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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Emergency Management (Senator McAllister) to a question without notice asked by the Leader of the Australian Greens in the Senate (Senator Waters) today relating to emissions reduction targets.

Senator Waters reminded the Senate today that, just yesterday, the Australian Institute of Marine Science have released some preliminary results from their survey of the Great Barrier Reef and the summer that we've just had. I remind the Senate what Senator Waters said: so far, some of the northern reefs that have been surveyed have shown the worst recorded loss of corals in the 39 years that the survey has been underway.

This is in the northern section of the reef. I visited the southern section of the reef in April myself. I went to Heron Island Research Station. The devastation there was something to behold. I tell you, senators, it was very troubling to see the greatest natural wonder of the earth devastated by another marine heatwave caused by the burning of fossil fuels. The science tells us—not that we haven't seen enough of these marine heatwaves in recent decades—we will get them every year. And, on a two-degrees-warming scenario, we will see a loss of 99 per cent of the world's coral reefs, which is well underway.

You wonder why this is happening, and you come into this place and hear the Liberal Party talk about nuclear energy—a deliberate distraction. I can't work out whether it was cooked up by Mr Peter Dutton and his compadres in here or by the IPA or the CIS—the Centre for Independent Studies—or one of the other networks around the world who are doing everything they can to undermine action on climate change and the rollout of renewable energies. That is why the Great Barrier Reef is dying on our watch, because we are failing to act in this place.

I'll tell you what: the gist of Senator Waters's question is an absolutely critical one for us going into a federal election. In this place we have passed two pieces of legislation on climate. We set a target—completely inadequate—of 43 per cent emissions reduction by 2030, and then we passed the safeguard mechanism. The Greens passed this legislation because we understood that this was the beginning of climate action after 10 years of nothing from the Liberal and National parties except undermining climate action. We passed this legislation with the expectation that the government would significantly increase their ambition on emissions reduction, and it is high time for the Labor Party to tell the Australian people and to tell senators in this place what their new emissions reduction targets are, if any at all. The last I heard, Mr Chris Bowen said he'd wait to see what other countries do. So much for leadership on climate action!

We've seen the Queensland Labor government implement a target of 75 per cent emissions reduction by 2035. Why can't federal Labor do that? What is holding the Labor Party back? I wonder what is holding the Labor Party back! No doubt it is their donors in the fossil fuel industry. It is the fact that they are totally captured by coal producers, big gas producers and oil and gas explorers. It's the same situation across both major parties in this country.

That is why, sadly, we have another recorded mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. I am not politicising this. I have seen it with my own eyes, and it was absolutely devastating to see. I know what's happening off my coast in Tasmania, with the loss of giant kelp forests because of warming oceans and the march of invasive species. We can take adaptation measures to try and live with this new reality, but we must keep focusing on reducing emissions.

The Labor Party needs to come clean. Will you promise the Australian people that, if you are elected to be the next government, you will set new climate targets for 2035? So far, all we've heard from the minister today is that he has requested that from the Climate Change Authority. But we have no idea whether this is going to be an election promise from the government. It has to be. I won't be part of a party that helps in any way prop up a government that doesn't take climate change seriously. There is no way in the world that the Australian people will accept that either. It is time to put up what your ambition is for climate action so that the Australian people have a clear choice when they vote. They will be voting for climate action.

Question agreed to.