Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

The Kyoto protocol and greenhouse gas emissions have been very much a topic of conversation in both this parliament and the wider community over the last several years but particularly since the election of the new government in November last year. The Howard government, of course, was involved in the original Kyoto meeting, and very good work by the then minister, Senator Hill, got a good outcome for Australia on the protocol. Australia has since met its targets as agreed in Kyoto. The Howard government was the first government in the world to set up a Greenhouse Office, and it continued to work on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. If you listen to Senator Wong in this chamber, you would think that every bit of work done in relation to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions has been her doing since the election, but I think most Australians understand that that is not correct and that in fact a lot of work was done and a lot of success was achieved after the Greenhouse Office was set up in Australia.

Earlier today I—and, I guess, others in this chamber—had a visit from Australian cement industry representatives. They pointed out that their industry does use a lot of power. Enormous heat is required to convert limestone into clinker, which is then further processed to produce cement. But they indicated to me that, unless they and other trade-impacted industries can get sensible certificates under the Rudd government’s proposed emissions trading scheme, the industry will not be able to continue in Australia. Of course, Australia will always need cement, and so, if we do not produce cement within Australia, we will just import it. That means that all of the jobs of—dare I say it—working families that are currently available in Australia to those working in the cement industry will simply be exported to Indonesia, Malaysia, China or anywhere else in South-East Asia or the world that does not have the sort of emissions trading scheme that the Rudd government is talking about. We all know that the Rudd government’s proposal for an emissions trading scheme will put up taxes on just about every aspect of life. The cost of electricity to all Australians will multiply, and the impact on Australian businesses will be enormous.

I have asked this question many a time, and Senator Wong has never been able to answer me: what impact will Australia’s leading the world on climate change have on the changing climate of the world? We accept that the world’s climate is changing, but, with Australia emitting less than 1.4 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gases, you could shut Australia down completely and it would not make one iota of difference to the world’s changing climate. Until we can get the big emitters, like China, India and the United States, to in some way curb their outputs of greenhouse gases, nothing Australia does is going to make one iota of difference to the world’s changing climate. But what it will do in the cement industry—and I mention the cement industry just because I was talking to them today—is drive the jobs of all those working Australian families offshore.

Russell Trood (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are all very familiar with the fact that one of the first acts of the Rudd government on coming to office was to ratify the Kyoto protocol, and that reflected the view that the Rudd government formed that it had a mandate to do so following the election last year. But it was a very disturbing development in my view when, without going through what I regard as now well established processes of this parliament, the Rudd government went ahead and ratified the protocol without referring the matter to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties of the parliament. One of the great innovations of the Howard government during its years of office was to establish the Joint Committee on Treaties and to ensure that every international agreement, every international convention—protocols—came before that committee and received the kind of scrutiny which, prior to the committee being established, was not received. The committee gives members and senators an opportunity to explore in depth the details behind the establishment of an international agreement. If ever there were an international agreement of significance and importance to this country the Kyoto protocol was certainly that particular agreement. I think it is a matter of great shame to the Rudd government that the first act it undertook as a new government was to essentially ignore the treaties committee and to proceed to ratification without giving the treaties committee an opportunity to scrutinise the protocol.

I understand that the protocol is now before the committee, but it is rather belated. It is particularly belated in the context of a government which, through the course of the election campaign, complained about the fact that the standards of propriety and oversight within this parliament had declined. I do not accept that proposition for one moment. But since that was the argument that was put to the electors of Australia during the course of the election, one would have thought that the first thing the Rudd government would have done in relation to its first policy initiative would have been to pay attention to those well-established protocols of the parliament. The treaties committee is an important part of the parliament’s capacity to extend oversight and accountability, and it has worked excessively well during the period it has been in existence. I think that the reports of its activities all confirm that. I think it is a matter of great regret, as I say, that the first thing the Rudd government did was to ignore it, and I hope that that will not become a practice of the Rudd government during the course of its tenure.

Debate (on motion by Senator McEwen) adjourned.