Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Minchin, the Minister representing the Prime Minister. Can the minister confirm that in the three years between 2002 and 2005 the government spent a total of $311 million on climate change related programs? Is the minister aware that, of this $300 million, two-thirds, or $200 million, was spent on administration expenses, with just $100 million spent on actual climate change programs? Doesn’t this equate to just $36 million a year in funding to tackle the dangerous threat of climate change? Can the minister now explain why the government spends $2 administering every $1 it spends on climate change programs? Don’t the government’s own budget figures confirm that it is not serious about tackling climate change?

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not going to take at face value that particular analysis of our spending. What I am prepared to inform the Senate about is the fact that we have already committed some $3.4 billion to initiatives that directly address climate change. Around $1 billion is to ensure that Australia does meet its Kyoto target. While we did not sign up to the failed and hopeless Kyoto target, because it does not include the world’s biggest emitters, we have a target. We have committed to meeting our target for Kyoto and we are spending $1 billion to do it.

There is another $2 billion in new funding for research and development and the demonstration of low-emission technologies. We have introduced the world’s first mandatory renewable energy target, and that is support of some $3½ billion in new investment. We have helped establish the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. Through the Prime Minister we have, as hosts of APEC this year, flagged and set and got agreement to the APEC being focused primarily on climate change so that, through APEC, we get the world’s biggest emitters—China, the United States and others—working together to ensure there is a cooperative international response to climate change.

What the government is committed to doing, unlike the Labor Party, is to approach this in a sensible, concerned and responsible fashion—not go out chasing Green preferences by adopting, without any analysis whatsoever, a 60 per cent reduction target for greenhouse gas emissions. That will do untold damage to Australians working in manufacturing and other industries reliant on the cheap electricity which this country has always provided. That will do enormous damage to working families in this country. They have not done the economic analysis to back up their 60 per cent target. As the head of the IPCC said, they should not rush in and adopt targets without any economic analysis.

You have to do the hard work to work out how you achieve these targets without destroying your economy. That is what we are going to do. We are committed to it. We are proud of our record on climate change. Woe betide those electing a Labor government which comes in chasing Green preferences and does untold damage to this economy through its 60 per cent reduction target.

Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Doesn’t the government’s failure to actually deliver the climate change programs that it says it is funding show that it is not serious about tackling climate change? Why should Australians believe that a government full of climate change sceptics, including the minister himself as chief sceptic, will ever be able to properly tackle climate change?

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I said yesterday, the Labor Party does not really believe in free speech. There are many eminent scientists internationally who question the extent to which anthropogenic activity is contributing to global warming—and you will not allow any of that to occur. You have people in your own ranks who doubt the extent to which anthropogenic global warming is occurring, but you will not allow them to express their views. We respect the right of the Dennis Jensens of the world to express their views. But they know, and I know, the government’s policy; and the government policy is to work internationally to achieve greenhouse gas reductions which do not destroy the Australian economy like your policies would.