Kerry Nettle (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with great pride that I stand here today to speak on the Migration (Climate Refugees) Amendment Bill 2007. It is the first time I have had an occasion to have my own private senator’s bill debated in the Senate, so it is a very exciting opportunity for me. I am really pleased about the opportunity to talk on this issue in particular—the issue of climate refugees. Right now we as a planet face a great threat: climate change. Climate refugees are a very important component of the challenge that climate change presents us as a global community. In March 2004, the Pacific Conference of Churches met on the atoll island nation of Kiribati. They discussed climate change and its likely effects for Pacific nations. Out of this came the Otin Tai declaration. That declaration begins this way:

Here on the small atoll islands of Kiribati, the impacts of human induced climate change are already visible. The sea level is rising. People’s homes are vulnerable to the increasingly high tides and storm surges. Shores are eroding and coral reefs are becoming blanched. The water supplies and soil fertility are being threatened by the intrusion of salt water. Weather patterns are less predictable, posing risks to fisherfolk and farmers.

Kiribati is not alone in its plight. Many other island nations in the Pacific are experiencing similar impacts of human induced climate change. Our peoples, who number about 7 million, are already suffering and are vulnerable to more impacts in the future.

This declaration from Pacific island nations went on, requesting that highly industrialised countries such as Australia do seven things. The seven things they request of us are:

1.

Acknowledge [our] special responsibilities for the effects of climate change—take action immediately because the Pacific people are suffering, crying and dying right now

2.

Reduce fossil fuel production/consumption and increase use of renewable energy.

3.

Provide scholarship funds to students of the Pacific for higher educational level studies on the issue of climate change.

4.

Ratify and implement the Kyoto Protocol

5.

Increase budgets for adaptation programs in the Pacific

6.

To implement the reduction targets specified in the Kyoto Protocol within the first commitment period

7.

To relocate and compensate the victims of climate change as requested by Pacific countries.

This piece of legislation that we are debating today, the Migration (Climate Refugees) Amendment Bill 2007, addresses this last point on the issue of climate refugees. Climate change induced environmental refugees are likely to be a big issue this century as the impacts of climate change occur and make many more places now inhabited uninhabitable for various reasons. We are perhaps now in the calm before the storm. The World Bank say that sea levels rising could displace hundreds of millions of people within this century. In a report released in February of this year, they concluded:

… the overall magnitudes for the developing world are sobering: Within this century, hundreds of millions of people are likely to be displaced by [sea level rise]; accompanying economic and ecological damage will be severe for many. The world has not previously faced a crisis on this scale, and planning for adaptation should begin immediately.

…            …            …

To date, however, there is little evidence that the international community has seriously considered the implications for population location and infrastructure planning in many developing countries. We hope that the information provided in this paper will encourage more rapid action on this front.

The Nicolas Stern report concluded that there could be between 150 million and 200 million climate refugees by 2050, and a recent Christian Aid report suggested 200 million to 250 million people will be displaced by climate change. Oxford academic and expert in this area Norman Myers predicts that by 2050 up to 150 million people may be displaced by the impact of global warming. This is a looming issue for Australia and the international community. Not many people have been directly displaced by climate change yet, but how we prepare for the challenge is an indication of how seriously we take the issue of global warming.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has already identified climate change as one of the factors in the tragic Darfur conflict. He wrote recently in the Washington Post:

Amid the diverse social and political causes, the Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change.

Many climate refugees will be internally displaced. Some will be able to relocate and settle within their own country. This will place stress on infrastructure and may create social tensions and divisions. However, many will not be able to remain in their countries, and this Greens bill that we are debating provides a mechanism to assist them.

Alan Dupont and Graeme Pearman, in their report called Heating up the planet, for the Lowy Institute, state:

New migrants, regardless of whether or not they cross borders, can impinge on the living space of others, widen existing ethnic and religious divides and add to environmental stress in a self-sustaining cycle of migration and instability.

They continue in their report on how they see climate induced migration playing out:

First, people will move in response to a deteriorating environment, creating new or repetitive patterns of migration, especially in developing states. Secondly, there will be increasing short-term population dislocations due to particular climate stimuli such as severe cyclones or major flooding. Thirdly, larger scale population movements are possible that build more slowly but gain momentum as adverse shifts in climate interact with other migration drivers such as political disturbances, military conflict, ecological stress and socio-economic change.

In the Pacific, the small islands are especially vulnerable to rising sea levels associated with melting ice caps, the thermal expansion of the ocean and stronger storm surges—all part of climate change. Already the Carteret Islands of Papua New Guinea are being evacuated. The Pacific island nations of Tuvalu and Kiribati are already starting to drown. Kiribati’s chief climate negotiator spoke to New Scientist in 2000 about the plight of his country. He said:

Apart from causing coastal erosion, higher tides are pushing salt water into the fields and into underground fresh-water reservoirs. In some places, it just bubbles up from the ground. This is making soils too salty for root crops and is polluting drinking water. We often have to bathe in salt water. You’ll know all about coral bleaching in waters which are getting warmer. But for us, this is not just an issue of biodiversity tourism. The reefs are where we get many of our fish. If the reefs die, so will our food.

Eight or nine house plots in the village that my family belongs to have been eroded away. I remember there was a coconut tree outside the government quarters where I lived. The beach all around it was eroded, and eventually it disappeared. But erosion is not the only problem for trees. The droughts are much worse than they used to be. We can go more than six months without rain these days. Now the new row of coconut trees is withering, too. Our elders say we have never had droughts that last so long. The droughts may be because of El Nino. But if the El Ninos are stronger, that must be part of climate change.

It is not just Tuvalu and other atoll islands in the Pacific that would be affected by climate change. Even mountainous Fiji will face a crisis when the sea level rise becomes severe. Much of Fiji’s productive land and urban areas will be flooded, which could lead to increasing ethnic conflict. The President of the Marshall Islands said in a speech in May of this year, ‘It won’t be long before our country is completely inundated.’ Again, the Kiribati chief climate change negotiator said in 2000: ‘Imagine standing on one side of these islands, with waves pounding on one side and the lagoon on the other. It is frightening.’

It is not just rising sea level that has the capacity to create climate change refugees in the near future. As the earth warms, precipitation patterns will change causing catastrophic floods in some areas and in other areas turning currently cultivatable land into desert. Monsoons may change direction and strength and could fail to water the world’s breadbaskets. Mountain glaciers around the world are already shrinking at an alarming rate. The glaciers of the Himalayas are the source of major rivers such as the Indus, the Yangtze, the Mekong and the Ganges that currently sustain half the world’s population.

Alan Dupont and Graeme Pearman say that Australia should take the issue of climate refugees more seriously. In their report they say:

Australia and regional states need to give this issue more serious attention since three of the areas most vulnerable to sea  level rise globally are in Asia and the Pacific (South Asia, Southeast Asia and low lying coral atolls in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific) and six of Asia’s ten mega cities are located on the coast.

This piece of legislation proposed by the Greens, which we are debating here today, equips Australia with the formal mechanisms to accept and process climate refugees. Many in this place may say that the effects of climate change are too far off to worry about now or that the scale of future climate refugees is too big for Australia to deal with alone. But Australia must and can set an example for the world. By supporting this legislation, we would indicate that we take the issue of climate change refugees seriously and that we are implementing mechanisms to deal with the issue. It enables us to do our part and we must do our part. Many in this place might think that sea level rise this century may only be measured in centimetres. Dr James Hansen, who is NASA’s chief climatologist, wrote in last month’s New Scientist:

I find it almost inconceivable that ‘business as usual’ climate change will not result in a rise in sea level measured in metres within a century

There is not a sufficiently widespread appreciation of the implications of putting back into the air a large fraction of the carbon stored in the ground over epochs of geologic time. The climate forcing caused by these greenhouse gases would dwarf the climate forcing for any time in the past several hundred thousand years.

I have asked questions at the last three Senate estimates inquiries about whether the Department of Immigration and Citizenship is doing any work on the issue of climate change refugees and the answer is consistently no. The Greens are concerned that the government is not taking this issue seriously. The governments of Tuvalu and Kiribati have approached the Australian and New Zealand governments on several occasions to request that we work with them to put in place a plan for the migration of their populations to Australia as their homelands become uninhabitable.

In 2001, the then minister for immigration, Mr Philip Ruddock, refused to meet with Tuvalu to discuss this matter. At around the same time the New Zealand government implemented its specific access category under which 75 people from Tuvalu and 75 people from Kiribati can migrate to New Zealand each year. That enables them to play a constructive role in actually taking on board the entire population of Tuvalu and Kiribati over a protracted period of time as a part of a way in which they can contribute to these Pacific island nations dealing with the issue of climate change and climate change refugees—climate change for which we have been so responsible and refugees created in our region in the Pacific. A senior Tuvaluan official said that, while New Zealand had helped out their neighbours, ‘Australia on the other hand has slammed the door in our face.’ This is the situation that we face.

The Greens’ climate refugee bill would help us to address these problems. It creates a new class of visa under the Migration Act called the climate change refugee visa. It grants the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship the power to assess an environmental disaster that has displaced people and to make a climate change induced environmental disaster declaration. Such a declaration may only be made by the minister personally. When considering whether or not to make such a declaration, the minister can give consideration to the geographical scope of the disaster; the possibilities for adaptation and the long-term sustainability of the area; the capacity of the country and neighbouring countries to absorb displaced persons; and other international efforts of assistance.

Such a declaration may include setting the number of visas that will be issued to people displaced by a declared disaster and the criteria as to how such displaced people would be accepted as climate refugees. This is the standard procedure by which we create new visa categories under the Migration Act in Australia. The Department of Immigration and Citizenship told the Senate estimates committee hearing that Australia would be able to accept people who were displaced by environmental disasters through the existing migration law.

This piece of legislation formally recognises and implements specific mechanisms by which Australia would assess and accept climate change refugees. Australia should be able to take several hundred climate change refugees per year from the Pacific island nations of Tuvalu and Kiribati if we look to the example that New Zealand has set us and consider our larger size. This would ease the pressure on these nations and prepare the way for their eventual evacuation as the ocean claims their countries.

Under this bill the minister for immigration would have the power to make a declaration that Tuvalu is suffering a climate change induced environmental disaster due to rising sea levels and more intense storms. The minister could, for example, set a limit and say that 300 Tuvaluans could be accepted into Australia as climate change refugees per year and could set out the process by which they apply and the criteria against which applicants would be assessed.

Climate change refugees are currently a minor problem, but they could become a major global crisis. Australia should raise the issue of climate change refugees within the United Nations. We should work with other nations to form a new international framework to deal with climate change refugees in a just, efficient and fair manner. The United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees has provided a framework for the treatment, assessment and resettlement of refugees. Millions of people around the world have been provided protection, safety and the chance of a new life under this convention. Climate change refugees are not refugees under the definition that currently exists in the UN refugee convention. They seek refuge not from persecution—although that may be a consequence of climate change—but from an environmental disaster or are otherwise displaced by climate change. The Australian Greens have long held the position that the refugee convention should be expanded to include a category for environmental refugees. This would, of course, include the climate change refugees we are talking about today.

The Greens hope that this bill assists in providing some guidance and leadership towards a multilateral framework to deal with the issue of climate change refugees. Our priority must be to stop climate change by moving quickly towards a low-carbon economy. We know that our Pacific island neighbours do not want to lose their cultural connection to their land and do not want to be displaced as a result of rising sea levels due to climate change and be transferred en masse or in part to Australia or neighbouring countries in this area. We know that they would like to continue their connection with their land. Many people may stay until the last moment. We need to play a constructive role as the wealthiest country in our region and as a country that is responsible for producing so many greenhouse gases. We are one of the highest emitters of greenhouse gases on a per capita level in the world. We are the world’s largest exporter of coal. We need to take on the responsibilities that come with that of working in our region to ensure that there is a future for our Pacific island neighbours. That is what this legislation is about: it is about putting in place a process so that we can deal with the people who will lose their homes because of the contribution that we as a country have made to the global warming that is occurring. This is an issue of morality. This is an issue of responsibility. This is an issue that we, as a leading country in our region, need to grasp with both hands.

We need to play a constructive role in ensuring that there is a long-term future for our Pacific island neighbours. We need to assist them in the activities that exist in their countries now. But we also need to provide them with an avenue, a mechanism and an opportunity—in which we can support them—by which they can leave their country when the time comes that they have to. We are already seeing Pacific island nations like the Carteret Islands being evacuated as rising sea levels drown people’s homes. We need to be putting in place now a process by which we can help our Pacific island neighbours as this occurs over this period of time. This piece of legislation provides us with the opportunity to do that. I am proud to be introducing this legislation and debating it on behalf of the Australian Greens. I ask the Senate to support it. (Time expired)

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to speak on the Migration (Climate Refugees) Amendment Bill 2007 to raise concerns about the impact of climate change on the South Pacific islands. The purpose of this legislation is to create a new class of visa: a climate change refugee visa. The reasons motivating this bill are clear to us all—climate change is impacting now on the people of island nations in the Pacific. Labor recognise that our Pacific island neighbours face increasing environmental challenges arising from climate change. However, Labor note that there needs to be an international effort to deal with people displaced by the effects of climate change. Labor will establish an international coalition to resettle people displaced by the effects of climate change when a country becomes uninhabitable because of rising sea levels, damage to coastal infrastructure or reduced food security and water supplies as part of our Pacific climate change strategy. The bill before the Senate today prescribes a unilateral response to people displaced by climate change and undermines the principle of shared responsibility that Labor support. On this basis, Labor cannot support the bill in its current form.

Labor will show the leadership required in our region to assist our Pacific neighbours to prepare for and adapt to climate change. As I said, Labor have long recognised that climate change is real for the people of the island nations in the Pacific. In January 2006 Labor released a policy discussion paper on climate change in the Pacific entitled Our drowning neighbours. Its purpose was to promote discussion in the community about climate change science and the impact occurring now in the Pacific and to work with our own and the international community to find solutions. I take this opportunity to commend Mr Bob Sercombe, the member for Maribyrnong, and Mr Anthony Albanese for the work they did in putting this excellent document together. There are four key threats to our Pacific neighbours: rising sea levels, extreme weather events, collapse of ecosystems and the contamination of freshwater with salt water. The Pacific has some of the smallest and lowest-lying countries in the world. It has been predicted that climate change will lead to a rise in sea levels of between 14 centimetres and 32 centimetres by 2050. However, a small rise would have a devastating effect on many Pacific countries. Tuvalu faces the prospect of total inundation by rising sea levels—as do islands in Vanuatu, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and parts of Papua New Guinea.

King tides are already flooding islands across the region. The SEAFRAME project attempts to secure data on sea level change that is absolute. This means it ignores the role of land movement as a part of sea level shifts. The early data sourced from this study shows a rise in sea levels of 5.9 millimetres per year at the Tuvalu measuring station, 8.1 millimetres per year at the Manus Island station in Papua New Guinea and 15.5 millimetres per year at the Tonga station. This compares with the global average of a rise of between one and two millimetres per year. This is an imminent catastrophe for atoll states such as Tuvalu. Some Pacific leaders are declaring that it is already too late for their countries to be saved.

As I said, extreme weather events are also a threat. The increasingly volatile weather patterns associated with climate change are an immediate and rising threat to our Pacific neighbours. Deaths from weather related disasters have already increased in Oceania by 21 per cent since the mid-1970s. Cyclone wind speeds are predicted to increase by 10 to 20 per cent over the next few years because of their complex relationship with sea temperature. The projected increase in the power of tropical storms is compounded by the increased volume of tropical storms over the last 30 years. As the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has stated, these extreme weather events pose a greater threat to atoll states as storm surges will cause greater structural damage and have ongoing adverse effects. Aside from the deaths, injuries and financial costs associated with storm surges, they cause widespread coastal erosion. Land space is already at a premium on the smaller Pacific islands, so they cannot sustain an ongoing loss of land.

Collapsing ecosystems are also of concern. Pacific societies are highly dependent on their ecosystems as their economies are often a mixture of formal exchange and subsistence practices. Unfortunately, Pacific island countries’ ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to climate change. One effect of climate change is the bleaching of reefs. Reefs are the foundation of atoll states as they break the impact of violent weather on the land, protect against coastal erosion from severe weather and also generate the material that replenishes coastal areas. Reefs are a secure location for fish stocks to breed and feed. Tuvalu provides an example of this interdependence. Its inner reefs, along with the lagoon, provide most of Tuvalu’s food. Reefs are vital to many Pacific island ecosystems, so their bleaching is a threat to the sustainability of their entire social ecosystems.

Contamination of freshwater with saltwater is an extraordinary and real threat to the future of these countries. Citizens on the Carteret Islands in Papua New Guinea are currently being moved because their health has been steadily deteriorating because they are losing access to freshwater and their gardens are being destroyed by advancing saltwater. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change believes saltwater contamination is one of the most potentially devastating symptoms of climate change. The contamination of groundwater is a significant threat to our Pacific neighbours, reducing agricultural production and the basic availability of drinking water. It has been estimated that the freshwater supplies of some Pacific island countries could drop by up to 50 per cent.

The four key threats—rising sea levels, extreme weather events, collapsing ecosystems and the contamination of freshwater—are added to with a number of other threats. There is also the public health threat. Pacific island countries need to adapt to increasing vector borne and waterborne diseases—for example, malaria—caused by warmer temperatures. In Australia, for instance, the Australian Medical Association and the Australian Conservation Foundation have estimated that temperature related deaths could double in Australia to 2,500 deaths per year by 2020. These threats present a considerable challenge to individual countries, but they also present a challenge to regional stability and security. Climate change has the potential to destroy development gains in these countries and, according to a recent Pentagon report, climate change has the potential to destroy food systems and living conditions, leading to considerable instability, disruption and conflict. That is why climate change in the Pacific is an issue for Australia—for security reasons, not just for environmental or altruistic reasons. If Australia is committed to the stability and security of the Pacific, we have to deal with the impact of climate change in these countries.

Following the launch of our discussion paper, in July 2007 Labor launched a policy document entitled Assisting our South Pacific neighbours prepare for climate change. I commend the work of Mr Peter Garrett and Mr Bob McMullan, the shadow ministers respectively for climate change and environment and heritage, and international development assistance. The policy is comprehensive and has been well received. A Rudd Labor government will commit $150 million from Australia’s international aid budget to assist our neighbours to prepare for and adapt to the effects of climate change. Federal Labor is committed to working with our neighbours to develop and implement climate change adaptation plans to minimise the impacts on our region. The poorest countries that are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change are also those that have the least financial capacity to respond. Labor believes that, as a developed country in our region, we have an obligation to help our poorer neighbours prepare for and adapt to avoid the worse impacts of climate change. Unless we help our neighbours to adapt and act to avoid the worse impacts of climate change, the world will see millions of climate change refugees. As part of its international development assistance and climate change commitment, a Rudd Labor government will increase aid expenditure on climate change by $150 million over three years to fund initiatives on adaptation to climate change, with a priority on the Pacific islands and East Timor. We will assist countries to develop climate change adaptation plans, particularly low-lying countries and those susceptible to extreme weather events.

Labor will ensure that climate change is a key consideration in the design of Australia’s aid program. Labor will develop a Pacific climate change strategy and build capacity for avoiding deforestation and for better forest management in the Asia-Pacific region. Labor will share Australia’s scientific and technological expertise in climate change and ensure that the aid program also promotes the use of low carbon emitting technologies. Labor will increase support for non-government organisations that assist with the implementation of this new approach and we will participate in multilateral and bilateral programs of assistance. However, Australia’s continued refusal to ratify the Kyoto protocol means that Australia cannot play a direct role in ensuring the allocation of funding under the protocol’s adaptation fund to countries in our region. Labor will redress that by ratifying the Kyoto protocol.

Today I also want to take the opportunity in this debate to focus on another group of people who are concerned and fearful for their future because of the impact of climate change. These people are not our Pacific neighbours; they are Australians. They are the people of the Torres Strait. I have spoken before in this chamber about the impact of climate change on the Torres Strait, expressing the growing concern of Torres Strait Islanders about their future. I have been very fortunate in being able to go to the Torres Strait for nearly 20 years. Over that time, I have been able to meet with community leaders and members of the community. That has been extremely educational and a great opportunity for me. But, increasingly, when I have those meetings with community leaders, erosion and inundation from climate change is the No. 1 issue on their agenda.

The outer islands of the Torres Strait are a very beautiful part of the world. The scenery is almost like a picture postcard. The connection of Torres Strait Islanders with their land and sea country is strong and part of their everyday life. I remind the Senate that native title was found on Mer Island in the Torres Strait, underlying that absolute connection between land and sea. Climate change is affecting Australians living in the Torres Strait, like Papua New Guinean residents on Carteret and the people of Tuvalu and Kiribati. It is an indictment on our national government that very little is being done to assist them.

In April this year, I undertook further consultations with people living in the Torres Strait. I met with the Torres Strait Climate Action Network. I congratulate this group of extremely energetic and mainly young people who are committed to educating and working with their community to militate against climate change in the Torres Strait. I thank Mayor Pedro Stephen of the Torres Shire Council for the use of the council chambers for that meeting. The Torres Strait Climate Action Network raised a number of issues with me at the meetings that I held. They expressed concern that there was limited information on which to make assessments and judgements about what the impact had already been in the Torres Strait in terms of sea level rise and urged us to undertake a proper analysis of sea level movement in the Torres Strait. They are interested in funding possibilities for research, planning and implementation and for public education and information programs in the region.

In their minds there is also a need for bodies such as councils, the Torres Strait Regional Authority, non-government organisations and others to have funding to be able to provide local input into research. They said that there was a desperate need for specific research and data on the region. They said that it should include potential population and economic, social and political impacts. TSCAN suggests that it would be useful for the Torres Strait to become an integrated climate change research centre, especially given the amount of science that is already done in the region and the number of eminent scientists who have on-the-ground knowledge. They talked about their actions in their own community to encourage fewer emissions. They are exploring the opportunity to establish a community garden to mitigate the greenhouse gases emitted when food is transported all the way up from the south. They suggested that sustainable tropical housing should be trialled in the Torres Strait so that the use of air conditioners in particular might be lessened. They also suggested that climate change content needs to be specifically inserted into state and national school curricula. I commend the network for the work that they are undertaking with and for their community. They expressed the frustration that they are doing what they can up there in the Torres Strait but that it will all be for nothing without support from the federal government. They urged the government to start by, firstly, signing the Kyoto protocol.

I was fortunate to be able to visit four of the outer islands: Badu Island, Saibai Island, Yorke Island and Yam Island. The stories that I heard in those four meetings were very similar. The message from Badu Island was that all of the island councils are very aware and very concerned but that they need more information on the causes and impact of and the possible solutions to climate change. There is a widespread view that the weather and the seasons are becoming less predictable, and that message was given to me on each of those four islands. It was said that traditional methods of predicting the weather and the seasons do not work now. The council on Badu Island was worried about the impact of climate change on future marine resources, specifically crayfish and fish stocks, and their migration patterns. There was also a concern about an increase that they have observed in silt and mud in the water; although, there is a view in the central islands that increased trawling may be part of the reason for that.

At Saibai Island, which is a mud island very close to the Papua New Guinea border, the immediate concern was the repair and extension of the seawall. I have spoken in this place before about the inundation that has occurred, particularly in February 2005, when we had king tides. They are using CDEP for some of the work, but they recognise that the funding is inadequate and described it as a ‘bandaid on a seawall’. The highest point on Saibai Island is only 2.7 metres above sea level, so they are very concerned.

I had a breakfast meeting with the Yorke Island Council, and I thank the council for their hospitality. They have done some significant work with James Cook University and the Queensland government through the Environmental Protection Authority to look at erosion issues there, as had the people of Yam Island. But all agree that more needs to be done to assist these communities.

I want to place on record again my thanks to the people of the Torres Strait for their hospitality during this recent visit. I will continue to work with the people of the Torres Strait to ameliorate the effects of climate change, particularly to actively investigate every option to avoid the need for relocation of the people of the Torres Strait onto the mainland.

Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Migration (Climate Refugees) Amendment Bill 2007. Addressing the issue of climate change is a genuine priority for Labor. We believe there are many measures that urgently need to be put in place if we are to limit the impact of climate change globally, including on our nation and on our neighbours, many of whom are vulnerable on a number of fronts. As we know, the Howard government has been asleep on climate change, yet it is an issue we cannot afford to take our eyes off for a moment, let alone be caught dozing on.

The Prime Minister, who has been a famous sceptic on this issue, and the government have failed to provide solutions to environmental concerns for 11 years. For its entire term in office, this government has failed to listen to the recommendations of experts. When it is awake, even if only for a moment, this government does not really know what it believes about climate change and emissions trading.

In contrast, Labor believes climate change is a real and immediate threat. While those in power have been idle and indifferent, on this side we have been asking the questions, putting forward ways to address environmental issues, moving amendments and introducing bills. Not surprisingly, the will and wishes of the Australian people are behind us on this issue. In fact, they are trying to do more than the government about global warming on a household by household, workplace by workplace basis. Right across Australia in homes and businesses, people are recycling, switching on to solar power, being water wise and conserving energy in greater numbers than ever before. While the government treats climate change as though it is a minor irritant, Australian families are not in any doubt about its importance. This should not shock anyone—we know the government is out of touch with the population it is meant to represent.

As we consistently see in surveys, our constituents across the country rank climate change policy as crucial to the future wellbeing, security and prosperity of our nation and our planet—and they are spot on. The Australian people are worried about the government’s interminable inaction on this issue. They are worried about the irreparable damage this environmental blight already has wreaked on our world and, even more so, about the devastation it will bring in the future.

That serious concern is understandable, given that 600 scientists from 113 nations, including 42 from Australia, on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have found:

Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level.

We also have been warned in Australia responds: helping our neighbours fight climate change, a report by Australian environmental and aid non-government organisations, that unless our government acts now any efforts to help lift our poorest neighbours out of poverty will fail.

Despite having lower populations than their developing counterparts, industrialised countries are responsible for 76 per cent of the world’s historical emissions, according to World Resources Institute estimates. In the first year of this century, emissions by industrialised countries were listed at 14.1 tonnes per person, not including land use change. This figure is more than four times the per capita output of developing nations, which emit an average of 3.3 tonnes per person.

As if developing countries do not have enough to struggle with, it is predicted that climate change will increase drought in Africa; hit the populous delta regions of the Mekong and Bangladesh with sea level rises; cause the further retreat of Himalayan glaciers, meaning worsening water shortages in China and India; and degrade the forests, farming land and fish stocks that many impoverished families rely on for their survival. Of course, then there is the increase in death and disease predicted as mosquitoes thrive and heatwaves, hurricanes and floods occur with ever-increasing frequency and ferocity.

As water suitable for drinking dries up and the scourge of malnutrition takes an even-greater and more tragic hold of the children of Africa, climate change effects will reach cataclysmic proportions. It is predictable that there will be ever-increasing numbers of climate change refugees as environmental disasters become less isolated and more frequent.

Labor recognises that our Pacific island neighbours face increasing environmental challenges arising from climate change. However, Labor notes that there needs to be an international effort to deal with people displaced by the effects of climate change. Labor will establish an international coalition to resettle people displaced by the effects of climate change when a country becomes uninhabitable because of rising sea levels, damage to coastal infrastructure or reduced food security and water supplies. This will be done as part of our Pacific climate change strategy.

It is the very survival of our planet as a viable and healthy life host that is at stake. We can and must act now. Last year’s Stern review is true to its name when it comes to making the point about the necessity for, and responsibility of, prosperous countries to work with less wealthy nations. It says:

The poorest developing countries will be hit earliest and hardest by climate change, even though they have contributed little to causing the problem.

Their low incomes make it difficult to finance adaptation. The international community has an obligation to support them in adapting to climate change. Without such support there is a serious risk that development progress will be undermined.

And Stern is no orphan among leading international reports. The world needs hope and we are in the position of being able to do something about it. If we do set out on a path towards meaningful action, the resulting benefits will not just be environmental—there will be significant rewards on the economic, diplomatic and security fronts, too. But this government, it appears, is simply not up to meeting the immense and burning challenge climate change presents. One suspects the too-hard basket is looking decidedly full and the heat in the kitchen has become unbearable. In stark contrast, Labor is ready to hit the parched ground running.

On this side, we understand the urgency and the desperate need for action. A Rudd Labor government would immediately ratify the Kyoto protocol, sending the world an unpolluted view of our serious, unwavering pledge to be part of the global climate change solution rather than continue to undermine international efforts. Signing on to the protocol will also give Australia a position of influence when it comes to moving forward in partnership with other nations. Labor will adopt a 60 per cent emission reduction target by the middle of the century and set up a carbon trading scheme, among other measures.

Under Kevin Rudd we will increase aid expenditure on climate change by $150 million over three years. This will be targeted at helping our poorer neighbours prepare to cope with the effects of climate change. In particular, Labor will assist countries most susceptible to extreme events, including those in low-lying regions. Labor will work with Pacific nations to analyse, plan and implement the necessary measures. To deliver these ends, Australia will team up with the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and other developed nations in the region. Labor will make sure our national aid program reflects our commitment to climate change considerations, promoting through it the use of low carbon emitting technologies.

We recognise, too, that better forest management in the Asia-Pacific is a key element in a cleaner, greener future. Within the structure of the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility initiative, Labor will head a new global deforestation initiative. We believe investing in the life-giving rainforests of the world is crucial, but we will not wane in our focus on slashing our own emissions. Under Labor, Australia will share its technological and scientific knowledge for the betterment of all nations. We believe establishing a Pacific climate change centre would benefit the region by monitoring, measuring and forecasting climate change developments. Labor will also give backing to non-government organisations to help deliver the different, deliberate and determined plans and programs needed.

A Rudd Labor government will give substantial and significant support to the international foundations, including the Least Developed Countries Fund, the Special Climate Change Fund and the Adaptation Fund, already in existence to help developing countries adapt to a world darkened by the climate change spectre. Australia’s contributions to these funds in the past have been an embarrassment. The time for action is well and truly upon us. We must work on recovering lost ground by taking the lead when it comes to reducing the world’s emissions. Only in this way and by committing to a comprehensive, considered and collaborative plan into the future will we avoid the worst impacts of global warming and climate change on our planet.

The bill before the Senate today prescribes a unilateral response to people displaced by climate change and undermines the principle of shared responsibility that Labor supports. On this basis, Labor cannot support the bill.

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

I am very interested in the Migration (Climate Refugees) Amendment Bill 2007, although it has only recently been drawn to my attention. I will ask some questions in the committee stages of the bill on just how it would operate, because a cursory look at the terms of the bill suggest to me that it would be wide open to abuse and that it really has little to do with climate change, immigration and visas but a lot to do with the Greens normal stunt-like approach to parliament and their policies. In the committee stage I will be very keen to ask some questions and try to get some answers.

I want to generally indicate that the Australian government over a succession of environment ministers, and particularly under the current environment minister, has been not just very concerned about climate change but actually doing things about it. I reiterate a point I always make: the Labor Party and others have come to this debate recently because focus groups I think have indicated to Mr Rudd that this is an important issue. Labor has a focus group approach and answer to climate change.

In contrast to that, the Howard government has been looking at this issue since the former Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator Robert Hill, initiated the Australian Greenhouse Office back in, I think, 1997. As I recall, the Australian Greenhouse Office was the first government agency of that type to be set up anywhere in the world to address the issue of climate change. So, unlike Mr Rudd, who has come to this issue because focus groups have told him to do that in the last 12 months, the Howard government has been addressing this issue for 10 years or more. The Greenhouse Office has been very well funded to do its work. The Australian government has financed any number of initiatives—it would take the whole of my 20 minutes to go through them—at very great cost to the taxpayer. But I think the taxpayers, along with the government, are happy to have spent the money because what we have achieved has been important.

It is also very important to highlight that this is a global problem. Australia produces less than two per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. If you turned off every electric light bulb, shut down every power station and closed every mine in Australia tomorrow, the greatest impact that would have on greenhouse gas emissions would be about 1½ per cent. It would still leave a real problem for the globe, in that 98.5 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions would continue to pollute the world. So Australia’s principal contribution to mankind is to try to get the big emitters—China, India and the United States—to the table so that some sensible program can be agreed upon and implemented to stop global greenhouse gas emissions.

Some of our respected and supposedly responsible politicians are determined that Australia should damage itself economically for a result that would not make one iota of difference to greenhouse gas emissions and, therefore, climate change. They are determined that Australia should destroy itself economically without making any real contribution to climate change. What we have to do is try to convince those big emitters—and, in that way, we can make a real contribution to the climate change debate. Notwithstanding that Australia is such a small emitter, we have done more, proportionally, than most other countries to address greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. The programs the government has been involved in have contributed very substantially to that.

Mr Rudd’s current policy—I think it is still his current policy—is to sign up to the Kyoto protocol. But I suspect that will not be his policy after he speaks to the Bowen Basin miners, members of the CFMEU, who, along with me, recognise that Labor’s policy of signing the Kyoto protocol is a ridiculous response to climate change. Signing a bit of paper will not make one iota of difference to climate change. In fact, a lot of the countries that have signed the Kyoto protocol have done nothing. I think 167 countries signed onto the Kyoto protocol—and only 34 of them have attempted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Even those who had the best intentions have not reduced their greenhouse emissions as they agreed to do at Kyoto. Indeed, Australia is on track to meet its target of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions to 108 per cent of 1990 levels. We are one of the few countries that are doing that. Signing the Kyoto protocol will not make one iota of difference, yet that seems to be Labor’s main policy approach: sign a bit of paper and the world will be all smiles again. That is just ridiculous, but it is typical of the focus-driven policy approach from the Labor Party at the present time. They are focus driven on everything, it seems, except tax policy. Their only tax policy is to have no policy at all.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

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

I hear the members opposite laughing. Perhaps they can tell me I am wrong. Perhaps they can tell me when their tax policy is going to be released. We would be very keen to see it. My understanding is that the opposition’s only pronouncement on tax policy is that it will not have a tax policy—and I suspect that is also something Mr Rudd has picked up from focus groups. We in Queensland know how Mr Rudd operates. He was the adviser to Premier Goss when he shut down any proposal for getting decent water supplies to south-east Queensland. There is a crisis now, 10 years later, because, when Mr Rudd, as head of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, was advising Mr Goss, they decided to stop any proposals that the National and Liberal governments had put forward for a proper water supply in south-east Queensland.

The interjections from the other side have diverted me from the bill before us. Before getting into the bill, I want to raise a couple of issues. This bill is predicated on the fact that climate change is going to cause disasters in many communities around the world and that there will be a need for a higher level of migration of people as a result of that. Could I just point out that sea level rise is a long-term challenge for our region which scientific evidence tells us does not present an immediate danger of displacing entire Pacific island populations. Sea level rise is a complex issue, and all of the factors need to be understood and reported accurately. Inundation of Pacific islands could be caused by factors such as land subsidence, tectonic subduction, natural climate variability, El Nino, tropical cyclones and the like, long-term tidal cycles and land use patterns. Climate change is only one variable in this mix.

We as a government, as a nation, are providing more than $42.25 million in practical assistance to Pacific island countries to deal with climate variation and sea level rise by monitoring sea levels, improving climate prediction, assessing vulnerability and planning adaption action. In the 2007-08 budget, the government announced $7.5 million for the UNFCCC’s Least Developed Countries Fund to help some of the poorest countries, including some of these Pacific island countries, to assess and adapt to the impacts of climate change. I should mention that at the, I think, 2005 Pacific Island Forum, the Prime Minister and the other Pacific leaders agreed to consider measures to address population dislocation should a genuine need arise.

The Australian government, as you know, Mr Acting Deputy President Lightfoot, have a long record of responding generously when needs arise in the Pacific, and we will continue to do so. Further, it is important to point out in the context of this bill that our current migration program is designed to serve economic, social and demographic objectives. We also have a substantial humanitarian program which resettles people who have been subjected to persecution or gross violation of human rights in their home countries. The global climate change phenomenon is a focus for all governments. We are strongly engaged in global dialogue on this particular issue. It is not appropriate to speculate on how our government might respond to possible future environmental challenges in the region—that is a matter for negotiation with other regional governments—but any responses will be consistent with our role as a responsible global citizen. The government manages a range of aid programs designed to assist developing countries in our region.

At times, questions have been asked about why Australia is not doing more through its immigration arrangements to alleviate the plight of Pacific islanders affected by climate change. Australia has long maintained a global non-discriminatory immigration policy. Australia is already strongly engaged in supporting development in the Pacific. In the event of environmental conditions in certain Pacific states reaching disaster proportions, Australia would play a major part in any international response. As I have mentioned, the Prime Minister recently committed to the development of an Australian-funded technical college for the Pacific, and work has began across a range of Commonwealth agencies to explore how that commitment will be met. It is likely that many of the graduates of such an institution would have skills in demand in Australia and would meet standards required to have their skills recognised in Australia. So we are clearly doing a considerable amount already to help our Pacific island neighbours.

On a closer look, it seems that this bill is, as I mentioned earlier, simply another stunt promoted by the Greens. I understand that they are doing this at the behest of the Friends of the Earth. The Friends of the Earth is a very interesting organisation. It is connected with an Indonesian organisation called WALHI, which is the Indonesian chapter of the Friends of the Earth. There are some interesting connections between WALHI and the Australian Greens. I note a press release, dated 12 January 2004, in which Senator Bob Brown and a WALHI director tried to blame Alexander Downer for violence at the Newcrest mine in Indonesia. That is an interesting proposition. I also note that the so-called Mineral Policy Institute—an NGO specialising in campaigning to prevent ‘environmentally and socially destructive mining’ and other minerals and energy projects in Australasia and the Pacific—has listed Senator Bob Brown as its patron. The Mineral Policy Institute was also affiliated with Friends of the Earth International.

Interestingly, WALHI appears to have now been joined by radical Islamic groups in its campaign against the US mining giant, Newmont. A photograph—which I could perhaps table if the Senate were interested—recently featured in the Indonesian press shows Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah, flanked by Muhammad Al Khaththah, the leader of the Indonesian chapter of Hizb ut-Tahrir, attacking Newmont’s environmental record. I also note an article from the Straits Times of 22 April 2006 which states:

The head of Walhi, the main environmental group, is also a member of Hizbut Tahrir, a hardline Muslim group which emerged over the past year, and which has been famously described as being a ‘conveyor belt for terrorists’. Although the group claims to be non-violent, the Walhi chairman took part in recent violent demonstrations outside the US embassy, wearing full Islamic robes.

I would be somewhat interested to know—and perhaps in her closing address Senator Nettle could refer to this, or perhaps we could refer to this a bit more closely in the committee stage of the bill—what the Greens’ response is to this apparent alliance between radical Islamists and the Friends of the Earth on whose behalf, I understand, the Greens have moved this motion today.

Time is running away from me, unfortunately, but I did want to turn to the provisions of the bill to address some of the issues there. With this new form of visa being encouraged by the Greens, one wonders what safeguards might be put in place to ensure that other matters were taken into account as well in relation to suitable entrance into Australia. We proudly have very strict immigration procedures. Over many years, both Labor and Liberal governments have been very generous with their immigration policies, but have been determined to ensure that people coming into our country and society do really have a commitment to Australia and all that Australia stands for. I would be interested to see in this bill just where this new form of visa would fit with the people who might be eligible to come in, because disasters, if they do strike as anticipated by this bill, will strike in many places and it would be very important, I think, for those in charge to carefully look at, as we currently do— (Time expired)

Ross Lightfoot (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Do you wish to table that document? If you do, you will need to seek leave, Senator Macdonald.

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

If anyone doubts that it is here, I have it and they could come and see it. I do not think I need to table it.

Kay Patterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Migration (Climate Refugees) Amendment Bill 2007 put forward by the Greens and want to start by noting that we currently have a migration program which is designed to serve economic, social and demographic objectives. As well, we have a substantial humanitarian program which resettles people who have been subjected to persecution or gross violence or violation of their human rights in their home country.

It has been traditional that we take significant advice from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees regarding our refugee and humanitarian program. They assist in outlining where they think the highest priority lies with the refugee population around the world, which is estimated to be somewhere between 20 and 25 million people. Obviously, Australia cannot take all of those people, so they have an orderly and reasonably fair process, and we are guided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. We obviously sometimes have disagreements with them from time to time, and sometimes those differences are quite significant, but they are an appropriate body to assist us in making those decisions.

In 2005-06, our humanitarian intake was 14,000 people, and this is one of the most generous intakes in the world on a per capita basis. If you put per capita measures aside, we are one of the top three nations in absolute terms in relation to our humanitarian intake. We are up there with the USA and Canada; nations which are much larger than us. And, as I said, we are one of the top three nations in the world in absolute terms in humanitarian intake. I just wanted to put all of this in perspective.

We also have a very proud record in assisting people, both here and abroad, when it comes to a crisis. Aceh is a perfect example. I happened to be in Italy on Boxing Day in December 2004 at the time the tsunami occurred in Indonesia. Even though I do not speak Italian, although I did have reasonable Italian when I was about nine years old, it was quite obvious that Australia featured in the headlines of the Italian newspapers because of our quick, significant and world record monetary contribution to Aceh. We have a proud record in assisting people in crises. That did not happen to be global warming; that happened to be a seismic shift in the earth’s crust. I have to note that, in the bill, the Greens do not mention that. They do not even mention people being displaced as a result of a significant seismic shift which causes permanent changes in people being relocated. It is not even mentioned in this bill. We are only picking global warming because that is the sort of issue that they think they will get a run on.

Let me just say too that I happened to be Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and the Minister for Foreign Affairs when the Kosovars and the East Timorese were here. Four thousand-odd Kosovars at something like two weeks notice were coming to Australia and walking off those planes, some of them with nothing and some of them with nothing more than a plastic bag. And what happened? I am having difficulty, Mr Acting Deputy President, with the chatter that is going on; it is distracting.

Ross Lightfoot (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I can anticipate your difficulty, Senator Patterson, and I think the situation has naturally resolved itself.

Kay Patterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I watched as those people came down, and I was there as they came into the Qantas hangar—these people who had been taken in by Australia and accommodated, at two weeks notice, through the amazing work of the immigration department, which was subjected to some appalling treatment in the press while Senator Vanstone was minister. The immigration department and the defence department worked together cooperatively. I was staggered and moved by the way in which they worked together, and I changed my attitude towards the defence forces. My concept of the defence forces had come from my father, who was a lieutenant in the Second World War and ran our house like it was an Army camp—he made a fantastic contribution, but that was my impression of soldiers. When I saw the defence personnel working with those Kosovars—playing football with the kids and sitting down to talk to and comfort some of the people who had lost family and homes—I saw a different side of the training of the Defence Force.

I have to interpose something here about the Northern Territory emergency response. I was alarmed when I saw some of the press reporting of the Defence Force. People were saying, ‘The Defence Force is going into the Northern Territory.’ That showed a complete lack of understanding and knowledge of the modern training of our defence forces. They are trained in warfare but they are also trained in peacekeeping. I think that maybe our defence forces should wear pale green hats or something similar when they are doing humanitarian community work in Australia, like the work with the Kosovars or the work in the Northern Territory. We accept them as peacemakers when they have blue hats on, but when they went into the Northern Territory there were references to the tanks rolling in and the troops being brought in. I thought that was offensive, totally unacceptable and totally misguided about the role the defence forces can play in building communities—and that they have been playing since Minister Herron, when he was Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, tried to address the issues. You would think, from what happened in the press, that we had done nothing. We have put in measure after measure. One of them was to have the defence forces go in some time ago.

I want to state here that we brought together the resources of our community, of the Public Service, the immigration department in particular, and of the defence forces to work with the Kosovars and then the East Timorese. There were nearly 6,000 people on our doorstep within a couple of weeks. We accommodated them, met their health needs, returned many of them very quickly and kept some of them for over a year. So we have a strong and proud record when it comes to our refugee and humanitarian program.

I would add here that, as a result of the Howard government’s policies aimed at reducing the number of illegal immigrants who come to Australia, the victims of profiteering people smugglers, we have been able to accommodate over a thousand more refugees every year than was the case under Labor. There have been thousands more refugees who have been resettled in Australia in a more orderly fashion as a result of our measures. We have had a strong migration program focused on skills, a strong refugee program focused on those with refugee status—approved by the UNHCR, not by people smugglers—coming here to Australia, and, as I said, a strong response to crises like those of Aceh, Kosovo and East Timor. We can demonstrate that we do that. You would think, from the way these bills have been presented, that we do not have a record on it.

Of course, global climate change phenomena should be a focus of all governments. We have been involved in global dialogue and, in addition, we have been providing significant financial assistance to our Pacific neighbours to monitor changes and assist them to respond. I will outline some of those measures. Since the late 1980s and early 1990s, we have had a South Pacific Sea Level and Climate Monitoring Project—SPSLCMP, as it is known in a shorter form.

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

As it’s easily and commonly known, Senator!

Kay Patterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As it is commonly known—SPSLCMP, however it might be pronounced! It was developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s under the Labor government—you have to give credit—as an Australian government response to concerns raised by member countries in the South Pacific Forum over the potential impacts of human-induced global warming on climate and sea levels in the Pacific region. The primary goal of this project is to generate an accurate record of variance in long-term sea level for the South Pacific and to establish methods to make these data readily available and usable by Pacific island countries. The project is now in its fourth phase, which commenced in January 2006.

But let me go back over some of the earlier work, because I had a particular interest in this. It is amazing, in this job, how you scan across areas about which you knew nothing and have to learn a lot. When I was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, I went to a trade conference in Samoa. While I was there I launched the first of 12 continuous global positioning systems for the Pacific island countries as part of this $24 million program funded through AusAID. The CGPS is an early-warning system linked to a tide gauge to help Pacific island countries monitor and respond to any changes to sea level and climate as the result of global warming and greenhouse effects. This makes the Pacific region the first group in the world to measure changes in sea level with an absolute degree of accuracy.

So here we are, out there in front, assisting our Pacific island neighbours to monitor more accurately changes in sea levels. They needed much better data collection and analysis to assist them to develop policies and to properly plan for any problems associated with climate change and sea level rises. I was not aware until then that the challenge of measuring sea level changes is made difficult when factors like movements of the earth’s crust, earthquakes, tides and volcanic activities all have to be taken into account. The CGPS is linked to the tide gauges and will be used to determine the absolute sea level changes in individual Pacific island countries. In the past, water levels were measured to a level of precision plus or minus 10 millimetres using conventional tide gauges. This was suitable for monitoring changes to sea level due to storm surges, tsunamis and other natural hazards. But to look at the very small and gradual changes in water levels caused by global warming and greenhouse gases, conventional gauges were not sensitive enough. Using state-of-the-art technology, improved sensors, digital recording and additional meteorological inputs, ocean levels can now be monitored with an accuracy of better than plus or minus one millimetre. This is required, as the present estimate of global sea level rise is about 1.5 millimetres per year.

Other stations linked to the tide gauges will be installed in the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Tuvalu, the Cook Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and the Federated States of Micronesia—and I think there are, at this stage, still two of those to be installed. The data will be sent to AUSLIG in Canberra, where scientists will analyse the data and information. AUSLIG work closely with the National Tidal Facility Australia, NTFA, at Flinders University in Adelaide, who are responsible for the tide gauge stations measuring relative sea level changes and then calculating the absolute sea level trends in the region. The results are fed back to scientists and government planners in each Pacific island country and to regional organisations. These stations have a life of more than 20 years to support this work and the Pacific governments, ensuring a continuous flow of sea level and climate information to the governments and the international community over that period. That is a major and significant contribution that has been undertaken, originally by the Labor government and continued by the coalition. That is a practical and sensible way of going about assisting Pacific island nations.

One of the other things we have done is to launch the Australian Pacific Technical College, which the Prime Minister announced in October 2006. The Australian government will provide $149.5 million for the establishment and operation of the new Australian Pacific Technical College. The college aims to provide Australian standard training to Pacific island students from throughout the region and will be a significant resource for island countries. It is to be headquartered in Suva and will include training centres and country offices in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Vanuatu. An important element of this college will be to ensure access by students from all island countries, including the smaller island states. This will be assisted by a generous scholarship scheme worth $10 million in the first four years.

This college aims to offer appropriate courses for people if they continue to live in those island states or need to move because of changing sea levels. It will offer courses in hospitality, tourism, health and community services, automotive trade, manufacturing and construction, and electrical trades. The first intake of students was to take place in July this year, and it is anticipated that in the first four years 3,000 students will graduate from that college. The courses will be delivered by Australian registered training organisations, contracted to the Australian government’s overseas aid agency, AusAID. The college will have close links to industry to ensure the relevance of training to employment. The college will assist economic growth in Pacific island countries by addressing skills shortages and increasing workforce competitiveness. It will also assist in the mobility of skilled workers between the Pacific Islands and developed countries.

Here we have just two measures which are practical and sensible: measuring sea level changes more accurately than is being done anywhere else in the world and training 3,000 people, in the first four years, from a range of countries in the Pacific in courses which will have relevance for their own country and if they need to move.

When Mr Howard was at the Pacific forum last year, there was some debate about the issue of changing sea levels and the issue of what should be done for people living in the island states most likely to be affected. Mr Howard told reporters that there were two sides to the labour mobility issue: shifting people was one argument, but some of the Pacific leaders were concerned that their skills base would be weakened if they lost too many workers to New Zealand and Australia. When we think something is a good idea, we have to consider what the impact will be on the country. By training those people, giving them skills and preparing for the fact that there may be changes, not only will they be able to help their country if sea changes are not as drastic as some people claim but also they will be assisted to be more highly mobile if there are changes. They may not come to Australia and New Zealand; they may choose to go somewhere else for their qualifications.

If they do not have qualifications, they will have very little choice other than to accept the sorts of suggestions being put forward by the Greens. I do not think that is the best alternative. We are a party of choice. If we can educate these people and if sea level change is not so great, they will be much more useful in their home states. If it is the case that they need to move, they will have greater mobility and greater choice, and they will be useful to any receiving country. I do not know whether we could take them all. If they have had training at Australian technical level, that will be an advantage to any receiving country.

Do you know what? Sometimes I would love to be in a minority party, because I read the explanatory memorandum. What does it say? It says: ‘There may be some financial implications. But don’t worry about that.’ They will not explain. They will not even try and estimate the financial implications. I will tell you what the financial implications are. My information might be a bit out of date, but, when I was the parliamentary secretary for immigration, every thousand refugees cost us $25 million over the first five years, and then they start to make an economic contribution. I imagine that would be higher now. We have one of the best resettlement programs in the world. If the Greens had done a modicum of homework, they might have been able to put a guesstimate in there. But instead they have this little, fleeting sentence, ‘There will be financial implications.’ Are we going to reduce our humanitarian intake? Are we going to put more money into the budget? The Greens can be as flippant as they like, but in the end we have to balance the budget. And to have, in their explanatory memorandum, some offhand comment about the cost shows that this bill has not been thought through.

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

I am pleased to speak, on behalf of the Australian Democrats, to the Migration (Climate Refugees) Amendment Bill 2007, a bill from Senator Nettle of the Greens. The bill seeks to recognise refugees from climate change induced environmental disasters. The Democrats have long called for Australia to recognise the reality of climate change and, particularly, to recognise the immediate and significant threat that it poses to many Pacific island nations. We have long called for Australia to develop formal mechanisms for enabling us to accommodate people from Pacific island nations who are affected by climate change.

That, I think, is something that we should all agree on. It is very unfortunate that the government speakers have sought to dismiss or avoid that core issue. You might have concerns about the mechanism being put forward; indeed, I have some queries that I would raise about using this mechanism rather than alternative mechanisms, such as those the Democrats and I have put forward in other legislation. But the core principle remains: Australia has obligations, particularly to people from poorer nations, and particularly to people in our own region and Pacific island nations. We have obligations to ensure that, if and when they are affected severely by climate change induced events, or by climate change more broadly, we provide assistance to them—including, if necessary, enabling them to resettle or reside, even on a more temporary basis, within Australia, depending on their circumstances. That should be a simple given. If Australia as a nation could send that simple signal to the Pacific island nations—that we will provide assistance to and opportunities for them to resettle or reside here in the event of these sorts of problems occurring in their home countries as a result of climate change and climate change induced events—that would make a big difference.

We can work out different ways to do that, whether or not we have a formal visa specifically for that purpose, as is proposed in this legislation. I am not convinced from Senator Patterson’s contribution that she has actually read how this proposed visa would work and the way it would interrelate with existing programs. But this legislation seeks to introduce a specific class of visa known as a climate change refugee visa. Should we do it via that mechanism, as a specific, discrete visa? Or should we do it via a mechanism that I think would work better, which is to use the broader mechanism of a complementary protection visa, which takes into account wider humanitarian circumstances—into which climate change induced disasters would clearly fit? Or should we do it through a much more flexible arrangement with regard to entry rights for people from particular Pacific island nations across the board, without having to establish more defined and constrained humanitarian criteria?

I think there are arguments for all of those approaches. I lean towards the second and third models rather than the model that is put forward in this bill. But I think that just to slag off the whole concept not only is unfair but also sends a poor signal to our Pacific island neighbours—who already, in many cases, are less than impressed with the attitude of the Australian government to climate change as a whole and to what sort of assistance we may provide to people from these island nations as they are more severely affected by climate change.

Let us not kid ourselves: this will occur, whether it occurs via a one-off related environmental disaster or through cumulative reduction in liveable areas and arable land. Either way—and probably both ways—these islands not only are going to be affected but, according to some reports, are already being affected. I draw the Senate’s attention to a report by Kathy Marks which was published in a number of newspapers around the world. I think it was originally published in the Independent, in the UK, in July of this year. I have a version that was in the New Zealand Herald of 21 July which talks about Tuvalu.

One of the issues with the model that is put forward in the Greens legislation that I think needs to be recognised, regarding the eligibility requirement for a climate change refugee visa, is that the legislation gives to the minister the power to determine whether or not something is a climate change induced environmental disaster. It also puts some requirements on the minister as to what the minister has to take into account with regard to the disaster, and it gives that power to the minister alone. In response to some of the criticisms Senator Patterson was making, I say that it actually enables the minister to set a limit on the number of climate change refugee visas that are issued pursuant to each declaration. So, if anything, it is actually too broad. A minister who had the mindset that Senator Patterson has just outlined would just put the limit at zero, and then we would not have any problem with all the other issues she has raised.

Obviously, in any circumstance, what is stated here is a criterion for a climate change refugee visa. The criterion is that the person must have been displaced as a result of a climate change induced environmental disaster. Whilst I hope no-one in this chamber any longer disputes that climate change is a reality, we all know that it is difficult to specifically state that any individual disaster can be clearly seen to be a result of climate change. Certainly it is difficult to demonstrate it in a legal sense, as opposed to it being a reasonable assumption for somebody to make based on the available scientific evidence.

The mechanism’s intent is welcome, but it could potentially be quite easily circumvented by a government that was not interested in using this visa. That is why I think the Democrats’ model, outlined in legislation I proposed last year regarding a complementary protection visa, is better. Complementary protection visas involve a wider group of people than the narrow definition of ‘refugee’ under the refugee convention. They are defined in the Democrats’ legislation as people who would face a substantial threat to their personal security, human dignity or human rights if they were to return to their country of origin. It is normally in circumstances where they are under some other, wider threat that does not fit within the narrow constraints of the refugee convention. It can also be for severe humanitarian reasons, which can include natural disasters. It enables that flexibility to be there. It does not require it to be clearly linked to climate change per se; it can just be related to a deterioration in circumstances in a particular country which make it no longer liveable for a certain group of people. It could be in response to a specific disaster which it would be reasonable to assume is linked to climate change, but it does not need to have that link demonstrated in any legal sense. I think that is a better way to go.

I also take issue with a couple of other things that Senator Patterson said. It is frustrating, disappointing and very tiresome to continue to hear the regurgitating of dishonest propaganda by the government. They continually use phrases like ‘illegal immigrants’. Again, when we are talking about people who are, and have been demonstrated to be, genuine refugees fleeing very serious and real persecution, their mode of arrival is irrelevant. It is certainly not illegal, and it is simply false to call them ‘illegal immigrants’. For someone who is a former parliamentary secretary in this area to be using such terminology is a sign of how deeply ingrained the government’s propaganda mantras have become in the consciousness of those who are forced to have to defend the indefensible approach of the persecution by our government of people who are fleeing persecution by other governments.

The notion that you can just say that refugees cost so many dollars per person is typical of the narrow, bean-counting Treasury mindset that has been used to try and create a negative attitude towards refugees. Of course, there are some costs involved in resettlement programs, but in any of the costings I have seen there is never any recognition of the contribution that people make, even in those initial periods when they are settling. There is some recognition that, after a few years, when people do get settled and established, they start making more immediate, clear-cut and definable economic contributions. But there is much more to the contribution that people, including refugees, make than just the tax take we get from their paying income tax, and those very narrow, dollars-and-cents measures.

Refugees have provided immense benefit to Australia in all sorts of ways, far beyond just counting how much it costs to have them in our health system versus how much tax money we get from their income and other mechanisms. It is typical of that clearly misrepresentative approach and the absurdly narrow and therefore misleading costing criteria that are used as a way to skew our migration and humanitarian intake towards business and skilled migrants, and people with stacks of money, and away from people in the family and humanitarian areas. Of course, you get more money immediately from people who are coming here to fill job vacancies in the skilled area, but the other, wider benefits should not be discounted.

Let me also emphasise, given that we are having debates in this place at the moment about the importance of citizenship and of people engaging in and becoming full members of the Australian community, that the evidence is clear-cut: the one group of people who become citizens most quickly, who are most keen to engage fully with Australia and all of its responsibilities, are refugees. Many of the people who come here under other visas and who are here as permanent residents for decades do not become citizens. That is fine; that is their right. But it is an indication of the different types of contributions people make and how you cannot just pull this all back to narrow, dollars-and-cents measures.

Returning to the article by Kathy Marks that I spoke about, from the Independent and the New Zealand Herald, it goes into quite a lot of detail about the very severe environmental impact that is already occurring in Tuvalu. Most Tuvaluans live just one to two metres above sea level. Whilst the article says that there is not enough data to establish a definitive trend, the data that is around does suggest possibly a half-a-metre rise in the next century. That does not mean they can just move another half a metre up the hill. There are no hills. Most of Tuvalu is not much higher than a few metres above sea level. It is not just about people standing on an island and the water slowly rising up until it hits their ankles and then their knees. It is about the vulnerability of islands so that they are unable to withstand severe weather events.

The article describes an islet that has already been lost in Tuvalu. It talks about the lagoon around Funafuti, a town in Tuvalu that used to have seven islets around its lagoon; now there are six. One of them has already been wiped out via a series of cyclones towards the end of the last century. It was sufficiently strong that it stripped off the vegetation. That meant the sand and soil were no longer held in place and got washed away. All that is left is a bit of rubble that is visible at low tide. Is that specifically caused by climate change? Who can specifically demonstrate that? But when you have that in combination with clear evidence of rising sea levels, clear evidence of more severe weather events and an obvious vulnerability, it is pretty clear that you do not have to quibble about whether it is 80 per cent climate change induced or 30 per cent. Whatever it is, some of these islands are already in serious trouble.

It also means that land that might have been arable at one stage becomes less so, or not usable at all for growing any sorts of crops or food. It can mean water tables become saline. It is not just about the land slowly becoming inundated. The evidence is clear, as that article shows, that this is already a serious problem.

There is an issue with using the title of ‘climate change refugee visa’. I do not mean this particularly as a criticism of the legislation, but it is one of the problems we face in this area and it is one thing the government has used to dismiss calls by many people, including the Democrats, for Australia to recognise its responsibility to take in climate change refugees. In the day-to-day parlance of the word ‘refugees’ it is completely appropriate. We all know what we mean when we talk about climate change refugees: we mean that people who have been affected by climate change can no longer live where they are, or not enough of them can, or the available land can no longer manage that level of population, and they need to flee. We all recognise that, but putting it in law under the label of ‘refugees’ means linking the concept to that of the refugee convention, and the simple fact is that it does not fit within the definition of the refugee convention.

The definition in the refugee convention—which is actually quite narrow, despite what you would believe if you heard some of the propaganda and rhetoric around the place—is that a person must have a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion and is unable to return, or so fearful that they are unwilling to return, to that country. You could probably stretch it to say that you are a member of a particular social group that is affected by climate change induced disaster, but I think that is stretching it further than is helpful. We all use the terminology, as we did when the tsunami occurred in Indonesia, of people being refugees from that disaster. We use it in the general day-to-day sense, but they would not, in my view, fit under the definition in the refugee convention. I do not think you could say they are members of a particular social group; they are residents of a particular location. I think also you would really be stretching it to say that they are not able to return because of a fear of persecution. They are not able to return because of humanitarian circumstances–their lands wiped out, their homes gone, no food or whatever it might be. The complementary protection mechanism is a better one because it has a much broader humanitarian component to it.

In my view Australia should take a much more liberal approach—’liberal’ in the true sense of the word, not in the totally bastardised sense of the word that we have had to swallow in this country by virtue of having the most illiberal party ever in government having the name Liberal attached to it; in the proper sense of the word ‘liberal’—to the ability of people from at least some Pacific island nations to be able to enter Australia. This is the reality in New Zealand, where a number of Pacific island nations have much freer entry rights, as we in Australia have in our partnership with New Zealand. There is a very valid case for considering trialling and potentially adopting such measures with Pacific island nations. We do not have anywhere near as strong links as we should. We do not have anywhere near strong enough a recognition of the realities of Pacific island nations.

Many of these nations are places that are not large in numbers of people. It would assist us to strengthen the ties and connections that we should have with the Pacific region and that tend to get totally and appallingly ignored in public debate and awareness and in political debate. It is my personal view—it is probably not a party position—that we should be looking very proactively at loosening the constraints on people from at least some Pacific island nations to be able to more easily enter and reside in Australia under various circumstances.

I have spoken in this place before about the Senate inquiry report that examined whether or not to allow Pacific island labourers into Australia under specific, confined circumstances and about the benefits that that could provide to economies in Pacific islands. I think we could explore more of those sorts of things. Whilst there is a genuine risk of climate change induced disasters—and we need to recognise our obligations there—there are wider difficulties in the Pacific islands, and they have got bigger problems than just climate change. Let us not kid ourselves: climate change is one of the threats to the economies of these nations. One of the ways we can assist them significantly in economic terms is to enable them to more fully connect with the Australian economy as people and as individuals. It would be valuable for them economically, and I believe it would be valuable for us socially, culturally, politically and economically. That is a wider call beyond the climate change issue, but if there were much freer scope for people to reside here it would also then reduce the need to try to find mechanisms like this. Obviously, if their home became unliveable for whatever reason they would have that opportunity in Australia and New Zealand. I think that would help bind the whole region together— (Time expired)

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

In commencing, I want to acknowledge the work done by Senator Nettle and, in particular, by Senator Milne in bringing the Migration (Climate Refugees) Amendment Bill 2007 before us. It gives us the opportunity to again debate in this place the genuine issues around climate change and also the real responsibilities that we have in Australia to accept our part in what must be a global response to a global problem.

Certainly we are looking now—immediately and not some time in some nebulous future—at a crisis occurring in many parts of the South Pacific. The evidence is there. One of the clear differences between the debate we were able to have this afternoon and ones which we have been able to have in the past in this place is that there is no confusion or argument about the reality of the problem. That shows that we have moved forward together and that the amazing amounts of evidence that are before us and have been building up over a long period of time indicate that there is no room for doubt that the impact of climate change on our environment has had a devastating impact on communities across the world. Whilst in the South Pacific and in the Oceania region it is something with which people live on a daily basis, we in Australia can sometimes distance ourselves from the problem because we can pretend that it is elsewhere.

Certainly many people who live in Australia, if they took the time to consider the evidence, to listen to the reports and to engage in the necessary community discussions, would understand that many of the climate change issues that are impacting on us are also affecting others. We have before us and we understand the impact of the major horror of the drought on many parts of Australia, the land changes and also the effect of temperature changes. We would be able to make the links to show that environmental changes are impacting on each of us daily. However, the luxury of being able to remove ourselves from the equation is not one which is shared by people who are living on islands in Oceania and the South Pacific.

Several weeks ago I was able to meet with a delegation of people from Tuvalu. I had to admit a certain ignorance, with my appalling geography, of knowing exactly where Tuvalu was. I was able to get a copy of the globe and, with their help, find the very small islands that are Tuvalu. There were also some women with them from Kiribati, another part of the world of which I had heard but have not been able to visit. I was largely ignorant of the issues that were facing them as a community. They could not take an objective view of the impact of climate change. Their personal experiences and the photographs that they brought with them to the meeting showed that their land is disappearing. That makes a confronting argument. It is no longer theoretical; it is no longer academic. It is not something you could include in a footnote. Where you were able to have animals, where you were able to walk, where you were able to gather as recently as three or four years ago is now under water. The positive aspect is that the people are receiving international support. Years ago it was only a few dedicated enthusiasts in the area that took the time to acknowledge the problems, study them, examine them and bring them back into the wider debate. Now, through very strong international environmental links, the knowledge that is gained by working with the people in those areas can be brought immediately back into the debate, which we must all have.

There is no argument that the land is disappearing. There is no argument that the long-term prognosis is that some of these whole communities are going to cease to exist. It is not something that people are happy about, certainly. It is not something from which we can distance our communities in Australia. It is our clear responsibility as global citizens to find out about what is happening, to identify what the causes are and, most importantly, to share that knowledge and to support the people who are living with this reality. In that context we must continue with the amazing work of so many of our academics across a range of institutions in this country. There is academic knowledge, scientific knowledge and the work of centres of excellence that have been established at several universities in our country. They have been working, studying and being part of global knowledge-sharing on the issues of climate change and environmental progress. We have responsibilities individually and as a community to change the way we live and to acknowledge that every change must have a reaction. We are able to work with the world to make a difference and to help people who may not have a future if we do not make these decisions.

The bill that Senator Nettle has brought before us puts forward one solution. Whilst that is not a solution with which the ALP is currently totally in support, it should be debated. We should see the focus of that bill as part of whatever response we as an Australian community must make. The very sense that there are people who will be made homeless, who will have their futures curtailed, who will not be able to stay living on their land—the very fact that those people will exist—must be acknowledged openly. Australia must take some role in looking at an international solution, whether that means we should take a certain number of people or whether that means there should be a new visa status created. I share the views Senator Bartlett put forward at the end of his contribution. I am uncomfortable with just creating a new visa category in our immigration process. I do not accept that that is the best step forward. We do accept and acknowledge that there will be people on our globe that will be climate change refugees. It is something about which we must make long-term plans. We must see how we, as a country, can work with other services, not just our immigration program.

Of course our immigration program will have a role to play in whatever the Australian government is prepared to move forward with. We have heard a number of speakers this afternoon wax lyrical about the way the Australian immigration program operates. While there are problems and there have been problems—many of them have been identified in this place and in wider reviews of the way our immigration program operates—I think there is real strength in many of the processes that are in place through the department of immigration. There is real commitment and professionalism by so many of their staff. I think that using that skill and knowledge is one of the steps that we could take in looking at what we could do as part of a global response. So using, reviewing and understanding the way the current immigration system operates is a threshold issue. That must be done.

How we then look at the various claims from people who are seeking immigration support must be considered amidst all the other things that are in front of any government looking at long-term policy. The immigration process is one response. But, building on that, we must also use the knowledge and the skills of so many other parts of our Australian government services. Certainly the Australian Labor Party has long supported the concept of effectively working with our aid budget, through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, to look specifically at how we can work with communities so that they can play a role in developing their own futures. Working with the effective people who are currently in the AusAID program, we would be able to work with people in their own countries to establish specific areas of research and support and to make short-term and long-term plans for their futures.

Indeed, that must be the process that we would all be following. It is not imposing a solution from outside, because, when that happens, that dismisses the history, the knowledge and the experiences of the people who are most in need of support. That process could be extended to all areas where there is a need for support. Having outside assistance identified and then imposed on any community may offer some short-term relief, but, as a long-term solution, it is not the best way to go. Certainly there must be an ongoing effort in this country to look at our overseas activities. The last AusAID program particularly looked at our closest neighbours. So many of the people who are confronted by the immediate impact of climate change on their land are our neighbours, so not only do we have a neighbourly responsibility because they are people who live closest to us but we also have an established responsibility in international support in the aid program.

There has been some particularly interesting work done linking some of the Millennium Development Goals, which we have talked about many times in this place, to the impact of climate change and looking at how the MDGs can be implemented in various countries. Using the established programs that we have and using the skills and the commitment of people who are already working in the field, we need to make sure that an awareness of climate change impacts and environmental impacts of any decision is linked into the planning processes and also the evaluation processes of planning that is done. Just by taking that one step, we keep the message before all of us and before the people across the globe.

We must accept that Australians cannot self-assess themselves out of this issue. It is not enough that we understand the impact of climate change on our own environment—and that is becoming much more widely accepted and people are thinking about that. As recently as yesterday, we heard a submission from Australian Seniors talking about the issues that their extensive survey shows Australian citizens over 50 are interested in as we head towards the next election. What were the things which they were concerned about? For the first time environmental issues—the issues of climate change and of our land, our climate, our wonderful resources, water, air quality and all of those things—and their impact on citizens were identified. Our seniors identified that they were concerned about what kind of world they were going to be leaving to their children and grandchildren. It was a key issue in the Australian Seniors survey.

It would be useful if that awareness and knowledge about our own environment were extended to understanding the impact that these things are having on people who are our neighbours. That is one of the things we can achieve through having a debate around the bill that the Australian Greens have brought to us: identifying the issues that have caused people to lose their land, to lose their citizenship. If we identify what has caused those issues then we can act globally to address those causes and not only to look at what we can do to make changes in their environment but also to welcome, where possible, the relocation where it is best able to be done.

The process for the future must include the acknowledgement that the UN processes provide a wonderful mechanism for that international discussion, consultation and sharing of knowledge. There have been numerous UN conferences, and there have been some in which Australia has taken a role, but I think we need to continually reinforce that the United Nations—the environmental committees, the future acknowledgement of the global environment in which we operate—provide an effective mechanism for all of us to operate in and to share our knowledge. So the ongoing role of Australia in any of those community development programs must continue. We must take our responsibilities in there and effectively fund that, because it is no longer good enough just to have strong commitments and rhetoric around what we think ought to happen. Through the processes that are already in place, we need to make sure that we adapt appropriate mechanisms of funding and also make sure that our people are actively involved in all levels. We need to make sure that any of the programs that are put in place are effectively evaluated and that evaluation involves the communities in which we are working. That is developing and becoming better through the AusAID process, but it is certainly one of the key links that we must take into whatever happens next in this debate.

There is goodwill around acknowledging that the environment is important to all of us, and that is something that has not always been in place. When I was listening to the stories of the women from Tuvalu and Kiribati, goodwill was certainly not enough, but it was the opening gambit to any ongoing conversation. I cannot but help make a comment about the organisation Friends of the Earth, which I have worked with for many years and which was the sponsor of the community consultations that I was invited to a couple of weeks ago. We have heard that the Friends of the Earth have a longstanding credibility in this area. While people do not always agree with everything that any organisation puts forward or is involved in, we certainly need to acknowledge the wonderful commitment and the international credibility over the years of people who have worked for and who have been members of the Friends of the Earth. If we can at least hold on to the title—if there is an organisation called Friends of the Earth, all of us should be keen to be part of that because, as citizens of this planet, we automatically need to be friends of the earth.

The ALP do not support the bill as it is in front of us. To keep the debate moving forward, it is absolutely essential that we continue to be involved in discussion about the impact of climate change and the reality that for some people the impact is not discomfort; it is disaster. We need to make sure that we, as global citizens, are part of developing solutions to the program and not dismissing it. We need to include all people who wish to be involved and ensure that we bring science, as well as a very strong element of compassion, into any ongoing debate—and I am sure the debate must be and will be ongoing.

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

We are here today debating this private senator’s bill from the Greens, the Migration (Climate Refugees) Amendment Bill 2007, which aims to provide a climate change visa for victims of natural disasters consequent upon climate change. The bill inserts into subsection 5(1) of the Migration Act a list of a variety of natural and other disasters, which it says might result from climate change. These include sea level rise, coastal erosion, desertification, collapsing ecosystems, freshwater contamination and more frequent occurrence of extreme weather events, such as cyclones, tornadoes, flooding and drought, which mean that inhabitants are unable to lead safe or sustainable lives in the immediate environment.

Indeed, all of those things are very serious and dramatic environmental events that would occur anyway, whether or not there was climate change, and which could amount to a disaster in any community. We could add to them the great floods which occur from time to time in our region in countries such as Bangladesh and the tsunamis which have occurred in Indonesia and Aceh within the last four or five years and which occur periodically around both the Indian Ocean Basin and the Pacific Rim. Even the droughts that we have in Australia rather than in other countries are environmental disasters which affect people’s lives.

I suppose the idea of having a special visa for climate change induced disasters begs the question: does this really add anything to Australia’s way of dealing with these kinds of disasters around the world? It is not a question that is easy to answer because these kinds of environmental events occur in any case and Australia, if I might say so, does have a very good record of providing assistance to countries which suffer environmental disasters of various kinds. We are, in fact, a very good global citizen in the way that we do respond to disasters around the world.

We certainly have an excellent record of having jumped in and assisted with local responses very quickly after the problems in Aceh following the tsunami which occurred there. We have not only assisted in the immediate aftermath of disasters, such as floods, earthquakes, fires, drought and so on; we have also assisted with medical services both locally and in evacuating victims to Australian hospitals. More importantly in places such as Aceh, to use that as an example, we have put in long-term plans to restore the communities to the kinds of conditions or better than they were before these disasters occurred.

Australia has a great record of working in cooperation with international and domestic partners to improve disaster preparedness and engage in risk reduction strategies. In fact, around the world, Australia provides something like 150,000 tonnes of food aid every year valued at about $65 million to people in countries subject to frequent environmental crises. These include: Bangladesh, which is very often subject to massive flooding; Indonesia, where the tsunami occurred in Aceh but which suffers also from episodes of very heavy rain during the monsoon season and frequently needs assistance; Sri Lanka, where we have provided assistance; and Africa, in Sudan and Chad, where Australian aid has been very helpful in assisting people who have come through the impacts of droughts which have compromised food supplies.

Australia does provide as I said 150,000 tonnes of food aid every year—half of the tonnage comes directly from Australian farmers and suppliers and the rest is sourced around the world. Australia contributes financially to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and we also support other humanitarian agencies around the world, such as Oxfam and Save the Children. In fact, in global terms, Australia has a very enviable record as a good citizen in supporting people suffering the consequences of environmental disasters.

We support protecting and improving conditions for refugees, finding durable solutions to refugee crises and assisting with the reintegration of refugees in their homelands, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. The Australian government provides long-term support to areas that have been struck by disaster or conflict through the support of rehabilitation and reconstruction activities. As I said earlier, this was the case in Aceh, where we are now moving into the phase of the reconstruction and re-establishment of housing, schools and other facilities such as hospitals. Beyond that we do assist in other programs such as mine clearance, mine awareness and victim assistance programs. Of course those are not the subject of this private member’s bill; but they are, nevertheless, indicative of the kind of compassion which Australia exhibits towards people who are the victims of disasters around the world.

The principal department in the Australian government providing relief and assistance in emergencies, such as those which might occur during extreme weather conditions, is AusAID. AusAID is an excellent department that is active from the moment it becomes aware of a disaster. The first priority of AusAID is to assess the situation and gather information to ensure that help is provided to those in need. Once a country has officially requested assistance, AusAID and the Australian government respond quickly. A good example of that was on 2 April this year when there was a major earthquake measuring 8.1 on the Richter scale in the north-west of the Solomon Islands. The earthquake prompted a tsunami believed to be between two and 10 metres high which struck the western Solomon Islands and caused quite a lot of damage. It is thought that at least 52 people died and up to 7,000 were made homeless. AusAID moved quickly and provided $3 million for emergency relief and reconstruction assistance to the Solomon Islands. We sent in six medical teams to attend to disaster victims in the affected areas of the Solomons, including the most remote villages and islands. So Australia responded very quickly to that environmental disaster. I suppose from that one can conclude quite reasonably that Australia does play a very important role in attending to the consequences of environmental disasters in our region.

I will now come back to the subject of this debate, which is whether or not a special visa for refugees who are victims of environmental disasters consequent upon climate change would really add anything to our armature of help for the victims of environmental disasters. I have to conclude that the answer is probably no. Australia is already providing aid and support to victims of a wide variety of environmental disasters on a broad scale, and I do not think a special visa of this kind would add anything meaningful at all to the kind of assistance that Australia gives.

Ross Lightfoot (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call Senator Humphries. Senator Humphries, you are aware that you have approximately four minutes to speak.

Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am aware of that but I hope to make up for my lack of time with the quality of my contribution in this debate. In the brief time that I have, I want to put on the record very clearly that Australia cannot afford to ignore the implications of climate change. We have heard predictions that global warming will contribute to a rise in average world temperatures over the next century or so of somewhere between one and six degrees and that this will inevitably result in the loss of ice from the extremities of the planet which will contribute to rising sea levels. The estimate as to how much sea levels will rise is, of course, a matter of some debate. But we need to be aware that, at the more extreme end, those estimates range up to a sea level rise of at least five metres for each degree of temperature increase. If that occurs, we will have a major environmental and humanitarian disaster on our hands. If that comes about, clearly Australia will need to engage in that. I might add that a sea level rise of that order would of course impose a massive change on Australia itself and we would be looking at dealing with a great deal of dislocation and social anxiety within Australia itself. Nonetheless, we have always shouldered our responsibilities to our region; and this would be no exception, I am certain.

Having said that, I note that the Migration (Climate Refugees) Amendment Bill 2007 bought before the Senate by the Greens does smack a little of being a stunt. There is no clear indication given in this debate as to why a particular category of refugee needs to be created. Given the background of Australia as an extremely generous contributor in opening its doors to those migrants affected by humanitarian and other disasters around the world, I see no reason to adopt this particular piece of legislation. We have a proud and consistent record of being prepared to assist citizens of other nations who cannot, for whatever reason, live in those nations any longer. Since at least the Second World War our doors have been open wide to those people. Whatever the reason a person finds it necessary to leave their homeland, Australia has been prepared to offer refuge; and we will continue, I am sure, to do so. Since the Second World War 6.6 million people have found refuge in this country. I have no reason to doubt that that policy would continue. Why we need to make the change evident in this legislation has not been explained. What is inadequate about the present migration legislation has not been explained. I think we need to be very cautious about elevating this issue for the sake of a stunt by the Australian Greens, where the playthings for this stunt are the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands. We already have a very close relationship with those inhabitants, and we will continue to support them in a variety of ways. Others in this debate have pointed to the support already being provided by the Australian government to assist those countries to deal with climate change. I have no doubt that that will continue and I have no doubt that Australia’s generous approach to these matters will continue.

Debate interrupted.