Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We'll now move to urgency motions. I'm going to deal with the urgency motion put forward by Senator David Pocock, who has submitted a proposal under standing order 75:

Pursuant to Standing Order 75, I propose to move "That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

That the Safeguard Mechanism reform must be effective in bringing Australia into line with holding global warming to 1.5°C. The design must be based on an emissions reduction hierarchy that delivers genuine emissions reductions while also ensuring a future for essential industries."

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required b y 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 ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly, and I call Senator Pocock.

David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

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

That the Safeguard Mechanism reform must be effective in bringing Australia into line with holding global warming to 1.5°C. The design must be based on an emissions reduction hierarchy that delivers genuine emissions reductions while also ensuring a future for essential industries.

Australians elected the 47th Parliament with a mandate for real and ambitious climate action. The government may have their mandate of 43 per cent, but there are many MPs and senators with a mandate for action more in line with the science. Scientists have spent decades telling us that we need to act now to hold global warming to 1.5 degrees if we are to avoid the worst impacts of climate change—effects that we are already seeing and that communities across the country are experiencing. The costs are mounting. We're seeing natural disaster after natural disaster, but we're not seeing the kind of action from politicians that we need.

The safeguard mechanism presents an opportunity for us to show the children who come through here and watch Senate proceedings, children across the country and children who have taken the government to court to say: 'You have a duty of care to look after us.' And we've seen the Australian government challenge that, and say, 'We don't have a duty of care to young people and to future generations.' We have an opportunity, with the safeguard mechanism, to begin to bring our climate action in line with the science. The safeguard mechanism has to work. It has to actually reduce emissions, and this means ensuring that emissions reductions are real and not just on paper.

Under the proposed reform, Australia will join Kazakhstan as one of only two countries in the world that allow unfettered access to offsets, and it's obviously no good. There is a huge amount of evidence and agreement on the need for an emissions reduction hierarchy. Companies must first avoid and then reduce their own emissions. Offsets can only be used as a last resort. To quote the former Chief Scientist Professor Ian Chubb:

Offsets can't be a device which big emitters use not to change their behaviour, not to do something about reducing emissions.

I have no doubt that coalition senators will stand up and speak about how the safeguard mechanism will put industries at risk and push up prices. What they're missing is the opportunity for industry in a low-carbon economy. What they are missing is the moral obligation to act on the biggest challenge humans have ever faced.

We're blessed with an incredible wealth of resources in this country. We hear a lot about resources, and resources will be a big part of our future, but not fossil fuel resources. We need to focus on the resources of the future and stop allowing politicians to conflate the two and present people who want a livable future and a transition away from fossil fuels as people who are against resources. Our major trading partners are decarbonising and starting to give preferential treatment to low-carbon imports. That is a massive opportunity for Australia, with our incredible mineral wealth.

From the government, we will likely hear that finally something is being done and put in place for real climate policy. But we don't have time for incremental changes. We can't just say we're heading in the right direction. The fires and floods of the last few years should be a wake-up call for all of us. We owe it to those communities. We owe it to Australians. We owe it to Australians who haven't been born yet to deal with this now, and we have an opportunity with this legislation. We will likely hear that a hierarchy of mitigation is assumed in the legislation, but there is nothing explicit to ensure that we are avoiding emissions, reducing emissions and then, as a last resort, using the land sector to offset.

So I commend this to the Senate. This is a really important policy, but we have to get it right and we have to ensure that it reduces emissions in this country.

Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Pocock for the opportunity to speak on his urgency motion relating to the safeguard mechanism reform, which of course is a live issue in this parliament and something that there's been much deliberation upon. I note that, in the matter of urgency that Senator Pocock put before the chamber, he references global warming and keeping it to 1.5 degrees and goes on to talk about the design needing to be based on an emissions reduction hierarchy—which we've just heard him speak about—that delivers genuine emissions reductions while also ensuring a future for essential industries. I think it's important to focus on a couple of points in that as I provide a response from the coalition on this issue.

The issue of climate change is, as this motion points out, a global one. It's one where there is a global responsibility. So it is right for us to do what we can here in this country. I think it is imperative that a country that can should show responsibility and do what it can to minimise its impact on the environment, including when it comes to carbon emissions. But the problem with the matter we're dealing with, when it comes to the safeguard mechanism that is the subject of consideration here, is that there is a difference of opinion in this place about exactly how best, under what is being proposed, we can achieve what we seek to achieve: minimising human impact on the environment and, in this case, minimising carbon emissions, without having an undue and damaging impact on the economy. It's something I've talked about a couple of times here.

For what it's worth, the coalition's view is that the proposal that is referenced in broad terms in the motion is one whose environmental impact we haven't seen properly assessed. We actually don't know what impact it will have on emissions reduction. There are some projections. We've just dealt with a motion around some of the modelling that the government refuses to reveal to us. We don't know what the impact will be—what reliance on carbon credits. Similarly, we don't know what impact such a proposition will have on the economy. It is something we've flagged as needing more serious consideration and more thought put into it.

The second part of Senator Pocock's matter of urgency, particularly at the tail end—'delivering genuine emissions reductions while also ensuring a future for essential industries'—is I think absolutely important. Part of the concern the coalition has around what is currently before us is the idea that we will see industries that cannot meet emission reductions mandated under this legislation and under matching regulation and that cannot access carbon credits, either through the safeguard mechanism credits or through ACCUs, faced with this increased cost of doing business in this country. The end result, despite promises that there will be a scheme to protect these trade exposed industries, like cement manufacturing and aluminium production, will be protected through a formula. We're not convinced that that is the case. The proposal doesn't ensure a future for essential industries, and that is as important as making sure we get right what we need to when it comes to reducing emissions. If you don't get both of those things right, then we're failing on both counts, and no-one is better off.

Indeed, when you don't protect these trade exposed industries and try to bring them on the journey with you—try to work with them to invest in innovation and technology, to work with academic and educational institutions to provide better technology to minimise the impact on the environment—then those businesses, because of this penalty of $275 per tonne of carbon above the baseline, will either reduce production here, in the best case, or simply shut up shop and go offshore. Then those emissions, which we could otherwise be working with them on to minimise, will be generated offshore, somewhere else.

To go back to that original point: it's a global responsibility; it's a global problem. We can't simply offshore our problems and make someone else try to deal with them, because we will still have the issues Senator Pocock talked about before. That's why it is right to expect the information needed to understand the government's proposal and to ensure that we're getting it right in what we're putting in place to reduce emissions but also to minimise the impact on the environment for our future generations.

Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Pocock, for bringing forward this afternoon's urgency debate. Action on safeguards is urgent. That is something we can both agree on. It is exactly why the government has legislation before the parliament right now that alters the safeguard mechanism so that facilities covered by the mechanism must reduce their direct emissions in the future. We can also agree, I think, that reforms to the safeguard mechanism must ensure that Australia's biggest emitters do their fair share when it comes to emissions reduction. On that basis, we're happy to support the motion and have this conversation here in the Senate. But we think it is important to be clear about the safeguard mechanism reforms that we propose and what we are doing, because we don't agree with the whole of the senator's contention in the motion.

Our government is unapologetically focused on transforming Australia's domestic economy to a low-carbon economy. It is the most important thing we can do to support the ambitious international action that is necessary to contain global warming to 1½ degrees. It's why one of our first acts in government was to legislate an ambitious but achievable emissions reduction target of 43 per cent by 2030—a floor, not a ceiling—and our safeguard reforms have been carefully designed to support that and to support Australia's biggest emitters to remain competitive in a decarbonising global economy whilst reducing their emissions. A fit-for-purpose safeguard mechanism does provide the policy certainty for businesses to invest in decarbonisation and seize the opportunities from global energy transformation.

The mechanism we propose will progressively lower baselines, consistent with our legislated target. We estimate it will deliver 205 million tonnes of abatement by 2030. With respect to Senator Pocock, this is not trivial and this is not, as characterised, incremental. These reforms are significant, and they are designed so that all facilities, whether they are existing or new, reduce their emissions. The proposal creates strong incentives for facilities to reduce those emissions onsite and for the industrial sector to decarbonise. Of course, for facilities who may reduce emissions below their baseline, they will have the opportunity to create and sell safeguard mechanism credits. It is part of arrangements for flexibility that secure both our economic capacity and our emissions reduction. We want to ensure not only that these facilities meet their obligations but also that they can grow.

We know that many safeguard facilities are in hard-to-abate sectors, like cement and steel, where technologies have not yet been demonstrated or aren't yet commercially available. The access to flexible options is incredibly important for these sectors. ACCUs are part of this. The land sector is part of this. An ACCU represents a tonne of emissions avoided or sequestered. We are strengthening confidence in that scheme to ensure the continued integrity of that abatement. We've done that through the Chubb recommendations, which found that the scheme is sound. Of course, Professor Chubb made recommendations for reform, and we're committed to implementing those. But let's be real about this. These ACCUs contribute to our legislated targets, and they are not a free pass. Facilities that choose to use ACCUs will have to buy them on the open market, and many businesses will choose to permanently reduce emissions in their own facilities onsite.

Of course, as indicated just now and in recent weeks, those opposite have made themselves irrelevant to this process by opposing a policy that they themselves proposed to implement when they were last in government. The former government had grand plans for safeguard crediting. In fact, it was their policy right up to election day, included in their election document 'Our Plan for Resources'. Yet here we are, with coalition senators repeating the same old lines. After a decade of delay, denial and dysfunction, all that there is on offer is half-baked scare campaigns that are made up from the same old talking points.

But, for the first time in a decade, we have a parliament comprising members and senators who are willing to deliver what the Australian people have been crying out for for a decade: action on climate. They called for action loudly at the election, and now they have a government that is willing to deliver. But we cannot do this on our own. We require a majority in this place, and, when the legislation comes before senators, it will be a choice of real significance. We can seize or squander the only chance before us to get emissions down from our largest industrial emitters. I thank senators for their constructive engagement with Minister Bowen and with the government, and I look forward to the debate proper when it commences in this place.

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To have any chance of getting the climate crisis under control and meeting even this government's weak emissions target, there can be no new coal and gas projects—not one. The inquiry into Labor's safeguard mechanism heard from expert scientists and economists. The conclusion was clear: under the safeguard mechanism, as it is currently proposed, actual pollution from coal and gas goes up. We're not talking about incremental progress that the Greens just don't think goes far enough; we are talking about a flawed scheme that will actually make the climate crisis worse. Surely, the measure of a good climate policy is whether it makes pollution go down. On that measure alone, the safeguard mechanism fails to deliver.

Throughout the inquiry, the government was asked repeatedly to show evidence that the safeguard mechanism would bring down pollution from coal and gas. They made no such commitment. The department offered no evidence. Their own projections confirm that emissions from gas will increase. The emissions from the first five years of the Scarborough gas project alone will wipe out the entire claimed benefit of the safeguard mechanism. It is difficult to have any confidence that the scheme will do anything to curb business-as-usual behaviour from coal and gas companies. It's no wonder that it has the support of Woodside, of Shell, of Rio Tinto and of Origin.

The safeguard mechanism targets only scope 1 emissions, and only 4.9 per cent of coal and gas entities covered by the scheme will face a price signal. Any cost impacts imposed on this fraction of a fraction of overall emissions can be completely offset, with facilities able to buy their way out of the scheme at a very low price for a very long time. Already contracted ACCUs—Australian carbon credit units—account for nearly 70 per cent of the total abatement goal. So, not only can coal and gas pollution continue to rise as long as enough offsets are bought but also more than two-thirds of the modest ambitions of this scheme will have been achieved without a single dollar of new investment. Lax exit arrangement for government contracts will see 84 million land based offsets from the Mr Angus Taylor era flooding the private market, to be scooped up by coal and gas companies that are planning new projects. This could push out exposed industries that actually need assistance to abate their emissions.

The Greens want genuine Australian industry and manufacturing to thrive. Aluminium, steel, bricks, fertilisers, glass and cement all have a future in the clean economy, but coal and gas don't. We should be supporting genuine Australian industry to transition, not asking them to make room in a finite carbon budget for more coal and gas. We must limit the use of offsets and ensure that offsets have integrity. The scheme allows entities to keep going on, as long as they buy enough dodgy offsets. It's a clever accounting trick, but it won't fool the planet.

The Greens have made an offer to support the safeguard bill if the government commits to no new coal and gas. But we've also said that we're open to other ways of achieving that end, including through a climate trigger. This nation has squandered the last critical decade for climate action under a climate-denying government. We need this government to design a scheme that makes pollution from coal and gas go down, not up.

Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government will be supporting this urgency motion today. However, we do not support all of the substance of Senator Pocock's motion. Let me be clear. The Albanese government does agree that action on safeguards is urgent. We agree with Senator Pocock on that point. That urgency is exactly why the government has legislation before the parliament right now that will alter the safeguard mechanism to ensure that Australia's biggest emitters do their fair share when it comes to emissions reduction.

I was with the energy minister, Chris Bowen, in Gladstone at the start of the year when he announced this policy and set out the details of the consultation process that we will go through. We have proposed a fit-for-purpose safeguard mechanism that will provide policy certainty for businesses and the regional communities they support and will deliver genuine emission reductions. The safeguard legislation will be a test for senators in this place. For the first time in a decade we have a parliament of senators and members who are willing to deliver what the Australian people have been crying out for: real action on climate. At the last election, Australians voted for an end to the division, the climate wars that have plagued government policy for a decade. Now they have an Albanese government that is ready to deliver and wants to deliver. We're getting on with the job and taking action on climate, just as Australians expect us to do.

But we cannot do that on our own. We require majority support in this Senate. So I ask Senator Pocock and other senators: what will you do when the safeguard legislation comes before the Senate? There is going to be a clear choice that will need to be made. Senator Pocock can join with the government and take decisive action to get emissions down, to take 205 million tonnes of emissions out of the system to 2030—the equivalent of taking two-thirds of Australian cars off the road. Or it can choose to join the obstructors. And let's be clear. They have been obstructing action on climate change in this chamber for decades, both in government and in opposition. That is their record. He can sit alongside the climate wreckers and climate deniers on the opposition benches and block action on climate. That is the choice senators will be facing. We know what happened when the Greens faced that same choice in 2009 and 2010. Instead of voting for the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, they sat with the Liberals and Nationals of Tony Abbott and blocked climate action. The reality is that their choice derailed climate action for a decade. I say to Senator Pocock and other senators thinking of standing in the way of safeguards: do not let history repeat.

There are good-faith discussions happening between the government, the Greens and other senators, including Senator Pocock. I thank these senators for their engagement, which stands in stark contrast to those opposite, who, under the Leader of the Opposition, are determined to oppose everything and take no responsibility for cleaning up the mess that they created. The Albanese government will continue to work constructively with those who are willing to be constructive and important partners on this task as we look to reduce emissions. But this is an opportunity too important and too urgent to miss. That's why we agree that this is a matter of urgency today, and we will be acting on this issue as a matter of urgency in coming weeks. But if Senator Pocock really believes this is a matter of urgency and wants to keep faith with the people of the Australian Capital Territory, who have been national leaders when it comes to climate action, he will back our legislation when it comes to the Senate later this month.

As I mentioned, I was with Minister Bowen in Gladstone when he announced our proposals around the safeguard mechanism. The important point about that is that we want to work with industry to ensure that they can lower their emissions, because a lot of these industries are very important not only to our national supply chains but to the task that we face in rebuilding manufacturing in this country. Unlike the Greens, who operate in a silo on these issues, we know how important it is to work constructively with industry, who want to bring down their emissions, and we want to provide the government leadership to enable that to happen. That's what we want to do through the safeguard mechanisms. That's what Minister Bowen announced when we were in Gladstone in January. That's what the government intends on delivering on over the coming weeks in this chamber.

I call on all senators to engage in constructive discussion to ensure that we can pass this safeguard mechanism, because it is of vital importance for Australia's future. It also of vital importance for Australia's industries that they can continue to operate and deliver the employment that so many regional families rely on. That's what we want to deliver.

Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The northern jarrah forests of my home state of Western Australia are some of the most beautiful, diverse and vulnerable forests on planet Earth. The preservation of these forests and their continued contribution to action on climate change is paramount. They have indeed been identified as an ecosystem of particular risk due to the increasingly drying climate, which is a reality of climate change. It is places like this that I want to see protected. It is places like this and the contribution that they make to our planet and our community that call on us, among so many other things, to pass climate laws which take on corporations and actually tackle the climate crisis.

Corporations such as Alcoa have gotten away with far too much for far too long. Not only have they been clearing our forests; just last month it was revealed that they have built a pipeline carrying toxic waste across Western Australia, right over the top of a key water supply dam. Toxic waste is flying over the top of a drinking water reserve! This toxic waste contains forever chemicals, known to cause serious adverse health issues, including cancer and impacts on reproductive health.

This wasn't an unforeseen accident. This wasn't an unfortunate whoopsie. Alcoa made an application to build this pipeline. The application was under assessment, and Alcoa went ahead and built the thing anyway. You'd rightfully assume that such wilful disregard for human health and the law would result in harsh penalties. Significant fines and criminal charges strike me as appropriate. So what happened? Alcoa was forced to purge the pipeline and—nothing. That's it. That's all they were required to do.

This is, again, not something that went unforeseen. Alcoa knew that this was exactly how it would play out, just as Rio Tinto knew when they misplaced a radioactive capsule somewhere in the Pilbara, and the worst they faced was a $1,000 fine. In WA, mining companies know that it is better for business to ask forgiveness rather than permission. These corporations must be held to account, via climate laws, for their impact on the climate crisis.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Steele-John. Senator Whish-Wilson.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was good to hear Labor senators today acknowledge that millions of Australians—after more than a decade of climate inaction in this place—voted to get climate action in this parliament. Isn't it ironic that the first piece of legislation we have before us in this parliament is an ex-Tony Abbott piece of legislation? Soon we are going to debate whether you can polish a turd. But let me tell you, right here and now, the only thing this legislation will safeguard is the profits of big polluting companies.

The only thing this legislation will safeguard is the cosy relationship between the Labor political party and the Liberal political party and their big fossil fuel donors. It won't safeguard the children who are here in the chamber today, watching this debate, and their futures. It won't safeguard our climate or our environment or our communities that are suffering, that have been in parliament this week urging us not to pass this safeguard mechanism as it is. You can't fix a problem by making it worse.

We are not going to let this opportunity pass for the 1.8 million Australians who voted for the Greens, to give us the balance of power in this place, to make sure we get climate action in this parliament, because it has been too long. Some of us have been in this chamber day in, day out for over a decade, trying to get climate action. I thank Senator David Pocock for bringing this debate here today.

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What happened in 2009?

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We will not be locking in failure, Senator Ayres. I'm happy to take your objection. I don't know why you keep writing Julia Gillard out of the history books, because she was able to come in here and, with the Greens, negotiate what was the gold standard around the world for climate action. We were very proud of that. I'm not sure why you and the Labor political party keep writing her out of the history books, going back to 2009. The world's changed since 2009. In case you haven't noticed, the physical world is changing! The Barrier Reef is bleaching.

You can laugh at the Barrier Reef bleaching, which you always do, Senator Canavan. I hope the cameras, once again, come in close on your smiling face while we're talking about the death of our natural world—our forests burning, the loss of biodiversity, the shifts we're seeing in nature. You might think that's funny but we're in here to get climate action. That's what Australians put us in this place for, and we will not let them down.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the urgency motion standing in the name of Senator David Pocock be agreed to.