Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who could forget the iconic movie The Castle that came to our screens in 1997. You will recall the patriarch Darryl Kerrigan and one of his sons, the idea's man, Steve, and that great statement at the kitchen table where Steve turned to Darryl and said, 'What about the jousting sticks, Dad?' Darryl said to him, 'What do they want for them, Son?' Steve said, '$250, Dad.' He said, 'Tell them they're dreaming.' Of course those words, 'Tell them they're dreaming' have become part of the iconic language of the Australian community.

Those words came back to me the other day when I heard and saw the media regarding President Obama and President Xi, and their comments on climate change and their promises et cetera associated with saving the planet. And we heard President Obama in Brisbane at the University of Queensland, my old alma mater, telling us that extreme weather in the Asia-Pacific region could be expected, despite the fact that the IPCC itself disputes this, and that we would see the end of the Barrier Reef as we know it and life on earth would come to a close. Why would I make the comment that they are dreaming? There are a couple of reasons, and I will stay with the United States for a moment.

As a result of the midterm elections on 4 November, Melbourne Cup day, the Republican Party gained control of the Senate and now has complete control of the American Congress. So the chance of President Obama being able to introduce any of these so-called game-changing initiatives that he mentioned so proudly in the company of President Xi and again in Brisbane have been thwarted. They will not come to fruition. As he would know himself, those Republican candidates who campaigned on energy security, shale gas et cetera and of course the keystone XL pipeline from Canada down to the southern USA are now senators or Congress persons elect because they won the seats against the Democrats. So there will be no opportunity for President Obama to have any capacity at all to introduce these initiatives. Also, they are nonbinding on the United States and China. So they were merely hot words from both without a commitment from either or capacity from both.

It is interesting that 2013 was the year in the United States of the lowest emissions of greenhouse gases for some 20 years. The principal reason for that is the shale gas that is now being extracted and used in American industry. It has caused a return of manufacturing in the United States. When I was in America last year at the UN General Assembly, I was told by an American manufacturer that the cost of energy is now half that of German manufacturers. The United States is not going anywhere any time soon, but we know that President Obama is not able to make any promises in terms of a price on carbon. So that is not going to happen. Tell him he is dreaming.

In the case of the Chinese situation, again it is nonbinding on the Chinese. The interesting thing is that President Xi said they would start doing something in 16 years time, in 2030. Why might things start to turn around by 2030? There are two reasons. One is that their population by that stage will have stabilised and will probably have started going down. It has taken the Chinese a little time to wake up to the fact that their one-child policy has not worked all that well, particularly with the overwhelming number of boys as a result. My background in the field of reproduction tells me not too many children are going to be produced from boys. Also, most of the energy infrastructure will be in place by 2030, so any commitment that President Xi might make at this time, as we know, is basically meaningless.

The other interesting thing in terms of the commitment by President Xi in some ways was reiterated today in our House of Representatives by Indian Prime Minister Modi and the reference to clean coal and nuclear energy. If any concessions or any improvements are made by the Chinese, it will be in clean coal and nuclear energy, and to some extent renewables—most principally, I think, hydro electricity, although the Chinese are busy building wind turbines and solar technology, and making money selling it around the world. As we know, the Chinese produce about 24 per cent of the world's greenhouse gases, America about 16 per cent and we in Australia a mere 1.3 per cent. When we come to the situation regarding China, again, I think, those inimitable words of Darryl Kerrigan, 'Tell them they're dreaming' probably are those that come to the surface.

It causes me to ask a question. Prime Minister Abbott has been vilified and the coalition have been vilified, as we usually are in these things, and told that we are out of the league et cetera—when the Leader of the Opposition draws upon President Obama and President Xi's comments only to make a greater fool of himself. Australia did not sign up to the Kyoto protocols, but we are probably one of the few countries that are well on our way to achieving the objectives, despite the fact that former Prime Minister Howard quite rightly withstood all the argument against him when we did not sign Kyoto.

But where is Australia so well positioned to be able to help the rest of the world, including China and the other economies? There are a number of areas. First of all, we are very, very rich in our coal reserves. While there might be some argument about thermal coal used for electricity generation, surely there must be no argument against coking coal. Naturally, Australia has the highest quality coking coal in the world. Why is that important to any nation building their infrastructure? It is because coking coal is used in steel manufacture—and I have not yet heard anybody talk about any replacement for coking coal.

The second great contribution we can make out of our state of Western Australia and out of Queensland—increasingly now with their onshore reserves—is gas. The estimates vary. I have seen figures, for example, that have said that, for every tonne of CO2emitted in LNG production within Australia—particularly offshore WA—up to 9½ tonnes of emissions from coal-fired generation can be avoided globally. So for every tonne emitted in LNG production in Australia up to 9½ tonnes can be avoided globally. So we have a circumstance then in which, even directly, we know that gas is responsible for less than 50 per cent of emissions intensiveness when compared to coal.

Australia, of course, has the unique opportunity—and I give credit to the then Gillard government for commencing these negotiations and to see them come to fruition—for the supply of uranium to those countries that will use nuclear power as their means of cutting their greenhouse gas emissions and, incredibly, increasing the reliability of energy. We heard President Modi say today that more than 200 million Indian people do not have electricity and, having spent most of the last decade living at different times in cities like Mumbai and Ahmedabad—where Prime Minister Modi is from—and Delhi, we heard that the supply of electricity is so irregular that nearly every public building and every commercial building has its own generation capacity. And that does not include his 200 million Indian villagers who have no access to power at all. I would also note that there are people living in regions of Africa—Sub-Saharan Africa and other areas of Africa—where there is no access to power and the women cook using cow dung and other forms of fuel in poorly ventilated huts and indeed die prematurely due to respiratory conditions and diseases.

I am very optimistic about the world. I think the events of the last few days, with the world leaders being here, have been tremendous. Being able to listen to President Xi yesterday and to Prime Minister Modi today speaks volumes about our existence in a global world and peaks volumes of our need to be working collaboratively. But, when it comes to ill-considered statements of the likes of President Obama the other day and, to some extent, President Xi, I can only reiterate those famous words of Darryl Kerrigan: 'Tell 'em they're dreaming!'