Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Cormann) to a question without notice asked by Senator Di Natale today, relating to drought.

On Thursday last week, the Bureau of Meteorology said that the drought that the Murray-Darling Basin was experiencing was 'the most severe in 120 years of records'. There is no question that people right across the country, particularly in the Murray-Darling Basin, are struggling, and it's about time we started to address the issue of drought. It's a good thing it's on the parliamentary agenda over this fortnight. But let's be clear what's happening. The government has decided to set up a drought relief fund, which is effectively a slush fund for its National Party backers. We know what happens when you put the Nationals in charge of water. We've seen the rampant corruption and mismanagement of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. They establish a fund that overtly is to look after their mates, and then they dare the ALP to support it. They use it as a wedge against the ALP. People deserve better than that. They deserve better than the government deciding to play politics with an issue that is affecting the lives of people right across the country.

The single biggest contributor to this drought and indeed, future droughts—at least a major contributor—is the impact of climate change on drought. You can't be serious about drought unless you take strong action on climate change. We know that current and future droughts will be more severe and more frequent unless we're prepared to take strong action on climate change. We know that the single biggest cause of climate change is burning coal. So unless we've got a plan to transition out of coal into renewables, we actually don't have a plan to deal with climate change and, therefore, you can't be serious about tackling drought. Right now, Australia's pollution levels have never been higher. They've never been higher than they are right now. We are pumping so much heat-trapping gas into our oceans and our atmosphere that we are on track to shoot up to three to four degrees of warming, which will have catastrophic impacts both on the climate and also on those agricultural communities that are struggling.

We know that climate change has already contributed to a southward shift in weather systems and that is a big contributor to what's going on here. We know that rainfall has decreased by 15 per cent in south-east Australia and Western Australia's south-west region—another 15 per cent decline in cool season rainfall. Climate change is increasing the intensity and frequency of hot days and heatwaves in Australia, exacerbating drought conditions.

So we've got to get serious about tackling climate change, rather than coming up with silly political wedges designed to show that you're more interested in the politics than the outcome. How about we get serious about the causes of drought? As I said earlier, one of the major contributors to drought is the breakdown of our climate. It's not just coal, it's gas: our gas exports are driving some of the biggest growth in emissions. You've got methane leaking out of fracking wells. You've got huge amounts of energy needed to convert it to LNG. And our accounts don't even include the pollution that occurs from the burning of that gas in other jurisdictions. We're now the biggest exporter of coal and gas. We have to get serious about tackling climate change if we're going to be serious about tackling drought.

Indeed, what we had at a summit only a few days ago was the mining industry putting themselves forward as the saviour of drought stricken agricultural communities. This stuff writes itself. The coal industry—responsible for the mining, burning and exporting of coal, the biggest contributor to climate change, one of the significant drivers of drought in this country, which is affecting regional communities—the coal industry is saying, 'We're here to help.' With friends like that, who needs enemies? It's about time we got serious about tackling climate change. That means a transition away from coal, oil and gas to renewable technologies, ushering in the tens of thousands of jobs that come with making that transition, and ensuring that agriculture is viable in this country for generations to come.

Question agreed to.