Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources) Share this | Hansard source

You know it is untrue. And that untruth is that, if you ratify Kyoto, the drought will break, global warming will stop and everything will be right in the world. The message from the IPCC fourth assessment report, the message from the Stern report and the message from every piece of science we have seen for many years is that there is so much inertia and so much heat in the system that global warming is going to continue for decades—probably until the end of the century. We have to live with the consequences of this phenomenon for many years.

The mitigation efforts that we take today will rebound to the benefit of our grandchildren, if not our great-grandchildren. We in the government are committed to long-term planning. We are committed to ensuring that our children and grandchildren will benefit. I would compare that with the extraordinary complacency and neglect by various state governments with respect to their water resources. All around Australia the greatest manifestation of a hotter and drier climate is water scarcity, not just in the bush but also in the cities. Every day when pensioners pull muscles or crack backs lugging heavy buckets to water their gardens in Brisbane and they look at their dry and desiccated lawns and their dead roses, they remember the Leader of the Opposition. It was he and Wayne Goss who, in 1989, chose not to build the Wolffdene Dam. Brisbane is in a drought today. Brisbane is short of water today because of the failure to plan ahead. It suited the Leader of the Opposition politically and electorally not to build a dam. If that dam had been built, Brisbane would have enough water to tide it over this dry time. This is not just the case in Brisbane: Bob Carr did exactly the same thing.

We know the Labor Party’s record on water resources. We know their form—and their form is just like that of Mr Micawber: ‘Something will turn up. Don’t worry. Cancel the project. Put it on the backburner. It’ll rain next week. Pray for rain.’ We are planning ahead. We have the runs on the board. We are looking at every option, including nuclear power. We are looking at an emissions-trading scheme. We have everything on the table.

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