Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I inform the Senate that, at 8.30 am today, 19 proposals were received in accordance with standing order 75. The question of which proposal would be submitted to the Senate was determined by lot. As a result, I inform the Senate that the following letter was received from Senator Hanson-Young:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice that today I propose to move "That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The fact that the Government is failing to do its fair share of limiting global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures by continuing to approve new coal mines and gas fields and refusing to adopt strong 2030 emissions targets of 75% below 2005 levels."

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today's debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clocks accordingly.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The fact that the Government is failing to do its fair share of limiting global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures by continuing to approve new coal mines and gas fields and refusing to adopt strong 2030 emissions targets of 75% below 2005 levels.

I rise to contribute to this debate today, and it is an important debate because, in less than two weeks time, the Prime Minister of this country is going to be travelling to Glasgow to meet with world leaders in relation to the biggest threat that humanity has seen, and that, of course, is climate change and the climate crisis, a crisis that has been brought about by the enormous amounts of pollution that are pumped into our atmosphere because of the burning of fossil fuels. Of course, one of the key elements that world leaders like the Prime Minister of Australia, Mr Scott Morrison, are being asked to contribute to this most important global meeting is a commitment to cut pollution and to stop expanding the projects that make climate change worse.

The International Energy Agency has said in no uncertain terms that there can be no more new oil, gas or coal projects opened, created or built if we are to achieve zero pollution and a target for net zero pollution in order to keep temperatures at below 1.5 degrees, which is what we know we need if we are to stop the most dangerous elements of climate change. Only a couple of months ago, last time the Senate was meeting here in this place, we were discussing and debating the recent report by the world's leading climate scientists. They said we have less than a decade to take the urgent action needed—less than a decade to cut pollution to keep the rise in temperature below that important element of 1.5 degrees—if we are to have a fighting chance of stopping runaway climate change.

We can already see the effect of climate change all around us. Only two summers ago we saw those devastating bushfires rip through bushland in regional and rural Australia. We saw billions of hectares of Australia's forests and wilderness areas go up in smoke. We saw three billion animals in this country perish because of those bushfires. We saw dozens of towns and cities in this country choked with smoke.

COVID-19 has brought about an enormous amount of concern and fear right around the world. Governments have been called to take urgent action to stop the spread of this most devastating disease. Governments, largely, have responded—of all political persuasions, at all levels. Governments and political leaders have listened to the science, listened to the experts, and taken the swift action needed to stop the spread and the escalation of this disease. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we saw the same type of response from our political leaders that we've seen in relation to COVID-19 for action to save the climate and our planet—listening to the science, taking the swift action that's needed, showing leadership and investing in the transition to an economy and a society that is cleaner, greener and safer.

If we thought that the crippling effect of COVID-19, a disease that has ripped through not just our communities in Australia but around the world, was bad, just wait until we see the diseases that rip through our communities when climate change really hits. The experts tell us that's what's coming—unless we take the action that's needed in the next decade to cut pollution. That's why, as a country, we need to be taking to the world's most important summit— (Time expired)

Perin Davey (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yet again we have the Greens wanting us to strive for some ideal at the expense of jobs, industry and our community. Make no mistake: this is what we look forward to, potentially, under an Albanese-Greens coalition government. Seventy-five per cent emissions reduction by 2030 is the target the Greens are saying. Senator Gallagher refused to say that Labor would have a target for 2030 or to announce their target yet—but the Greens are doing it for you, Senator Gallagher. They want 75 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. But what the Greens like to keep ignoring is what we have already achieved to date. I've spoken about it already today in this chamber, and I will continue to speak about it time and time again because I am sick to death of people ignoring what Australians have already done. I am sick to death of people from this nation saying Australians are laggards and denialists when so many Australians are not—not the National Party and certainly not regional Australians.

Of the 20 per cent emissions reduction that we have already achieved to date from 2005 levels, 71 per cent has come from agricultural land use changes and a reduction in agricultural emissions. Our agricultural industries have done the heavy lifting, and yet we have people over there on the crossbench trying to tell us that we should stop eating meat because cows fart. Well, excuse me. They're saying we should stop planting crops like rice because it uses too much water. They're saying we should make sure our farmers can't clear their land but that it's okay to clear 125 square kilometres in the centre of Australia for solar farms. The hypocrisy is unbelievable.

I want to focus today on agriculture and forestry, because forestry is part of the solution that keeps getting ignored by those on the crossbench. Forestry keeps getting closed down by those opposite and their state counterparts. Forestry is the best carbon sequestration you can have. The trees grow and they absorb carbon. Then you turn those trees into furniture, like what we are surrounded by here today. This room is sequestering tonnes of carbon forever. But those on the crossbench would rather us lock up land and just walk away. I can tell you, while that absorbs carbon in some stages, it plateaus at a certain point in time and it is not sequestered for good. It actually starts to become carbon positive.

We need to focus on what is actually going to achieve real outcomes, and what is achieving real outcomes is what our agricultural industry is doing. The work our meat industry has done with the CSIRO and James Cook University, developing new feed regimes for livestock, is leading to world-leading outcomes. Net greenhouse gas emissions from the red meat sector in Australia are less than half what they were in 2005. The red meat sector have cut their emissions by 50 per cent already. It is by far the greatest reduction by any single sector in Australia's economy. I congratulate them, and I congratulate the CSIRO for its world-leading work in this area.

Through our government's commitments, we are providing over $1 million to an agricultural science company called Sea Forest. This grant will allow them to upscale their production of seaweed additive for livestock feed so the livestock sector can continue to cut emissions. The work that CSIRO is doing with the agricultural sector on soil carbon sequestration through cropping regimes is world leading. Why aren't we talking about this? Why aren't we talking about these ground-breaking innovations that support existing industries and create new jobs and new research that we can sell to the world? But, no, they'd rather focus on the negatives. They would rather focus on the fact that we still have coalmines. And so we should. Because our coal is the highest-energy, lowest-emission coal in the world. I would rather see one of the 129 new coal-fired power stations currently being constructed around the world—in net zero countries—burn our higher-energy, lower-emissions coal than dirty brown coal from another nation that emits more. I would rather see Australia use our gas—our natural resources—to produce blue hydrogen than burn dirtier products with higher emissions to do the same.

We've got Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson going around saying, 'Aren't we good.' They're flying off into space in, yes, hydrogen powered rockets. Congratulations. The only pollution from those rockets is oxygen and water—very clean. Read the fine print. With that hydrogen that they are using to produce enough hydrogen to power those rockets, they need to burn fossil fuel. That's because industry isn't ready and can't yet produce enough green hydrogen for those rockets. But we're all putting Bezos on a pedestal because he's exploring the new frontier. I actually agree with Prince William on this. We need to focus on this planet, before we start ruining other planets.

I have grave concerns about the thought of mining the moon. I don't want to mine the moon. But I have no problems, in this country, when we know we need more lithium to produce the batteries that will underpin our renewable energy. I am very proud that Australia is one of the largest lithium producers in the world. I am very proud of our mineral sands resources sector that is producing the silicon, the silica and the other core ingredients so that we can actually have renewable power and electric vehicles.

So mining always will be part of the solution, and that includes our coalmining. Agriculture is part of our solution. Agriculture has already done the heavy lifting in Australia. The worst thing we can do to our agricultural sector is a repeat of what we signed up for with Kyoto. The worst thing we can do is tell our farmers: no, you can't clear that paddock that has the opportunity for soil carbon sequestration and food production. Let's not forget: Oxfam released a report in August raising red flags, because to plant enough trees to reach net zero—if you're just relying on planting trees—you will stop feeding the world. We are at risk of a food shortage. We need to work out how our agriculture can be a part of the solution, so that we can continue to feed the world. I'm not just talking about meat. Vegans need plants. It takes a lot of water to grow a soy crop. It takes a lot of soil carbon for that soy crop, but then it can be put back into the soil. We need to be working with our industries and embracing the innovations and the new technologies they have, and embracing the opportunities that a low-emissions future presents. I am not against a low-emissions future. What I am against is a blank cheque that allows people to trounce our industries, our people, and our communities, and that says, 'We will sign up to net zero at any cost.' I don't believe in ' at any cost'. I believe in opportunity. I believe in technology, not taxes.

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Listening to Senator Davey, you'd think that the Morrison government has some radical plan for our future and climate change, but we all know that it will be a plan to do very little. So I'm not quite sure what all of that carry on was about.

I want to talk about some of the points the senator made before I get to the motion itself. Eight years in office, 21 energy policies, yet all we've heard from the Morrison government this week is that a part of the Morrison government, the National Party, need more time. Australia hasn't got more time. We are sending the Prime Minister of this country to Glasgow in a few short weeks. And what's he got? Nothing at this point. He keeps saying that apparently he's going to make a decision with or without the Nationals. If you read between the lines, apparently the cabinet will make that decision. But some of the Nationals are in the cabinet. So, what are they going to do? Resign their commissions? Quite frankly, if they're not prepared to sign up to cabinet solidarity, that is what they should do. Otherwise, they're not entitled to stay there.

One of the senator's comments was that we need to work out how agriculture contributes. Guess what? A lot of farmers are already contributing. How out of touch are you? How out of touch you are. I invite you to speak to the AgZero2030 group in Western Australia. They're a group of farmers and primary producers who are leading the way. They're not hobby farmers. They're farmers with broadacre who are leading the way. And, yes, some of them are planting trees. They want to see the Morrison government sign up to a net zero target. They want the research and development money. They want to stop doing it themselves and stop spending their own money. They want to have that research and development. That's what they want to contribute to. When you talk to them, they've got no idea where the Nationals are. In fact, Simon Wallwork, who owns a farm of almost 4,000 hectares with his partner Cindy in Corrigin, a farm I visited last year, believes that you're out of step. That's what he said on the ABC yesterday.

Today, when Senator McKenzie tried to represent the National Party as all-encompassing, I noticed that farmers were about fifth or sixth on the list that Senator McKenzie claimed to represent. You don't represent all of regional Australia. You didn't have a federal senator or MP in Western Australia the last time I looked, and you haven't had for quite some time. In fact, the leader of the state Nationals in WA, Mia Davies, is quite alarmed that Mr Joyce is the leader again. She's been very public about her comments. In 2018, she was one of the first to say that Mr Joyce should resign. When Mr Joyce topped Mr McCormack recently, she was the first to come out and say that he's got a lot of bridges to build, and she's still standing by the comments that she made in 2018.

The other thing you wouldn't have noticed Ms Davies say—because you're so obsessed with yourselves—was that Mr Joyce is a destabilising influence. She said that at the time. She must have had a crystal ball. What are we seeing right now? We are seeing that destabilisation absolutely on display. Ms Davies also went on to say that the Nationals were focused on themselves, on their own internal matters. Well, that's all we've seen this week—the Nationals breaking out, trying to hold not only the Morrison government to ransom but Australia to ransom.

I want to talk about this motion from the Greens. It demonstrates, once again, that they're not serious about being part of an Australian climate change solution. Instead, they're playing their immature game of making themselves the story for a moment of social media glory in a week when the Morrison government is in disarray over climate change. Seriously, is this motion the best they can do? It doesn't even name the government. It certainly doesn't name their recalcitrant rump—that handful of members from the National Party who claim to represent regional and rural Australians, yet don't have a single National representative in the vast state of WA.

So let's have a look at what is really going on here. We know that Mr Morrison is being held captive by the Nationals, holding Australia back and not allowing Australians to focus on the things that are really of interest to them, but let's look at the Greens' record when it comes to backing in good climate change policy. Who could forget the dirty deal the Greens did with the Liberal opposition when, together, they voted down Labor's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme? Without this scheme, the Greens have added about 218 million additional tonnes of carbon.

Hon. Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, you'll hear them carping, because they don't like to be confronted with the truth, but that is the truth. That's what killing off Labor's CPRS scheme has done. Thanks to the Greens, even though they'll carp, carry on, interject and try to put another spin on it, it's their actions, not ours, that have added millions of tonnes of carbon pollution. Let's also not forget that two Liberals were prepared to cross the floor to support Labor, so disgusted were they with the Greens and their dirty deal with the Liberals. That's how bad that deal was. Now the Greens are in here trying to present themselves as honest brokers. I'd say they're green with envy, not green environmentalists.

In Mr Morrison, we've got a PM who has zero credentials on any commitment to mitigating climate change. We've got a PM who, instead, wants to cling to power at all costs. Who could forget that it was this Prime Minister who brought a lump of coal into the parliament, proudly declaring, 'Don't be afraid. Don't be scared. It won't hurt you'? He is a PM who won't support renewables, as he's on the record claiming that wind and solar are unreliable. Remember when he said that the wind doesn't blow all the time and the sun doesn't shine all the time? Then there was his scare campaign against electric vehicles, ably assisted by Senator Cash. The claim was that we'd all lose our weekends. Well, Mr Morrison and Senator Cash, I've recently purchased an electric vehicle. I did that because—guess what?—there's not one electric vehicle on the government's lease vehicles for senators and MPs, not one. So I went out and got my own. It's not one of the expensive ones; it's an MG, at about $44,000—still unaffordable for most Australians because the Morrison government don't put one ounce of subsidy behind that car. But, for the record, my weekend just got a whole lot better with that car. My MG is at home right now and, if my partner's been using it and it needs charging, on most days it will be taking advantage of the solar panels on my roof. I'm a lot better off already.

As I said at the start of my contribution, WA farmers are pushing back against the Morrison government's failure to take emissions seriously. They really are. If you haven't introduced yourselves to AgZero2030, make sure you see the sort of work that they are doing.

One of the things that I am most proud of is the WA Labor government. Again, you won't hear the Greens going on about the sorts of energy policies it's pursuing. I'm also proud to say that, despite many years of the Liberals trying to sell off and privatise WA power, it's probably the key thing that got McGowan across the line the first time we won the state election. Colin Barnett and the Liberals were hell-bent on selling Western Power, and Labor was hell-bent on making sure it wasn't sold. The WA Labor government is investing in solar panels. We had Onslow off the grid recently because of the use of solar panels, storage and good systems controls. We're doing microgrids, not just in the rural areas but in metro areas as well.

But, as I say, you won't hear the Greens congratulating WA Labor and other governments on that, because it's all about their moment in the sun. With this motion, which is completely over the top and absolutely designed to get them a little moment on social media, they're another party focused on their internals and not on what is really happening.

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 note this government's turn to the dark side. Pushing a zero carbon dioxide economy is gaining steam. 'The dark side' means sitting in the dark, because unreliable technologies like wind and solar will cause us all to be sitting in the dark, as is proven repeatedly overseas. These green boondoggles exist only to farm taxpayers' money, not energy. It's the ultimate irony that, when the Greens talk about a farm, they don't mean one that grows food and fibre; their wind and solar farms are made from communist China's industrial processes creating steel, fibreglass and concrete, the very things you can't make with green power. The Greens vision for Australia has no integrity because they claim so-called science has no integrity. It does not exist.

It is 772days since I first challenged the former Greens Leader, Senator Di Natale, and the current Greens Leader in the Senate, Senator Waters, to provide the empirical scientific evidence justifying cutting carbon dioxide from human activity—nature's pure, clean trace gas essential for all life on our beautiful planet. I challenged them to debate me on the science and on the corruption of science. Senator Waters has been running from my challenge for 11 years—since I first challenged her as a joint panellist at a Brisbane climate forum.

The Liberal Party should know that there's no compromising with the Greens, who responded to the Prime Minister's gutless, unfounded major shift in the way that any extortionist does: the Greens upped the ante. Rewarded, the Greens now call for 2035 carbon dioxide output to be 75 per cent of 2005 levels. Today, the media is reporting that a deal has been done between the Nationals and Prime Minister Morrison so he can jet to Glasgow with net zero and get his pat on the head from the elites, from his globalist masters. Mark my words, net zero will become 'Nat zero'. Minister Hunt won't even be able to claim the resulting death of the National Party as a COVID death; it's very assuredly suicide.

As a result of the government's capitulation to green lunacy, many things will happen. Prime agricultural land will be put over to farming carbon rather than food, increasing feral animals and noxious weeds on productive land. Abandoned. The Howard-Anderson Liberal-National government's theft of property rights to implement the UN's Kyoto protocol will now be buried, so it cannot be restored, and there will be hundreds of billions of dollars in compensation. Buried. Farmers will experience more green tape and more blue UN tape, stealing more of their rights to use the land they bought and own. Family farms will disappear, a process well underway already. No new base-load power plants will be constructed. Mining industries will shut down and regional cities will be gutted.

Already, the cost of renewables to Australian taxpayers is $19 billion a year—$1,300 a year for each household. To implement this agenda, this burden will more than double. It will savage the poor as a capricious, regressive tax. Every job created in the green economy costs three jobs in the productive economy—jobs lost to communist China. I expect we'll hear more about so-called clean smelting using hydrogen, an exhibit in the sideshow alley of green dishonesty. It will never be feasible without taxpayer subsidies or extreme inflation in the cost of building materials and housing. Adding the reduction in government revenue from a devastated regional economy, new energy subsidies and new subsidies for industries producing green boondoggles, the net zero policy's mountain of taxpayer debt will be visible from space. Net zero will require as much taxpayer money as we are now spending on health or education. What will that do to the health and education budget? Or is the Prime Minister planning to 'borrow, tax and spend' in the worst traditions of the Labor Party?

Unreliable, expensive, parasitic malinvestment in so-called renewables—monstrosities that only last 15 years before they become toxic heavy metal industrial waste that cannot be safely disposed of. Every solar facility and every wind turbine in existence will need to be replaced before 2040. What a windfall that will be for the corporations that own this parliament—tens of billions of dollars in construction and operational subsidies to rebuild the national generating capacity from scratch, for no impact on earth's temperature! It is a great reset not just of electricity generation but of our entire economy. We're not transitioning from dirty industry to clean industry; we're transitioning from a somewhat free economy to a controlled economy. The winners will be large corporations; the losers will be every Australian trying to get ahead to survive. It is madness, it is inhuman, it is insanity. We will continue to oppose this nonsense.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Greens really need to get with the times. They are falling behind the world, because the world can't get enough of Australian coal and Australian gas from your area, Mr Acting Deputy President O'Sullivan. They can't get enough of coal around the world. There is record demand for fossil fuels right now.

That is why there are record prices for our fossil fuels. Gas is trading at well over $30 a gigajoule in our region; it's up three times what it was a year ago. Coal prices are absolutely through the roof at record prices. No-one ever thought they'd see prices at over $200 a tonne for thermal coal and over $600 a tonne for coking coal from my area in Central Queensland. In each one of those trains that goes out past my place in Central Queensland, there is $5 million dollars for our nation at these prices. The rest of the world is just desperate for fossil fuels.

Let's go around the world and see what's happening. We've heard a lot this week about other countries signing up to net zero—doing something in 2050. But I think the best test of what someone's going to do in 2050 is probably what they're doing today, because talk is cheap. Countries can say whatever they like; what they do is much, much more important. So let's go around the world.

In China over the past week, Premier Li came out and said that coal supply is crucial to people's lives. He made these remarks while urging coal power stations to go full throttle. They need them to fire up in China because they are running out of power, their lights are going off and electricity has been cut in many regions. At the same time, Premier Li also said that, given these energy security concerns, China would review its emissions targets. They would review when they are going to commit to emissions peaking. At the moment, China actually doesn't have to do anything. Their promise under the climate change agreements is to keep emitting until 2030, and then, they say, they're going to reduce emissions—they're going to do it in 10 years time! Now they're saying that they might not even do that. This whole climate cabal is falling apart before our eyes. Premier Li said that energy security would be China's priority.

In India, the government has mandated that 10 per cent of all coal used in power stations must be imported. Typically, India doesn't import that much coal or tries not to. It wants more imported coal to shore up their energy security. Thank God an Indian company was allowed to build a coal mine in North Queensland at the Carmichael mine site. That was pretty lucky for our country, because coal's in high demand and it's going to make a lot of money when those first trains go through Carmichael and out from Abbott Point later this year.

We hear a lot about the US—it's apparently the reason we've got to sign up to net zero. Apparently President Joe Biden has demanded that we do this. Well, in the US, President Biden has actually asked OPEC to increase oil production. He's asked OPEC—Middle Eastern countries—to increase oil production. His administration itself has put more restrictions on oil production and fracking in the US. The woke Wall Street bankers won't finance the fracking anymore through Texas and Oklahoma and other places, but they need the Middle Eastern countries to drill-baby-drill. Once again the Western world has been put at the behest of Middle Eastern oil sheikhs. It's an absolute disaster.

While the US wants us to commit to net zero and change our policy settings—apparently demanding it, we're told—they can't even pass legislation to implement their own climate commitments. It looks very likely that the US will go to Glasgow empty handed. That is despite the US Congress currently being Democrat controlled—the party of the President. The President has a clean electricity plan that he's trying to get through the Congress, but Senator Manchin from West Virginia is holding this up because, in relation to coal mines, he said: 'We want to make sure we have reliable power. They are not going to close.' That's what the people in the US want. That's probably what is going to happen in the US. So they can lecture us all they like, but there will be almost certainly no action there.

Let's go over to the UK because that is the most instructive country in this example. In fairness to the UK, they have acted; they have actually done stuff. They've closed coal-fired power stations, they're shutting down their North Sea oilfields and they've banned fracking across the whole country. They have reduced emissions more than any other developed country in the world—a gold star to the United Kingdom! How is it working out for them? Well we've all seen over the past couple of months that, if you're a resident in the UK, you've got to line up for petrol. It's back to the 1970s for the United Kingdom. They're lining up for petrol. Factories have closed all around the UK. Power companies have gone out of business because of surging energy prices and locked in retail prices. In the ultimate comical irony, they are running out of food because they are short of carbon dioxide. You need natural gas to make carbon dioxide and you need carbon dioxide to refrigerate food and transport it from the country to the city. They don't have enough carbon dioxide because Vladimir Putin is not sending them enough gas. They are running out of food. The UK government has had to bail out a major producer of carbon dioxide in the UK, CF Fertilisers. So taxes will go up more to subsidise something that used to be done without government subsidies.

At least the UK are being been upfront about this. As I say, you can see the cost to their economy. Last night, the UK government released modelling of how much it would cost. They didn't actually outline the costs, but they did release modelling on the impact of pursuing a net-zero agenda. I give them credit for that. That modelling showed that, to reach net-zero emissions, you would need a carbon price of A$295 a tonne. That is outrageous. That will put a wrecking ball through any economy. If you put $300 a tonne on people's power bills, on people's petrol costs and on farmers' methane emissions and shut down our cattle industry, that is going to be an economic disaster.

They also revealed that there would be a fiscal shortfall thanks to net zero as well because taxes on a variety of things would fall. That would leave them 1.5 per cent of GDP short. If that was in Australia, you would have a $1,000-a-year impact on Australia wages. It would mean we would have to put up taxes just to offset the fiscal impact, let alone the power bills and petrol costs. Just the fiscal impact would be an extra $1,000 a year. That is the disaster that net-zero emissions are spreading through the world in any country that is trying to do it.

What you won't hear in the mainstream press is that just nine countries in the world have legislated net-zero emissions. The US can't get legislation through. Those include countries in Europe that are living through a disaster right now. Canada has legislated net-zero emissions but—guess what?—emissions this century in Canada have gone up. They had a reduction due to COVID last year, but until 2019 Canada's emissions had gone up under the Trudeau administration. You wouldn't realise that if you just listened to our mainstream press. In New Zealand, they have also legislated the net-zero emissions target. They have exempted their agriculture industry, which accounts for half of their emissions. What a joke! The rest of the world is not doing this thing. They are walking away from it.

We are lagging behind the world. The rest of the world is building coal-fired power stations. We are not doing anything. We need to build these modern, clean, coal-fired power stations, just like the rest of the world is. Four countries that have signed up to net zero are building, combined, 129 coal-fired power stations. China is committed to net zero, apparently. We are told they are committed. And, of course, I believe the Chinese Communist Party; they never lie! They are building 95 coal-fired power stations right now. Indonesia have also apparently signed up to net-zero emissions. Between us and them, we are the first and second biggest coal exporters. They sometimes get the top prize. They have committed to net-zero emissions, apparently. They are building 23 coal-fired power stations. Japan is building seven coal-fired power stations even though we are told, 'They're not going to buy our coal anymore.' They are building coal-fired power stations now. Korea is building four. Demand for Australian coal has never been stronger, and it is going to keep growing for years to come. We as a nation should take that opportunity. We should be building more mines so that we can meet this demand and bring more people out of poverty.

The biggest environmental issue in the world is not carbon emissions. It is air pollution in our region. It kills four million people a year. What we should do to help avoid those deaths is provide reliable electricity that does not create the smog and ash that causes these deaths. Our coal industry does that because it helps electrify countries and remove them from the use of organic matter that causes these deaths. To fix the environment we should be building more Australian coalmines today.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, clearly we have in Senator Canavan a man who has the courage of his convictions—so much so that he's prepared to hold the whole government hostage in his race to get what he wants in his unscientific version of what is in the national interest. But there is no doubt that we are in a very real race across the globe to act to the benefit of both our environment and the economy. Leaving it—as some would argue and as this government wants to do, it seems—to 2049 to decide how you're going to get there means funeral bells for both our environment and our economy. 'Let's do this with technology,' they say. They haven't given any kind of indication of the framework under which industries will need to lower emissions in order for us to reach any such goal. Happily, federal Labor is well underway in planning a more ambitious medium-term emissions reduction target than the coalition, as well as committing to net-zero emissions by 2050. We know that a net-zero target by 2050 is not nearly sufficient. Targets have to be backed by policies and mechanisms that deliver the promised abatement that we need to get to that point.

We know, as we move towards renewable energy and move to lower the carbon intensity of our economy, that good climate policy is also good jobs policy. It's all very well for Senator Canavan to bemoan, from his point of view, the lack of stability and the level of income that might be attached to such jobs. The simple fact is that this is a government that undermines the industrial relations system and people's ability to get good wages in new industries. It's only the established industries with long histories of unionism where we have such well-protected working conditions. So the real challenge here is to enable our economy and those jobs to transition so that we have those productive and well-paid jobs of the future. We also know that regional and rural areas are the centre of the new jobs in a new climate future and a new energy future.

We don't need to be told by the Australian Greens about the urgency of this problem and the need to act now, but I don't mind backing the Greens up in their message to the government, which is that we need to get on with our transition. We don't need to be told that Australia's climate policy doesn't matter because we only represent a small share of global emissions. We know that we are one of the highest per capita emitters in the world, and I think my own home state of Western Australia is perhaps the highest. We know the livelihoods that are damaged by climate change, including in farming communities, as weather patterns change, as bushfires rage through and as extreme weather events take their toll on agricultural production, tourism, infrastructure and so much more—livelihoods in the regions.

Australia should be in a position where we're able to persuade others on the world stage to take stronger action on climate change. To be credible, we must have our own house in order. The decarbonisation of the global economy is indeed the greatest economic transformation since the Industrial Revolution. We've heard in recent weeks from the Business Council, the ACTU, the Conservation Foundation and the WWF, who have asserted that there are 395,000 clean-energy jobs that could be created by 2040. In fact, the likes of the ACTU, the ACF, the WWF and business have been banging on about this for a decade or so now. The proof is in the pudding. There are already real jobs in these sectors, but we have a government that's holding us back.

Every minute, every day, every year and every term of this government has cost us jobs, brought forth more emissions and held us back. We know that the environmental and economic transformation of the energy systems in our nation will take time. The longer we leave it, the less of an advantage we have and the harder it will be. We need to take responsibility and invest in the opportunities we have right before us before we have trade sanctions against us, before people don't want to take our exports because of our nation's emissions profile. There are so many scenarios that this government refuses to recognise, some of which are already in play.

As someone from Western Australia, I know what an energy intensive and successful economy looks like. It's an economy that this country currently depends on to get through COVID, but in WA we know we have to adapt. We have a bright future ahead in renewables, but will we be able to build those markets as a nation with the kind of leadership we are seeing here now? Perhaps we'll be subject to trade sanctions. Perhaps the world won't be able to accept our gas or our clean energy and hydrogen, because we'll be a pariah on the world stage for our lack of action. We can't stick our heads in the sand the way the National Party wants us to do. The rest of the world might not always want our gas and our coal, despite what Senator Canavan says. This is bad news for both the economy and the environment. I truly wish we had a better head start in adjusting our economy even now. We've already seen right here in Australia that green energy is cheaper than fossil fuels.

It doesn't help coalmining communities to put Australia behind in the race towards climate action. It will simply make their situation worse. We know there are well-paid jobs for our communities, but we can't deliver them if we keep doing what we are doing, if we don't change, if we keep producing coal and fossil fuels until we can't, because we're forced to stop, without a plan to transition. We already have people expressing concern about simple things, important things like accumulated leave entitlements. What happens to them if the coal or gas company they work for becomes a stranded asset? What happens if we have houses that aren't worth anything because there's no job in that community? This is the kind of future that the likes of Senator Canavan would have us look towards. But we know we can do better than this. Australian communities know that a clean energy and a renewable future is inevitable. The sooner we act, the more we reduce the cost of action—acting sooner, rather than later.

I'm not against using technology to help our economy transition, but we have to have a real framework to get us there. This government haven't given us any. They've been there for eight years, and we still do not have a plan for climate action. Even now, at the eleventh hour, when Prime Minister Morrison is finally able to say, 'Yes, I'll go to Glasgow and to the international meetings,' we're yet to see whether the National Party will continue to hold the government, our nation and our whole economy to ransom. It has been eight years, and we still don't have a plan. But is it any wonder why, when we look at the nature of the debate we've had in the chamber today and listen to the likes of Senator Canavan decry a carbon restraint future? (Time expired)

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution on today's matter of urgency. This week the Prime Minister has made it clear that the coalition won't take 2030 targets to Glasgow, so don't be fooled by the coalition's sudden interest in those 2050 net zero targets. It's all smoke and mirrors. Net zero by 2050 is too late and, worst of all, it's based on expanding coal and gas. Just this month in my home state of Western Australia—and also don't be fooled by the two Labor senators who have left the chamber who have already spoken about the 'wonderful' Labor government in my home state—an exemption was granted to a Texan company called Black Mountain to drill for gas in the Kimberley. This is despite the government having announced an onshore gas export ban in August 2020. What's the point in having a ban on gas exports if the government can just go ahead and overturn it and approve them anyway? It's estimated that fracking in the Canning Basin alone could release 13.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent gases into the atmosphere. Australia's emissions budget is compatible with the Paris Agreement, which is only 5.5 billion tonnes of CO2e, which is three times that, just for the maths.

At a time when we should be dramatically reducing emissions, it's unbelievable that the McGowan government is giving the green light to new gas developments in Western Australia. The community don't want fracking in the Kimberley. The traditional owners are sending me messages saying, 'We do not want fracking in the Kimberley.' No-one in this community has invited gas companies into their region. Fracking poses a risk to the health of the waterways, our land, our country. The damage it will cause the Kimberley will be absolutely horrific. And to what end? So we can wreck the planet and line the pockets of billionaires? As we move closer to the point of no return on climate change, we need urgent action and leadership from all Australian governments and all sides of politics. Although people in this chamber will argue, the science is clear: a safer climate means no coal and gas, and they must go. We need formally legislated 2030 targets of 75 per cent, and we need a plan to phase out coal and gas, starting today.

Action on climate change won't hurt our economy, contrary to what others have said. In the UK, emissions have plummeted by 40 per cent since 1990, while their economy has doubled in size. The UK have a population three times the size of Australia's, and yet they make only two-thirds of the emissions that we do. A clean energy revolution will create hundreds of thousands of well-paid, long-term jobs, enabling workers in fossil fuel industries to transition. To unlock this revolution, the government must lead the way with a public investment in renewable generation, storage and transforming the power grid. WA has the opportunity to be a powerhouse for renewable energy. Now is the time to start planning for a just transition, in partnership with communities, so we can harness this opportunity. Even the Nationals leader in Western Australia, Mia Davies, has talked, only nine days ago, about committing to those targets. We have Victoria and the National Farmers Federation talking about these targets and committing to those targets, alongside the Minerals Council of Australia.

Last week thousands of young people across the nation participated in the School Strike 4 Climate. I joined hundreds of those young people at the front of Parliament House in Perth, talking about and taking part in that collective action. Using their voice to demand change, young people are the next generation of decision-makers and leaders, and they are our inspiration and our hope. So let's work together to kick out the Liberals at the next election, alongside the Nationals. With the Greens in shared power, we'll be able to push the next government further and faster on climate action.

Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this matter of urgency today, because we would not be here, with a cooking planet and rising seas, if you fellas cared for country the way we have always done. You fellas brought this mess here, right! We looked after these lands for thousands and thousands of generations. And then what happens? The boats roll in and it's, 'Let's dig up as much as we can and destroy as much as we can and make as much money as we can, because money's going to save our lives, at the end of the day, and it's going to give us oxygen'—right?

These big problems that have been caused by burning dirty, dirty fossil fuels need big solutions—solutions that our people, the true experts, First Nations people, the oldest continuing living culture in the world—right here. Right here, right now you've got two of us. We've been here forever. We know how to look after the land. We didn't dig the coal. We didn't frack the gas. In blackfella way, you don't do that. You don't pull the heart out of your mother's chest. You don't pull the eyes out of your kid's head. Yes, it's horrible to think of that, but that's what is going on in our mother land, in our Mother Earth. There are resources being extracted that are equivalent to pulling your mother's heart out of her chest, or your kid's eyes out of their head. The mother is alive—our mother is alive—and every time you dig for coal or dig for gas, that is exactly what you're doing. Our mother is, to us, alive as a person.

Our law and our moral legal kinship and ethical obligations to country are older than your Magna Carta. To solve the climate crisis, we need to give country back its personhood. And this week I promise the Green's solution to care for country, which is to give personhood status to the environment. That's one way of solving the climate crisis. Environmental personhood is about giving the environment, or parts of the environment—like our rivers, lakes, forests and oceans—the rights, protections, privileges and responsibilities that actual people have.

For our people, we are no different to the environment. We don't see ourselves as different from the lakes and the rivers, the animals and the sky. We are them, and they are us. This is why giving the environment personhood is a solution that we must urgently adopt. This is not a new idea, despite some legal professors trying to pass the idea off as their own—as they do; this is how we've always done it for thousands of generations. And if corporations—the word literally means 'to have a body'—which actually only exist on paper, can have personhood, why can't our environment?

Of course, granting personhood to nature is a moment that isn't being led by academics or lawyers. Who's it being led by? It's being led by indigenous people all around the world. In 2014 Te Urewera, a beautiful forested area in the North Island, in Aotearoa, was given legal personhood. It owns land in its own right. It is also a special place for our Maori family, and I honour and salute them in the right to protect their country. The Whanganui River in Aotearoa was declared a legal person in 2017. The river is recognised as an individual, living whole from the mountains to the sea, incorporating the physical, spiritual and metaphysical environment. We need to do it, and we need to do it now. (Time expired.)

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the motion moved by Senator Hanson-Young be agreed to.