Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Lindsay talks up the coalition's Direct Action Plan but I have very little confidence that the Direct Action Plan will deliver effective carbon emissions reductions. I believe it will not do anything of the kind and the question that the House needs to ask in considering the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 [No.2] and related bills is whether this is the best way to reduce emissions or whether there are better ways. I believe the best way to reduce carbon emissions is to transition to renewable energy. I want to praise Clive Palmer, the member for Fairfax, for his announcement that his senators will vote to keep the renewable energy target. I also want to praise the member for Fairfax for indicating that his senators will not vote for two of the bills in the clean energy legislation package before the House—that is, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (Abolition) Bill 2014 and the Climate Change Authority (Abolition) Bill 2013 [No. 2]. This is inconvenient for Prime Minister Abbott but very encouraging news for the planet.

It is an inconvenient truth for the government that jobs and investment in regional areas in solar panels, solar hot water and high-efficiency appliances are contributing billions of dollars worth of economic activity each year. It is an inconvenient truth for this government that over 14 per cent of Australia's power was produced by renewable energy in the 2013 calendar year. It is an inconvenient truth for this government that more than two million household clean energy systems have now been installed across the country, with the majority being either solar power or solar hot water. It is an inconvenient truth for this government that investment in Australian clean energy during 2013 was, for the third successive year, over $5 billion. It is an inconvenient truth for this government that at the end of 2013 over 20,000 people were employed in the renewable energy industry. It is an inconvenient truth for this government that last year the 140-turbine Macarthur Wind Farm, the largest in the southern hemisphere, led one of the best years of large-scale renewable energy in recent years when 705 megawatts of new projects came online. And it is an inconvenient truth for this government that, perhaps somewhat counterintuitively, the renewable energy target will actually lead to lower power prices.

Modelling completed for the Clean Energy Council by leading energy market experts ROAM Consulting found that power bills would be more than $500 million cheaper across all Australian households in 2020 with the renewable energy target in place than if it were removed. Beyond 2020, this figure is even higher, rising to a maximum of $140 cheaper per household or a $1.4 billion total saving on power bills. This is because fewer renewables, such as wind and solar, would mean more of our energy would have to come from gas-fired electricity, which is becoming more expensive all the time. Indeed, the Australian Industry Group, which represents many of the country's large manufacturers and other energy users, said this year that the rising price of gas is emerging as possibly the biggest energy issue we face. They and others have projected that gas prices may triple this decade, causing massive problems for some of our more energy-intensive industries.

I have talked about the impact of rising gas prices on both manufacturers and consumers previously. I regret that no action has been taken to protect consumers from rising energy bills. Cutting the RET would make matters worse and, regrettably, the legislated review of the renewable energy target has undermined confidence in the industry and undermined investment.

The Liberal Party is quick to cry foul and make hysterical claims about sovereign risk if a Labor government takes any action which impacts on any company's bottom line, but the way in which it subjects the renewable energy industry to constant policy changes and rough handling beggars belief. These are real industries, mostly in regional areas, providing a real service in a carbon constrained world. They are the industries of the future. They are certainly the industries that economies from China to the US and Europe are now embracing and they deserve better.

This government's record on climate change has been quite shameful. It is not just the axing of the Climate Commission and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. It is not just the inquiry into the renewable energy target or the shameful international positions the government has taken saying that no country can be expected to sacrifice resource revenue to tackle climate change. Is the Prime Minister not aware that the economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment—no environment, no economy?

But it is worse than that: the Prime Minister appointed Maurice Newman as chairman of his Business Advisory Council. Mr Newman has described climate change as a scientific delusion, says Australia is hostage to climate change madness and accuses the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of dishonesty and deceit—and the Prime Minister makes this man his key business adviser! Is it a scientific delusion that in Australia average air temperatures have increased by 0.9 degrees Celsius since 1910? Is it a scientific delusion that since the 1950s every decade has been warmer than the one before it? Is it a scientific delusion that 2013 was Australia's hottest year since records began more than a century ago?

Given these facts, it would be crazy for governments and business not to take the forecasts seriously. These forecasts include more heatwaves, more droughts and more bushfires. It would be imprudent and negligent for either government or business to ignore this. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted the displacement of between 13 million and 94 million people in south, south-east and east Asia from an increase in the size and intensity of tropical cyclones and resulting storm surges. The tragedy of disasters like this is that they are avoidable. The renewable energy industry has the capacity—if only we helped it rather than tried to strangle it—to take us down a very different path. In March, the CEO of the Clean Energy Council, David Green, said solar PV was transitioning from being disruptive technology to being incumbent technology. This is very significant indeed.

Climate change is a serious issue that demands a serious and effective response. It is time for the Prime Minister to acknowledge the flaws in what is an expensive, inefficient and ineffective direct action policy. Labor's position on climate change has not changed. We will not support the repeal of the carbon price unless there is a credible alternative that will deliver meaningful action to tackle climate change. We already voted to abolish the carbon tax in the Senate and replace it with an emissions trading scheme, and we will do so again when it comes before the Senate.

The Australian government's Climate Change Authority, a body which this government wants to silence, shut down and kill off through one of these bills, has indicated that 'climate change is unequivocal'; that 'human influence on the climate system is clear'; that 'Australia should be pursuing a stronger target'; that 'taken as a whole, the government's conditions for moving beyond a five per cent reduction appear to have been met'; that 99 countries are acting on emissions, with these including Australia's major trading partners 'covering over 80 per cent of global emissions and 90 per cent' of economic output; and China and the US are 'stepping up their efforts' to reduce emissions. Both have targets. 'China is investing heavily in renewable energy projects, closing inefficient power plants and trialling market mechanisms to reduce emissions'. Indeed, the authority's analysis shows that Australia can achieve a 15 per cent to 25 per cent reduction target while national income and the economy continue to grow.

I said that the member for Lindsay talked about Direct Action. Yesterday, the government put forward to replace Labor's initiatives—the initiatives which these bills seek to kill off—a bill to broaden the Carbon Farming Initiative to turn it into a key plank of the government's direct action policy. That bill uses the mechanism of an emissions reduction fund. My concern is that the Emissions Reduction Fund will turn into a $2½ billion dressed-up slush fund paying large corporations for things that they were going to do anyway. I say this after closely examining the legal advice about that bill provided by Environmental Justice Australia, formerly known as the Environmental Defenders Office, to the Australian Conservation Foundation. Let me express great concern at the decision by the government in December last year to withdraw funding from the Environmental Defenders Office. It is a very is short-sighted decision, and I take this opportunity to urge the Liberal government to reconsider it.

Environmental Justice Australia has said that it is very difficult to properly assess the scheme because important details are left to other legislation, to legislative rules, to the discretion of the executive or to the details of individual contracts that will be entered into between the Commonwealth and project proponents. Environmental Justice Australia notes that the scheme being created gives a large degree of discretion to the executive and the relevant minister; even when there are specific criteria or conditions set out in the bill, they are subject to executive variation; and, of course, this creates further uncertainty about the operation and effectiveness of the scheme.

They also raise serious concerns about the mechanics of the scheme. For example, sequestration offset projects can have a permanence period of either 25 or 100 years—that is to say that the period for which the proponent has an obligation to maintain the project and ensure that sequestered emissions are not released back into the atmosphere can vary. So, if you nominate a 25-year permanence period, you are subject to a 20 per cent reduction in the number of carbon credits you are entitled to. The white paper and the explanatory memorandum say the 20 per cent discount will cover the costs of replacing carbon stores if the projects are discontinued. But why the government believes that only one in five projects will go for 25 years rather than 100 years in these circumstances is very unclear.

I am also concerned about up-front payments. The white paper says that the Emissions Reduction Fund will pay for emissions as they occur and will not provide up-front payments. But the white paper also says that, in certain circumstances, there will be ways to deem or pre-calculate emissions reductions from certain activities. So the risk is that payments may be made for emissions that do not, ultimately, materialise. Furthermore, the scheme contains no explicit mechanism that relates to the performance of any contractual obligation and no penalties for failure to deliver the contracted quantity of carbon credit units.

If the only way you can enforce a breach of contract is therefore through the common law, there can be little doubt that the absence of a penalty mechanism to promote compliance will act as a significant barrier to ensuring that contractual obligations are fulfilled. I also note that, while part 12 requires the regulator to publish information about the scheme, proponents actually get five years to report on projects. So it will not be possible to assess the effectiveness of the Direct Action scheme for a considerable period of time.

Last week I spoke in the House about a delegation from the Australian Conservation Foundation who had come to advise members of a petition from tens of thousands of Australians urging we 'Don't Drop the Ball on Climate Action '. They said to us as members of parliament:

For two years now Australia has had a set of laws called the Clean Energy Future Package, widely known by the public purely as the "carbon tax".

What is less known is that it is working. Australia's carbon price is doing its job of cutting our pollution, making it a safer, healthier country for all of us while also doing our fair share in the effort to tackle global warming.

We also know that in the past 12 months, Australia's carbon pollution levels dropped by more than it has in the past 24 years. We know that the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, part of the package, is making a profit while cutting pollution.

And we know this is happening while the economy … growing at 3.5 per cent in the past year.

Australians want to see us take action; 86 per cent of Australians want us to cut our carbon pollution, 45 per cent see global warming as a 'serious and pressing problem', a figure that is up 9 per cent from only two years ago.

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The Australian public are speaking up. They are worried about global warming and they want Australia to do its bit.

We have the laws, already in place, that are working incredibly well.

And they ask us as parliamentarians to listen to the Australian people concerning this and to vote to keep these laws in place. I will be voting to do just that.

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