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

In February 2010, a member in the other place said this:

It is our job as members of parliament to legislate with an eye to the long-term future, to look over the horizon beyond the next election and ensure that, as far as we can, what we do today will make Australia a better place, a safer place for future generations to live in. Climate change is the ultimate long-term problem. We have to make decisions today, bear costs today so that adverse consequences are avoided, dangerous consequences are avoided many decades into the future. It is always easy to argue we should do nothing, or little or postpone action. But we are already experiencing the symptoms of climate change, especially here in Australia with a hotter and drier climate in the southern part of our nation.

Almost six years later, the same person who said that has just returned from the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, having embarrassed Australia by defending his government's inaction over climate change. As our official representative, the Prime Minister, Mr Malcolm Turnbull, travelled to Paris intent on holding Australia back on climate change action. Australia attended the conference in Paris as the only developed nation that has actually gone backwards on climate action in the last two years. It is nothing but an embarrassment, especially given what happened in Australia and around the world on the weekend.

In the 2,300 events that were held across 175 countries, hundreds of thousands of people rallied to urge politicians to act against global warming. At home in South Australia, I joined with my Labor colleagues—the member for Port Adelaide and shadow minister for the environment, Mark Butler; the member for Makin, Tony Zappia; and the ALP candidate for Hindmarsh, Steve Georganas—together with some 6,000 concerned South Australians, who were all determined to deliver the message to Malcolm Turnbull that Australia needs to do more. I did not see any coalition members there.

You would have hoped that with a new Prime Minister, we would have seen new policy and a new direction for the government, moving away from Mr Abbott's viewpoint that climate change is 'absolute crap'. Instead, from the very outset of the Turnbull reign, we have seen a more polished Prime Minister deliver the same dud policies. Paris was not any different. On the world stage, we have seen Mr Turnbull hauling the coalition's Direct Action baggage across the world and half-heartedly attempting to sell it as progress.

Where Australia was leading the world, this year China was tipped as the nation to watch at the Climate Change Conference. China has made a massive about-turn, now lining up as one of the world's leaders in climate policy. Bringing a raft of ambitious commitments, in 2015 China is already developing their green energy industry faster than anywhere else on the planet. Reaching the highest capacity construction of wind power and solar power in the world, last year China spent around $115 billion on forms of renewable energy—far ahead of the EU and the US, and dwarfing Australia's measly renewable investment attempts.

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation's 2014-15 annual report shows clean energy investment in Australia was $3.17 billion last financial year, almost half of the $6 billion investment in 2012-13 under the Labor government. Australia will never again be a world leader in climate change policy if we continue to be led by a government that refuses to act on the facts. Mr Turnbull could have built on the former Labor government's initiatives, but we have seen nothing other than a conservative, conformist agenda by a man desperate to hang on to the top job. Indeed, Australia is now being governed by a man who once said of the coalition's climate credentials:

Any policy that is announced will simply be a con, an environmental fig leaf to cover a determination to do nothing.

As the leader with the ability to make positive changes, Mr Turnbull lacks the courage to change the coalition's pathetic policies and still cannot be trusted.

Mr Stuart Allinson, the acting chair of the Climate Change Authority, said earlier this week that the government's own climate policy is at risk of becoming fiscally unsustainable in the large scale. Mr Allinson went on to say:

The authority is of the view that it is time for a fresh look at the range of policy options, including the various forms of emissions trading schemes with a view to 'resetting' Australia's public discussion.

Australians expect their leaders to take suggestions like this seriously and to take climate change seriously, and to rely on the best science when developing their policies, including policies to limit global warming to well below two degrees Celsius on pre-industrial levels. Australians do not expect their elected representatives to stand in this place and ignore the science behind climate change. It is not just the Turnbull government that we have to worry about. Earlier this week, we heard South Australian Senator Bob Day make a complete mockery of climate science. His claims that there has not been any global warming in 18 years are, frankly, ludicrous. I do not know where Senator Day gets his statistics, but I think he had better go back and do some fact checking.

According to genuine research, seven of the last 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 1998. Over the past 15 years, the frequency of very warm months has increased five-fold and the frequency of very cool months has declined by around a third compared to 1951 to 1980.

Since 2001, the number of extreme heat records in Australia has outnumbered extreme cool records by almost three to one for daytime maximum temperatures, and almost five to one for night-time minimum temperatures. There has been an increase in extreme fire weather and a longer fire season across large parts of Australia since the 1970s. I note evidence of extreme fire weather was seen in South Australia, my home state, just last week.

I would like to take a minute to acknowledge the dedication and selflessness of the South Australian and interstate Country Fire Service volunteers during the Pinery bushfires. Sadly, although two people lost their lives in the fires and many more were injured, the toll could have been so much worse. The fires moved at a frightening pace. Homes and farmland were ravaged and a huge amount of livestock was lost. Without the tireless efforts of the CFS, it could have been so much worse, and I pass on my heartfelt thanks to all those who were involved in the firefighting efforts.

Bureau of Meteorology climatologist Ian Barnes Keoghan said, as a result of the increasing El Nino weather pattern, less rainfall and hotter days in spring will result in earlier and more extreme fire seasons becoming the norm. Director of the Institute of Biodiversity and Climate at Curtin University, Grant Wardell-Johnson, echoed those sentiments saying that macro factors like carbon emissions and increasing global temperatures were driving the horror start to the 2015-16 bushfire season. Wardell-Johnson also noted that El Nino weather patterns, resulting in reduced rainfall over a considerable period together with global warming, make the Australian environment much more fire prone earlier in the season.

Is Senator Day completely ignorant of the evidence? He absurdly claimed that a 'warmer climate would be beneficial. Senator Day, perhaps you should go out to those victims of the Pinery fires and tell them that. Despite the statistics, see what the people who fled for their lives as the fires were racing towards them think about your claims that a warmer climate would be beneficial.

According to the UN, 2015 is set to be the hottest year on record, with both land and sea temperatures likely to exceed those of 2014 as the highest-ever recorded. My home state is taking bold steps to minimise the effects of greenhouse gases on global warming. I would like to congratulate Premier Jay Weatherill for last week announcing a vision for Adelaide to become the world's first carbon neutral city by 2050. It is a critical role for a state government to play, and I am very proud of the Weatherill government.

If we do not act, Australia will continue to experience an increase in extreme weather events including fires, more severe droughts and rising sea levels. Labor acknowledges the science and we are prepared to take ambitious action on climate change. We want to see 50 per cent of our electricity energy mix generated by renewable energy by 2030. We will put strong renewable energy at the centre of Australia's response to the challenge of climate change, creating jobs, driving investment and pushing down power bills for families and small business.

Australians know the longer we delay action on climate change, the more severe the cost. Those costs will be felt across the board, to our economy, our environment and our way of life. As President Obama said on the weekend:

That future is one we have the power to change. Right here. Right now.

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