Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It comes as no surprise that the government brings a bill to this parliament that says it is about protecting the Great Barrier Reef but doesn't mention global warming or climate change once. Under this government's watch, pollution keeps going up and up, climate change keeps getting worse, and they chuck around lumps of coal in parliament and pretend the problem doesn't even exist. What's also distressing is that throughout this whole debate on the Great Barrier Reef so far we haven't heard a word from either the government or the opposition about something that is going to turbocharge global warming and affect the Great Barrier Reef, and that is the Adani Carmichael coalmine that's proposed in Queensland. We know, because we've been put on notice now for a very long time, that global warming threatens our way of life in Australia, because we now face going to every Christmas holidays wondering where the next bushfire's going to hit, how bad the droughts and heatwaves will be and whether, when the next cyclone hits, it will be power packed because the hot air above the sea is filled with heat and moisture, which makes these cyclones much more devastating and pack a much bigger punch when they land.

Our way of life is under threat from global warming like never before. But it doesn't just threaten us in this country; it threatens nature and it threatens those parts of Australia, like the Great Barrier Reef, that people thought would be there forever. Two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef has now been devastated by severe coral bleaching. We've had back-to-back summers of bleaching that scientists previously just didn't think was possible. An aerial survey by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies of the reef's 2,300-kilomoetre length showed that 1,500 kilometres of our Great Barrier Reef had been bleached—on our watch.

As the former Chief Scientist has made crystal clear, the biggest threat to the Great Barrier Reef is global warming. And, as the UNESCO centre has made crystal clear, the biggest threat to the Great Barrier Reef is global warming. Ian Chubb, the former Chief Scientist, led an independent expert panel and said we need a complete rethink of how we manage the reef because the reef is undergoing major long-term damage that may be irreversible unless action is taken now and that the planet has changed in a way that is unprecedented in human history. We have not seen this happen to the reef before and, whilst that might be extraordinary, it's the rapidity of this change that should be ringing alarm bells for this parliament. We shouldn't be introducing bills to talk about the Great Barrier Reef and not mention climate change, and we shouldn't, in this parliament, be doing everything that the government and Labor can to facilitate the Adani Carmichael coalmine. We've been told the reef is in trouble, we've been told that global warming is getting worse, we've been told that global warming is the single greatest threat to the Great Barrier Reef and we've been told, by our former Chief Scientist, that we've got to limit global temperature rises to 1.2 degrees if we're to have a chance of saving the reef. So we have to do even more than we've agreed to in Paris if we want to have a chance of saving the reef.

You would think, with us being put on notice about all of those things, that parliament could make some responsible decisions—but, no. Here comes a bill about the Great Barrier Reef that doesn't even mention climate change, and the Liberals, Labor and the Nationals are working hand in glove to light the fuse on a climate bomb that sits in the Galilee Basin in Queensland. What we know is that, if all of the coal that's in the Galilee Basin is dug up and burned, that's the equivalent of what all the European Union countries together put out in a year. We are talking countries' worth of pollution that sits under the ground in the Galilee Basin. We are talking about a coalmine at a time when scientists have told us that, if we're to have a decent chance of stopping dangerous global warming, we need to keep 80 per cent of our fossil fuel reserves in the ground. In other words, we've been put on notice that, to have the best chance of protecting the reef and protecting our way of life, 80 per cent of all existing coal reserves need to stay in the ground. Instead, we're having a competition between Labor and the Liberals to see who can dig it up and burn it the quickest.

In Queensland, where, according to government figures, there are almost 70,000 jobs reliant on a healthy reef, the Queensland Labor government can't move quickly enough to give free water, a free pass for native title laws and other environmental laws and free coal to the multinational company Adani so that they can dig it up and export it. This is Labor doing this. And they're aided and abetted by the Liberal-National Party here in Canberra, because the government here wants to take $1 billion that could be going to schools and hospitals and put it into Mr Adani's pocket, essentially, by building a rail line that, on any reading, a company that wants to make money out of wrecking the planet should have to fund itself. It shouldn't be taking money.

You expect that from the Liberals, but what is galling is Labor's complicity. The message to the Liberal Party is clear but is not getting through, which is that we need to act on climate change. They seemingly don't care. They seemingly don't care, because the climate deniers and the Trumps on the backbench dictate what Prime Minister Turnbull does. We are going to keep fighting the government, but we've almost given up on them because they are, effectively, run by the coal lobby. But Labor now has an opportunity. If the Leader of the Opposition, today, stood up and said that if he wins the next election he will stop the Adani Carmichael coalmine, it would not go ahead because this project is so precarious that it's relying on the old parties bankrolling it and supporting it to go ahead. So there's an opportunity.

Today, I want to give Labor that opportunity to vote for it. We've heard lots of speeches from Labor about the importance of protecting the reef and acting on climate change. The message is simple, Labor: your choice is between Adani and the reef. You can't have both. Choose which one you want. I move, as an amendment to the second reading amendment moved by the member for Watson:

That all words after "notes" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"that global warming is the greatest threat to the Great Barrier Reef and calls on the government to immediately take all available steps to stop the Adani Carmichael coal mine".

Labor could stop the Adani Carmichael coalmine today by voting for this amendment and making a very clear statement that, if it wins the next election. it will not allow the coalmine to proceed.

There is precedent for this. You only have to go back and look at what happened in the Franklin Dam campaign. In the Franklin Dam campaign there was a rogue state government intent on wrecking something that was of crucial importance to Australians. A people's movement was built up around that to stop the damming of the Franklin. That people's movement got a commitment out of the then Labor opposition that, if it won power, it would stop it from going ahead and would override the rogue state government. That people's movement won, the government was changed, the dam was stopped and we are all much better for it.

We can fast-forward now to today and press repeat on that. If the Leader of the Opposition today responds to the growing people's movement that says, 'It is time to leave coal in the ground and switch to solar,' then this coalmine could be stopped and the Great Barrier Reef and the Australian way of life protected. It is no longer possible to walk both sides of the fence on this. It is no longer possible to say, 'We're in favour of a bit more renewables locally, but we're quite happy to ignore the world's scientists, dig up all the coal that we have here in Australia and have it exported and burnt overseas.'

In doing so, Labor and the Liberals are relying on the drug pusher's defence: 'If we don't sell it to them, someone else will.' What rubbish! We don't dig up and export asbestos anymore on the basis that someone somewhere in a rogue state might supply asbestos. We used to clad our housing in asbestos because we thought it was a good idea. Then we learnt that it kills when it's used in that way and so we phased it out. We were put on notice. We used to think there was no harm in tobacco. Then we were put on notice about the harm that tobacco causes, and so we're now in the process of restricting the use of tobacco. So it is with coal: it makes no difference to the atmosphere whether the coal is dug up and burnt here or somewhere overseas; it adds to pollution at a time when we cannot afford to add to pollution at all.

To give us a decent chance of protecting our way of life and making sure that the quality of life that we leave for our kids and grandkids is better than the one that we've enjoyed, we need to leave coal in the ground. That includes the coal at Adani. If your concern is about jobs, you cannot put in jeopardy the nearly 70,000 jobs that depend on a healthy reef for the sake of what Adani said in court under oath will be 1,400 jobs over a decade—1,400 jobs! They've also said elsewhere that they want to automate their mine from pit to plug. So anyone who thinks this is some job bonanza is kidding themselves. But, if jobs is the argument you're relying on, you are trading off almost 70,000 jobs dependent on a healthy reef for maybe 1,400 jobs that will be gone once the mine is automated.

We have an opportunity here in this House now to take a stand. This parliament could actually make a meaningful contribution, far more meaningful than anything the government has done, to the fight against global warming. As I've said, pollution is actually rising on this government's watch. We're meant to be cutting pollution and it's rising on this government's watch. What we can do is say, 'Australia will not be a climate criminal that aids and abets others in the burning of coal.' It's time to take a stand. We know where the Liberals stand, because they're the party of climate deniers.

It is also a time now for the opposition to take a stand. It is a very simple amendment. Immediately, take all available steps to stop Adani's Carmichael coalmine. Vote for this amendment, signal a change in position from the federal Labor Party and we can stop this Carmichael coalmine stone dead. We know that the Adani Group is now begging everyone for finance. We know that banks in Australia will not touch it with a barge pole. We know they're now hopeful that the government will write them a cheque, and they're also hopeful that the government will give them all the approvals they need to continue to allow Australia to facilitate pollution.

We have the power under federal law to say we're going to regulate the amount of pollution that Australia generates, we're going to regulate how mining takes place in this country and we're going to regulate the protection of the environment. Here, today, we can do far more than something symbolic; we can contribute to stopping the Adani mine in its tracks. So I urge everyone in this parliament, especially the opposition, to support this amendment. Then we will have done something real that future generations will thank us for.

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