Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor supports this legislation before us, which is the Product Emissions Standards Bill 2017 and related bills. Labor understands that these measures are good for the health of Australia and Australians. They are good for the environment and provide certainty for industry in our country. The bills follow up the agreement made by state and territory ministers in December 2015. Importantly, they have the support of industry. The bills enable the minister to prescribe products as emissions controlled, make rules relating to these products and set emissions standards. Products include non-road petrol engines in lawnmowers, leaf blowers and outboard motors. So it's good to see the true diversity of products now coming in under emissions regulations. It's important to note that Australia has been somewhat behind in this regard.

This bill covers exemptions, penalties and certification, and triggers compliance and enforcement. We note that the excise and charges bills also allow charges to be imposed on imports or, if applicable, domestic manufacture of emissions-controlled products. The proposed standards cover noxious air pollutants such as carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides that have significant impacts on human health. From that point of view, I commend these measures. It is recognised that these new standards could deliver up to $1.7 billion in avoided health costs for our nation and the avoidance of nearly 3,000 premature deaths. The measures will also provide for a reduction of 1.9 million tonnes of CO2 emissions over the next 20 years.

It's important to recognise that similar standards are already in place in 26 of the 35 OECD countries. These standards exist in the US, Japan and China. So what we're doing here is by no means leading; it simply brings Australia in line with these countries and, indeed, assists in minimising the regulatory burden on industry. Australia's low standards have resulted in our markets, sadly, being a dumping ground for high-polluting products manufactured overseas. This is unfortunate and highlights why these changes are important.

I would like to recognise the long history of my party in environmental protection and, indeed, to real action on climate change in our nation. It's good to see that the government is taking belated action on the issues within this legislation to reduce carbon emissions. But this simply isn't enough. These are only modest changes. While important, their impact on our carbon footprint is not significant. More must be done. However, I'm not confident, and the Labor Party certainly doesn't believe that the government is doing enough in this regard. We're concerned about the lack of energy and emissions reduction policy from this government because, after four years, we've seen a disappointing lack of action, the consequences of which are playing out in a number of different sectors including our electricity markets. There's no doubt that this government can and should do more in climate change and the energy space. You should be doing more to address carbon pollution from transport and light vehicles by dealing with mandatory emission standards, which exist in 80 per cent of the global market but not here in Australia.

In 2014, The Climate Change Authority recommended that these standards commence in 2018 and be phased in over seven years. But we saw little action from the Liberal government under the previous Prime Minister, and so far, under this Prime Minister, we've seen little more than discussion papers and a little bit of media speculation. I note that the minister wrote an opinion piece for The Australian, admitting that European cars were more efficient than models available in Australia and that Canada, Europe, the US and Asia have all moved forward to deliver better health, environmental and economic outcomes. But the minister has not yet told us what his government is doing about it. There's not even a lot of thinking involved here. The Climate Change Authority has already made recommendations about how this could work, but the government has failed to respond to the thinking that's been put forward. We know that, despite an increase in the initial cost of cars, over time Australians would save money on running costs and would be better off overall. So, despite the fact that we have a clear blueprint, despite the financial benefits, despite the health and environmental benefits, we've not seen action from our government on a way forward.

This is not the only place this government is failing to protect the environment from the impacts of climate change and, in fact, we've had some recent debates about those things. I spoke just last week about the Great Barrier Reef and the largest removal of protected areas in the history of any government on the planet. That is of significance to this debate because our Great Barrier Reef is being overburdened by the impacts on it of climate change, and we should be responding with improved protections not reduced protections. Only last month, the Liberal government and, indeed, Liberal members from South Australia voted against a national judicial inquiry to get to the bottom of water theft and corruption in the Murray-Darling Basin, despite the shocking Four Corners report about the use of environmental water.

The government has also failed to capitalise on the renewable energy market, at the expense of Australian jobs. It's done everything in its power to try to destroy Australia's share in one of the world's fastest-growing industries, with devastating consequences for our country and our economy. We know that in the last two years more than two million renewable energy jobs were added to the global economy, but over the same period 2,900 jobs in this sector were lost in Australia. From 2014, clean energy investment has grown by 32 per cent in China, eight per cent in the US, 12 per cent in Japan, three per cent in Germany and three per cent the UK. But, over that same period, investment in large-scale renewables dropped by a massive 88 per cent in Australia—from over two billion to around 240 million.

A strong renewable sector will be at the centre of Labor's response to the challenges of climate change. The renewable energy sector can provide immense opportunities, but only with the right policies. Policy attention to the renewable energy sector will drive job creation and manufacturing investment and will put downward pressure on power prices, which will help Australian families and our small businesses. This most profound restructuring of the world's economy that's currently taking place is being driven by climate change, and Australia is lagging behind. The transition is happening globally and it is accelerating. It's alarming to me that this legislation really points out to us how we are only scratching the surface of the real changes that need to take place in regulation and within our economy. Australia's being left behind because our government is not willing to do the work that's required to get us there.

I'm pleased, though, that we on the Labor side, as an alternative government, have a plan to get us on track. That includes ensuring that at least 50 per cent of the nation's electricity is sourced from renewable energy by 2030, expanding the investment mandate of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, providing $206 million to ARENA to support specific concentrated solar thermal funding, establishing a community power network of regional hubs at a cost of $98 million over four years and ensuring the Commonwealth government leads by example as a direct purchaser of renewable energy. While commending the legislation before us as important, we on this side of the chamber believe there is much more work to do and we look forward to doing that work in government, taking real action on climate change and emissions on behalf of our nation.

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In rising to speak on the Product Emissions Standards Bill 2017, I note that this is a welcome package of legislation and a package of legislation that's long overdue. Australia is one of the last developed countries to regulate the emissions, and the very poisonous emissions, that come from the small motors that are covered by this emissions standards bill, from lawnmowers, chainsaws, leaf blowers and the like. So it is important that we are seeing legislation to regulate these emissions.

The Australian Greens have long called for controls on air pollution. In fact, in 2013, we initiated a very far-reaching Senate inquiry looking at the impacts on health from air pollution, because this is a significant cause of death in our society and a significant cause of ill-health—that is, the impacts of pollution from a whole range of different motors and different technologies. This bill will provide a national framework to enable us to address the adverse impacts of air pollution on human and environmental health from certain products. In particular, we're looking at non-road spark ignition engines and equipment. We congratulate the government. This bill is good as far as it goes, but in this speech I want to cover that, unfortunately, 'as far as it goes' is only a very small way down the track. We are covering a very small proportion of the technologies and the things that cause air pollution in Australia, and I'm calling on the government to get some perspective. If you're really serious about air pollution, you can't afford to stop here. This is important as far as it goes. But then, if you look at the impact of air pollution from the very poorly regulated motor vehicles and then, in particular, the impact of air pollution from coal-fired power stations, you'll realise that what we're starting with today is just a very tiny baby step in terms of seriously addressing air pollution in Australia.

As I say, it's good as far as it goes. It's going to finally regulate emissions from lawnmowers, leaf blowers, chainsaws and the like. Indeed, when I think back to my father mowing the lawn, when I was growing up in Altona in the western suburbs of Melbourne in the sixties and the seventies, and think of the pollutants that came out of the Pace lawnmower that he was using, I think it's a good thing. I know we've moved a long way from those lawnmowers, but, still, the fact that they are unregulated is surprising.

One limitation with this bill and the products that it covers is that it only covers particulates and other pollutions. It doesn't cover carbon dioxide and other global warming gases. In particular, given that this bill only covers what's estimated to be 10 per cent of the air pollution in our cities, it's clear that it's only a tiny step that we are beginning to take.

The second area of this bill, which doesn't go far enough is that it fails to make a defence to modify a machine that changes its certified level of emissions. So this is clearly a way around even the limits that are being put in place with this legislation. There's no point having certified, cleaner engines imported if there are no restrictions on modifications. In fact, I'm led to understand that one existing manufacturer, as a matter of course, modifies every Honda engine that it uses in the products it manufactures. So, basically, if you don't put limitations on modifying engines, you've got a workaround and a back door to continue to have polluting products.

Given the limitations in this framework, another important issue is that this is just the beginning of other products that are going to be regulated. It's important to get this framework right in the beginning. Some stakeholders have legitimate concerns about how well these regulations are going to be enforced. Given that we've got 1.3 million small engines imported yearly, enforcing these restrictions is going to be a really critical thing that we do not believe this legislation covers effectively.

Finally, in terms of the limitations, even as far as these small engines go, there are exemptions in the bill that are also of concern. In fact, issues have been raised with us that the department may in fact allow any products that are sold in limited numbers in the US to be sold in unlimited numbers in Australia, even if they don't meet the regulations in this bill. So, essentially, that means that the US 2006 standards will be in place, which aren't exactly world's best practice.

They're our concerns with this bill as far as it goes. But I also want to focus on: if the government really wants to start tackling issues of air pollution, how about starting to tackle the really big sources of air pollution in this country? Our vehicle emissions standards are way behind other countries, so that is where we need to be having much stronger controls on our vehicle emission standards, because we know that a much greater source of particulates come from vehicles rather than these small engines. For example, small engines aren't even listed as a source of particle size 2.5 in the National Pollutant Inventory. Lawnmowers are listed in that inventory for nitrous oxide, but they're in 14th place. In terms of that nitrous oxide, a total of 390,000 kilograms will be regulated by this bill, compared with 360 million kilograms from power stations and 340 million kilograms from motor vehicles. That is, coal-fired power stations and motor vehicles each have more than a thousand times the emissions of these small engines. We have to get some perspective and actually start thinking. If we're serious about addressing air pollution, it's a good start. But let's really get to the nub of the problem, where the problems really arise. As I said, as far as motor vehicles go, we are lagging behind other countries in the world. We are lagging behind in both the particulates and air pollution such nitrous oxide, sulphur dioxide and other emissions. And clearly, the fact that we haven't got carbon dioxide standards in place, as we discussed earlier this morning, is a real area where we are falling behind the rest of the world.

But let's look at coal-fired power stations. Coal-fired power stations are a huge and major source of air pollution throughout the country. And if we're serious about getting cleaner cities, if we're serious about wanting to do something to ensure that the air in our cities isn't impacting on people's health, then we need to deal with coal-fired power stations. A major new report was released by Environmental Justice Australia just two years ago which shows that Australian power stations are allowed to emit far more pollution than those in the US and Europe and that many operators are actually failing to adopt even available pollution-reduction technologies—and, in one case, falsifying pollution reports. That report states that nearly 900,000 Australians—in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria—live dangerously close to coal-fired power stations, with the impact of that being reflected in increasing rates of asthma, increasing rates of respiratory illness and an increased likelihood of stroke and heart attack.

This is where we need to be getting serious. This is where we have a choice. With the same enthusiasm for regulating the emissions from leaf blowers and lawnmowers, we could be saying: 'Okay, we've actually got a much bigger problem here with coal-fired power stations. Let us plan to be shifting away from them and shifting to clean, renewable, reliable, affordable power from renewable sources.' But, no, we are finding instead that we've got a government that is in the pockets of the fossil fuel lobby—a government that is talking about extending the life of the Liddell power station, a polluting power station that is one of the dirtiest in the country and yet there are negotiations going on to extend its life, rather than saying, 'That power station, as well as contributing to global warming, is having a major impact on the health of the people that live nearby' or 'We have the opportunity here to be improving people's wellbeing, improving people's health, as well as tackling global warming, by accelerating the closure of that power station.' And at the same time as the government could be accelerating the closure of that power station, or at least allowing it to close down in five years time, it could be planning to have power coming from clean, renewable sources—solar, wind, hydro, geothermal—and to increase battery storage and to make the changes to the grid that are required so that we can be shifting our energy sources to clean power. Those are the sorts of measures and the direction that we need to be heading in, rather than tinkering at the edges and—good as far as it goes—regulating emissions from leaf blowers and lawnmowers. Let's get serious. Let's tackle the major sources of pollution in Australia.

Let's look at some of the other impacts of pollution from coal-fired power stations. Australian coal-fired power stations are allowed to be much more polluting than coal-fired power stations in China. Mercury limits in some New South Wales power stations are 666 times higher than in the United States. And the Environmental Justice report that I mentioned before found that pollution reduction technologies that have been available for many years and are used overseas could significantly reduce power station emissions—but they're not in use in Australia. This is where we need to be focusing our efforts. If we are serious about air pollution, if we are serious about reducing premature deaths from air pollution, we need to be tackling these emissions. For example, the Environmental Justice report found that fine-particle pollution exposure is responsible for 1,590 premature deaths each year in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth; that people who live within 50km of coal-fired stations are three to four times more likely to die prematurely than people who live further away; and that 87 per cent of the sulphur dioxide pollution recorded in Sydney can be traced to have come from power stations in the Hunter Valley, more than 100 kilometres away. Let's get serious. Let's get our perspective right. Let's start working on the things that we need to be working on—the things that should have priority when it comes to creating a cleaner future for us all.

You would think that, faced with this evidence, as well as moving on leaf blowers and lawnmowers, we could be moving on much more stringent vehicle emissions so that the people living in my neighbourhood in Yarraville and Footscray don't have to be putting up with particulate pollution from heavy vehicles, which have got much more lax emission controls than heavy vehicles in other parts of the world. In particular, though, what we need to be doing is saying that coal is in the past. We need to be shifting to cleaner vehicles, we need to be shifting to cleaner energy and we need to be cutting our ties with coal. We need to be saying that coal served a good purpose in the past but that it's not serving a good purpose now. We can be shifting out of it, transitioning the jobs into clean energy and transitioning our energy sources into clean energy. That's the direction that the country needs to be heading in. That's the direction that other countries around the world are heading in. That is where we need to be going.

But we are not getting any leadership from this government. We also see that the Labor Party are standing side by side with this government when it comes to the Adani coal-fired power station and have not yet said what they're going to be doing about the Liddell power station. We need the Labor Party to be joining the Greens and saying: 'That power station has reached the end of its life. It has served a purpose up until now but it is not going to be required post-2022.' Then we need to be moving forward. That's the direction that we should be going. If we are serious about air pollution, we've got to get serious about coal. So, with that, I move a second reading amendment:

At the end of the motion, add:

"but the Senate calls upon the Government to regulate toxic emissions from coal-fired power stations."

I congratulate the government on finally bringing the Product Emissions Standards Bill 2017 to the chamber. It's good as far as it goes, but, to be serious about air pollution, to be serious about creating a clean, healthy future for us all, we need to get serious and to be moving out of coal.

David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Bring back the bulb. In 2007 the Prime Minister, who was then the environment minister, banned incandescent light bulbs. When he thought this up, a little light bulb did not appear above his head, because it was not a bright idea. Then Minister Turnbull admitted that compact fluorescent globes would cost around 10 times more than the humble light bulb, but he said they would last around 10 times longer. Experience over the last decade suggests this was wishful thinking. Bring back the bulb and let the people decide what they want. Unfortunately, the bills before us today, the Product Emissions Standards Bill 2017 and a couple of associated bills, suggest that the bulb is not coming back. These bills empower the minister to ban certain products of his choosing. They also empower the minister to tax certain products of his choosing so as to pay for this regime of bans. The bans are to meet an objective of improving air quality or contributing to Australia meeting its climate change obligations. The Liberal Democrats oppose these bills.

The objective of improving air quality is an important one and on occasion may best be achieved by banning products that generate noxious fumes in our cities. But we should not have a policy objective of reducing Australia's greenhouse gas emissions while most of the 14 countries that emit more than Australia continue to rapidly increase their greenhouse gas emissions. Even if we were to have an objective of reducing Australia's greenhouse gas emissions, assuming these other countries have something similar, this objective should not be pursued by banning products. If we are to have this objective, we should pursue it by treating more emissions-intensive products more harshly on a sliding scale. This would provide more freedom of choice and consumer satisfaction for any given impact on emissions compared to the crude black-and-white approach of bans.

There are further reasons to oppose these bills. They empower a minister rather than the parliament to instigate bans. If importers import a banned product, they face a fine of up to $12,600, even if they didn't know about the ban, and there is no reason that they should have known about it. This is yet another instance of dodgy law known as strict liability. The minister is planning to use these laws to ban the outboard motor on my dinghy, but the only person who breathes in these fumes is me, and I quite like them. Please don't let the bad man take away my outboard!

Cory Bernardi (SA, Australian Conservatives) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I feel I can say that Elvis is finally entering the building. I say that because, when The Daily Telegraph said in July of this year that the government was working on emissions standards, particularly applying some to motor vehicles, labelling it as a 'carbon tax on cars', Energy Minister Frydenberg told the ABC, 'There is as much chance of a carbon tax on cars as Elvis making a comeback.' Well, the Product Emissions Standards Bill 2017 is the regime that heralds Elvis entering the building.

The Prime Minister, who at the time when this story broke was busy in the United Kingdom telling the Brits that there was no conservative party in Australia, tried to hose down these revelations straightaway. In this debate on product emissions standards today, we are being told—it's a sales job, I should tell you—that it applies to whipper-snippers, leaf blowers, outboard motors and lawnmowers, and that the coalition is only consulting about applying these emissions regulations to cars.

I'm telling you that you can hear Elvis warming up his vocal cords, because we cannot believe what we've been told. Whilst the direct application is on the whipper-snippers, outboard motors and leaf blowers, the government is indeed consulting about applying this emissions regime, or a very similar one, to cars. You can't hide from that fact. The Daily Telegraph was effectively right. This is a new version of the carbon tax. And so the skirmish has begun. But ultimately those who are far-sighted and have that reasonable, rational and sensible distrust of what government says and what it delivers know exactly what is coming down the pipe.

I understand this will be of benefit to some in the coalition—those who think they're election-winning machines, those who secretly plot against the long-term interests of the coalition to get their own sorts of outcomes that they can boast about drunkenly in bars, but the policy agenda is absolutely wrong. The policy agenda here is absolutely wrong, because it's not so much about air quality. Australian Conservatives support good-quality air. But no-one is reasonably and rationally saying that the air quality in Australia is so bad that we have to limit the use or prohibit or limit the importation of some of the machinery that makes our jobs and our lives that much easier. Air quality will be improved as technology improves, not because government is imposing criminal sanctions or breathtakingly audacious regulatory regimes to stop you, me or any other Australian consumer from purchasing a reasonably priced whipper-snipper or leaf blower.

This regime will impose additional costs to the products that so many of us use every day. It's dressed up in the guise of what's good for public health, but, as Senator Leyonhjelm said, the only person who's been impacted by the outboard motor on his dinghy is himself. I'm looking to buy a boat with two outboard motors. I'd best get in before the outboard motor loathers tell us all off and ban it.

But I also make this point: before the last election there was no forecast, no prediction, no statement from the coalition, which I could identify, that they were going to put up the price of whipper-snippers and leaf blowers. So much so, they were criticised by the Climate and Health Alliance, which rated the major parties at the last election. Neither the Liberal Party nor the National Party had any stronger air pollution laws. I note that the alliance even criticised the Labor Party, claiming they didn't support them either. So, if you can't identify a policy statement in this respect, or where the motivation for this has come from, you have to go back to: have they abandoned all sense and reason?

I understand the minister will probably say later on, 'This came out of the COAG assessment process.' But, do you know what? If states want to impose penalties on individuals in their own state, you have to wonder how they seduced a coalition government, which is meant to be responsible and acting in the interests of the Australian people, into imposing what is effectively a new tax. It is a new tax, because everyone who buys these machines from now on will be paying more. The costs of this are going to be felt by consumers.

The benefits have been quantified from a health point of view, which is always spurious because they're completely unprovable. If you think that imposing this regime is going to save $600 million or $700 million in five years time, I can guarantee you no-one will ever be able to demonstrate that fact, because I can promise you this: the health bill in this country in five years time will be higher than it is today. Of course, they will go, 'But it would be that much worse if we didn't put this ban on whipper-snippers as they currently stand.' That's wrong. The costing in the regulatory impact statement is that the community is going to pay an extra $636 million to regulate and recover the cost of this program. The quid pro quo, as I said before, is that they are saying there's going to be $1.7 billion in health cost savings and $786 million in fuel cost savings. I don't believe that. I don't believe the health cost savings at all; I think they've just made those up with whatever spurious research they came up with—and we're entitled to question all the figures that are put forward in this space.

This, of course, is a regime that enables the government, by regulation, I would presume—in some instances it may need future legislation, but I presume it will be by regulation—to expand this to a whole range of other items. We're at the end of winter; we're going into barbeque season. Is this what we are going to see next? Are we going to see an emissions standard on barbeques because the government suddenly thinks it needs to make barbecues cleaner? Maybe we'll have an emissions standard on fireplaces. We'll continue to regulate and regulate and regulate until the government decides almost everything that can be done in this space.

When it comes to motor vehicles, because that's where it is going to go—we've seen the demands from the Greens today. The government, I can assure you, will say it's not going to apply to motor vehicles, but it's a logical extension of where this is—it has all the hallmarks of that famous 'cash for clunkers' policy of the Labor Party, where they were going to buy old clunkers and get them off the road. But, in this instance, you can foresee an environment where older cars will effectively be taxed off the road. As new emissions schemes and targets come in, you will find yourself in a circumstance where you won't be able to sell your older car because it doesn't comply with what Big Brother is telling you.

This is not scaremongering. As I said, the regulatory impact statement, which was released last December, estimates that, if European-style emissions standards are imposed, via this regime on light and heavy vehicles, it would cost about $675 million. Interestingly, the draft statement said:

There are no benefits or costs associated with option 1 as this is the 'do nothing' approach.

I like the idea that there's no cost associated with the do-nothing approach. I'm attracted to that. And there are no benefits. So what? It's not like we're drowning in smog at the moment. Australia has an amazing environment. We're living within our means, doing our bit in efficiency, as we go along in a whole range of areas, and it doesn't require government regulation to do that. But there are other benefits, and those are lower taxes, lower cost of living and limited government. Those are the absolute benefits of doing nothing in this space: lower taxes, lower cost of living and you get smaller government. Those are huge benefits. And yet, suddenly, it's so unfashionable that they're clamouring to increase new regulations and bureaucracy.

I also point out that the draft discussion paper listed from 2019 forwards, when that policy might be imposed—the one on motor vehicles—that a Euro 6 standard on heavy vehicles could cost trucking companies $1.5 billion to 2024 in capital costs alone. That's what this bill today is opening the door to. That's $230 million in higher fuel costs for those selfsame trucking companies and about $452 million in lost productivity. Now, that would peak at $28 million in a single year in nine years time.

So when the carbon tax on cars, which was denied by the government at the time—and yet we see the embryonic commencement of it in these bills—was introduced and discussed, the Australian Automobile Association said that the average family car could cost as much as $5,000 more. Make no mistake: that is where we're heading. The regulations within this bill and the regime within which this bill is created allow for the extension to motor vehicles—as I said, perhaps by regulation. So it's not just a benign regime; it's not something that is just going to put the cost of your whipper-snipper up $10, $20, $30, $50 or $100. This could come at a significant community, family and economic cost.

The same draft discussion paper, as far as motor vehicles go, mentioned that our petrol might not meet the European standard that is on the cards either, and this is going to put up the cost of fuel—the cost of petrol—if we adopt it. I would suggest to you that, if we examine the European community, there is not so much as a beacon of light there for us to model ourselves on. It is not the great productive nirvana that some would have you believe that we should ape and map after. The same people—who are telling us that we should embrace the European migration experiment, the European welfare experiment, the European big government experiment or the European big taxes experiment, which have all failed dismally—are telling us to embrace the big new European emissions experiment. It is just a falsehood.

If their models are living in the European Union, if their ideal environment is in the European Union, let them go and subject themselves to it. Let them see how much they can prosper in the regimes of Greece and how freedom of speech has been tortured or migration is dislocating the social compact between nations. Just don't bring it here, because it doesn't work. We don't need a Big Brother nanny state here.

Let's not forget that, in that nanny state of Europe, they had the diesel emissions scandal of Volkswagen in, I think, Germany. It cost $4.3 billion because they had to lie to comply with the emissions that were going on. Are we going to have the same sort of thing here? Are we going to expect every importer to be criminally responsible, potentially, for importing a whipper-snipper or a leaf blower or a lawnmower that doesn't comply? That's the sort of obligation we've got here: a criminal regime for people making misleading representations under this system.

I think it's onerous. I think it's all about Big Brother. It's not good for our country to have government foisting itself into this microlegislation. And who knows where it's going to end? They come for the leaf blowers today, but what about the motoring enthusiasts later on? What about those who go to the Summernats where people are doing burnouts, drag races and stuff like that? Will they be penalising those people for the emissions that they're putting out there, because they're using a different type of fuel than we are?

What about the farmers? Will they to start targeting farm machinery or anything powered by fossil fuels—tractors, slashers and chainsaws used to prevent bushfires. Imagine that. Will they penalise someone using a chainsaw who's trying to make their community safer because they might mistakenly or inappropriately inhale a few emissions? It's better to inhale a few emissions, because that might sit uncomfortably with the government, than to watch your property go up in smoke because you can't manage the land and the foliage around it.

What about forklifts? Are they going to go for the forklifts as well? Is that what's going to happen because they don't like the emissions? We can keep going on and on. But you have to open the door somewhere and this is what this regime does. So it's no surprise that I oppose what is effectively a carbon tax by stealth. This is the start of a war on emissions. It is not grounded in reality; it is grounded in spurious savings that are going to come at a massive cost to the Australian taxpayers—taxpayers who are already struggling to make ends meet, taxpayers who are taking it upon themselves to do a little bit more work around the house because they can't afford to get some assistance to do it but will have to pay more if they want to buy a new leaf blower, a new lawnmower or a new whipper-snipper because of the regime that is being imposed by this government.

We are a nation of fewer than 30 million people. Nothing we do in this space is going to change the climate whatsoever. They can dress this up all they like—as a health measure—but its ideological basis is in the foundation of climate change, the paranoia that has gripped the globe and needs to be exposed for the fraud that it is. This bill contributes to the fraud. This bill is not worthy of this place, and I will be opposing it.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I want to argue the case for freedom. I also argue that we are opposed to real pollution because Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party is fundamentally in favour of protecting the environment. However, we believe that the best people to protect the environment are the people who are managing the environment—farmers, industrialists and employees. We are against real pollution, and that's what the Product Emissions Standards Bill 2017 seeks to address. Real pollutants, like carbon monoxide—not carbon dioxide—like particulates, like sulphur dioxide and like nitrous oxide, are the things that affect people's quality of life and respiration. These are the things that blanketed out the sky and the stars from London for 600 years, until the advent of modern coal-fired power stations. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, as Senator Rice alluded to. Carbon dioxide is fundamentally not on the list of pollutants anywhere in this planet, because carbon dioxide is essential to all life on this planet. Carbon dioxide is nature's essential trace gas that is essential for life on this planet. It is essential for everything green on this planet, as a part of the process of photosynthesis that gives us our food, our forests, our grass and our seaweed.

I want to talk about real pollutants and how we need to reduce them. I also want to talk about reality. What the Greens are fomenting and advocating is an increase in real pollutants—carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxide and particulates. The Greens are saying that we need to cut the production of carbon dioxide, which is essential for all of life on this planet. They want to do that by increasing taxes. When that happens we will see an increase in electricity costs in this country, and the production of electricity increasing overseas at the risk of our jobs. That is what is happening; it is the reality of what is happening. We are shutting down industry here, losing our aluminium smelters and losing our car plants. We won't be making aluminium soon. We won't be making cars after the end of this year. That is now being transferred overseas, creating jobs in Asia, jobs in Africa and jobs in North America, thanks to Donald Trump, and we see them shutting down here. That is increasing our cost of living, decreasing our standard of living and decreasing our quality of life.

Senator Rice advocates the use of bikes and walking. Well, try telling that to people who live in Bourke or Boulia or Birdsville—or even Brisbane or even Bardon. That is not real. That is just a pipedream. But I want to go on to something else. She talks about coal. Well, let's talk about coal. Coal is used to make steel. Everything around us, except the flesh in our bodies, depends upon steel. The clothes are made from cotton or made from wool. They are harvested and sewn, in fact, with steel based implements. And what's the key ingredient to steel? Coal. Coal is responsible for our food. It is responsible for our clothing. It is responsible for our shelter, our homes. It is responsible for our industry because steel is a part of all of those industries. Steel is fundamental to transport: cars, buses, trucks and pushbikes. It is fundament to the leather thongs and sandals that the Greens want to wear. Coal is fundamental to steel, and that is fundamental to every aspect of our transport.

What we are seeing is that the Greens are trying to destroy this debate by bringing in carbon dioxide when, in fact, to be clear, the emissions of concern in this package are actual pollutants: carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide particulates and nitrous oxides. Carbon dioxide is not a part of this framework, but the Greens keep talking about it. That illustrates why carbon dioxide has been demonised and is now, in the minds of most school kids, seen as a pollutant when it is not. It is not listed anywhere in the world as a pollutant.

Then the Greens talk about clean power. What is clean power? They never define what clean power is. But they say that the way to generate clean power is in windmills and solar farms. Windmills rely upon steel. Windmills rely upon electricity to be made. And where does that electricity come from in China? It comes from coal—Australian coal, in places. What we see is the subsidies for windmills and solar farms in this country driving industry in other countries. We are subsidising the industrialisation of China. They're going hell for leather on coal-fired power stations. This Greens insanity is just that.

I want to talk about the way humans have reduced real pollutants. I want to illustrate, for example, Honda Motor Company. Honda Motor Company's founder was Soichiro Honda. He visited Lake Tahoe in the 1970s and he saw on the water of that beautiful lake something that looked like oil. He asked his sales people what that was on the pristine waters of Lake Tahoe. They said that was oil from two-stroke motors. He made a vow then and there to never build a two-stroke outboard motor, even though it was lighter and used less fuel. Instead, he worked savagely on reducing the weight, the cost and the complexity of four-stroke outboard motors because they are inherently less polluting, and he worked on improving their efficiency and reducing their cost. As a result, Honda makes no two-stroke outboard motors. Honda Motor Company in the 1970s brought in pollution levels that were lower than the mandated requirements all through the seventies and all through the eighties. Why? When they studied the combustion of fuel in a cylinder chamber, Honda Motor Company worked out that being more efficient would produce less pollution, increase power and increase fuel efficiency. The way to improve the efficiency and reduce the pollution of engines is to have a standard and then let companies get at it. That's what we are seeing here.

We commend the government for addressing real pollution—carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxides—and we condemn the Greens for trying, yet again, to tell a lie to the Australian people, that carbon dioxide needs to be cut, when it doesn't. We see all around us a dependency on coal. We see the Greens talking about the lights that are powered by coal, but not the cotton, not the timber, not the clothes, not the speakers and not the steel—nothing else in this room that is generated by steel, which depends upon coal. Why is it that the Greens will let go of half of the coal production in this country and let it go overseas? Because they are not game to tackle the fact that steel is in everything.

The Greens campaign is a lie. The Greens campaign is distorting reality. The Greens campaign fundamentally contradicts empirical evidence. We've had no warming for 22 years. The largest temperature trend in the last 160 years was 40 years of cooling from the 1930s to 1976. Temperatures were warmer in Australia in the 1890s than today. Carbon dioxide from human activity is not affecting the temperature. What's more, we know that carbon dioxide from human activity is not even affecting the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In 2009, we had a recession, and carbon dioxide production from humans decreased, yet the level in the atmosphere increased because the oceans control that. The oceans contain 50 times more carbon dioxide in dissolved form than is in the entire atmosphere.

Lastly, I want to point out to the Greens that every warmer period in the past has been called a climate optimum, because it has been highly beneficial to humans, to the natural environment and to all plant and animal species. If we could increase the temperature, we would, but we can't control it. If we could increase the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we would, but we can't control it. What we want to do is make a clear distinction between carbon dioxide and the real pollutants. We note, contrary to what the Greens imply, that this bill does not refer in any way to carbon dioxide production; it refers only to real pollutants: sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxides and particulates. That is why Pauline Hanson's One Nation party is in favour of progress. That's why we support coal. That's why we support steel. That's why we support freedom of choice. Pauline Hanson's One Nation party is in favour of the cutting pollution. That's why we support this bill.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank senators for their diverse contributions and note that there was also a diversity of support for this bill. I commend the bill to the chamber.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the second reading amendment moved by Senator Rice be agreed to.