised the issue via dorothy dixers on 44 occasions. In other words, we have been engaging on this topic on a regular basis, unlike those opposite, who discovered it about 12 months ago, some eight or nine years after we established the Greenhouse Office. Now they are asking all the questions and unfortunately have conned some in the media gallery that they are somehow the champions of this issue. They are not. They are Kevin-come-latelies to this issue, very much Kevin-come-latelies. The people of Australia know that we have to deal with the issue of climate change, given the report of the prime ministerial task force, in a way that embraces the global community—

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Will every child live in poverty or not?

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Evans, you complained earlier about tedious repetition. You have been tediously interjecting all question time, and I ask you to come to order.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

because, if we do not engage the global community, we will be committing Australia to economic poverty without any environmental benefit. That is very clear from the prime ministerial task force. It is absolutely obvious to anybody. That is why we need to engage globally. Also, the prime ministerial task force exposed, for all to see, how pathetic the Labor Party policy is in relation to saying, ‘We can fix this by signing up to Kyoto’—Kyoto, an agreement that does not deal with the majority of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. This is the Labor Party policy. What they will be doing is committing us to a lower economic standard of living, a low standard which we do not need to have. It is the Garrett recession that we do not need to have. That is why we as a government will continue on our steady but sure progress in relation to this very important issue, an issue on which we have been working now well and truly for over a decade.

Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I take it from the minister’s answer that he is of the view that he is right and the government’s experts are wrong. Doesn’t the minister’s outrageous claim demonstrate that the Howard government is manifestly incapable of responding to the threat of dangerous climate change? Don’t the minister’s absurd comments, which are refuted by business and scientific experts, make it clear that the government does not believe that climate change is a problem and so is not prepared to take serious action to address it?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a bizarre proposition. We as a government took it so seriously that in 1998 we started off with a Greenhouse Office. Since then, we have spent literally hundreds of millions of dollars developing alternative energy sources, such as the solar city that Mr Costello was involved in recently. We had the mandatory renewable energy targets of two per cent, set by this government. I could go on and on. But what is important is that we deal with this issue in a sensible way and not in a cheap, opportunistic way, because one thing that we do not want to do is submit the Australian pensioner, the Australian working family and Australian industry to energy charges that would drive down their standard of living for no benefit to the environment.