Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very glad to rise today to speak on the Product Emissions Standard Bill 2017 and related bills. It is a package of bills that I'm really glad to support. It may seem to be a relatively minor emissions issue, but I think it is indicative of this government's laissez faire attitude to emission standards, energy policy and climate change.

There is no doubt that in Australia we are way behind the eight ball when it comes to our action on climate change and reducing emissions. In many ways we are going backwards. The news today that the Prime Minister is trying to promote the prolonged continuation of some of our oldest and most polluting coal-fired power stations, and that some government members are advocating the building of many more new coal-fired power stations, to me is absolutely shocking. It is even more shocking because I know the Minister for the Environment and Energy comes from a scientific family and, I suspect, doesn't really believe what this government is promoting. It is symptomatic of the destruction of any real knowledge or action on climate change and environment and it is disgraceful.

Almost all the rest of the world is fighting climate change while some on the other side of the chamber are still debating whether or not it's real. Australia's environmental policy has been smeared by political pointscoring for far too many years and we need to take action now. This bill is a small part of that. The emissions standards bill before us, or something close to it, is already in place in the vast majority of the 35 OECD countries, including America, Japan and China. This is a change that should've been implemented many years ago; it's a real no-brainer. So I'm glad to see that at last the government is introducing these bills that will not only improve our environment but improve the health of Australians and save many lives.

The bills before us relate to air pollution standards on non-road spark ignition engines and equipment. It is absolutely horrifying to know that some lawnmowers emit up to 40 times the emissions of a car per hour, and brush cutters at least 10 times the emissions of a car per hour. In other words, lawnmowers are the equivalent of having 40 cars on the road. We all know that in Australia we love our lawnmowers, and I'm no exception. I love my lawn. I take pride in the fact that my lawn looks good. My grandchildren come and play on our lawn, our dogs run on our lawn, and it looks great. In my house we have lawnmowers, brush cutters, leaf blowers, mulchers, lawn edgers and even, dare I say it, a chainsaw—although my days of playing with chainsaws might be over, I think; they do worry me quite a lot—and it is horrifying for me to know that these machines pollute so much. I wasn't aware, in fact, that we didn't have emission controls on these machines. As well as their being heavily polluting, we use them very close to our faces and we breathe in the fumes, which we know contain things like carcinogenic hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and often particulate pollutants, all of which can be associated with things like cardiovascular disease, stroke and peripheral vascular disease and are possibly related to a variety of different cancers, including lung and gastric cancer. Really, this is something that we should've addressed many years ago. In the 1970s we were addressing these issues in our motor vehicles, and the fact that we are only just now thinking about doing something about our leaf blowers, lawnmowers, chainsaws and brush cutters is pretty horrifying and yet another indication that in Australia we are lagging behind in what we should be doing about our air pollution.

The unregulated engines that emit these toxins may be small, but they are definitely highly polluting. On average, they produce between 10 and 20 times more emissions per hour than a motor vehicle engine. These emissions have a significant effect not only on our environment but, as I mentioned, on our health. It's very difficult to understand the actual effect until you look at the statistics, but at least 1,500 lives a year are being lost directly because of environmental pollution and countless people are suffering from early onset cardiovascular disease. We are concerned, in the medical community, about the incidence of relatively young males dying suddenly from cardiovascular disease, and one can only think that our environmental pollution may well have something to do with it. So it's about time we did something about it. When we use these machines, as I've mentioned, we're breathing the emissions straight into our airways, and very quickly these pollutants can enter the bloodstream, and they must definitely be having an effect. It's estimated that environmental pollution reduction could save up to $1.7 billion in health costs and avoid up to 3,000 deaths a year.

Early yesterday I met with Gary Fooks, the chair of the Blue Sky Alliance, and I'm very grateful for his advocacy of these emissions standards. He's been one of the main drivers of this bill, along with David Heyes, the President of AMEC, and Tim McCarthy, the President of OPEA. I am grateful for their support and advocacy on something that should have been addressed many years ago. The Blue Sky Alliance is a joint venture between the two peak bodies that cover the garden equipment and marine engine industries, and they represent about 95 per cent of the 1.3 million small non-road engines sold in Australia each year. These organisations have done the research for many years and have proven that no-one will be worse off under the implementation of these emissions standards and we will be a lot better off in terms of our environment. In fact, over half the market is already filled with clean engines and every brand available has a clean engine available. All this bill is doing is regulating the dirty engines, and this legislation will not make it illegal to use our old equipment but will mean that the new equipment we buy will be low-emissions machines. So this is a very good outcome.

To be honest with you, this bill is dealing with the low-hanging fruit. It's addressing a fault in our system that should have been dealt with many years ago. It's about ensuring that Australia can meet international standards. While it's great that we're finally dealing with the Product Emissions Standards Bill, there is a long way to go in addressing Australia's lack of environmental policy. The government is letting Australia's environment be destroyed, and we are seeing absolutely no action at all to protect our oceans, the Murray-Darling Basin, which we know is being allowed to be degraded surreptitiously without proper action, and our wildlife and their habitats, which are being damaged continually. The Great Barrier Reef is another case in point where the government has done very little to support environmental protection and, in fact, looks like supporting a coalmine that may well signal the end of the Great Barrier Reef as we know it.

As a father and a grandfather, it is shameful for me to have to tell my children and grandchildren that much of their environment will be destroyed because this government refuses to protect it. We're now faced with the disastrous effects of climate change. They will know that this government let Australia fall behind the rest of the world in any action to stop it. I'm very happy to support this bill, but I hope we can start seeing some courage from this government and from the minister in shaping some real environmental policy that will deal with the challenges ahead. Even in my own electorate, we're seeing the gradual loss of our koala colony, the only chlamydia-free urban koala colony in Australia, by ongoing development, but neither state nor federal governments will lift a hand to protect it. It is absolutely shameful.

We know that in south-west Sydney we have very poor air quality, yet we have no clear emissions policy or energy policy from this government and this minister, who are wilfully ignoring the advice from their own Chief Scientist. This government is mired in a right-wing reactionary ideology that fails to protect its people from pollution, climate change and environmental degradation. It is an absolute disgrace that members of the government could think it funny to bring lumps of coal into the parliament to demonstrate their support for the coal industry and coal-fired power stations. That they think this is a joke, to me, is absolutely shameful. I really think it's time that some courage be shown by the environment minister and by the Prime Minister to try to make things different. We need courage, we need to keep up with the rest of the world in our environmental policy and it is time for change.

I'm also very concerned, apart from this bill, about whether the government will put in place mechanisms for imported engines to be tested appropriately. We already know the government is allowing suspect building materials, flammable building materials and building materials containing asbestos into the country without proper checks and balances. We know they've let motor vehicles come into the country with fairly easy to check brake linings made of asbestos, which have been illegal in Australia for many years. Even if we do introduce these bills and even if we do want to have low-emission engines, we need to make sure that imported engines, which are the majority of what we use in Australia, are properly tested by Customs and by pollution control authorities.

I commend the bill, and I commend it as something that really should've happened a long time ago. I ask that Minister Frydenberg urgently develop an energy and emissions policy to protect the Australian people. I also ask the government to fully implement the recommendations of the Finkel report. I ask them to reassure the Australian people that they are actually doing something about our environmental pollution. And I ask them to develop an energy policy that can reassure people that their power bills won't continue to skyrocket, and that we do have a clear and appropriate emissions policy so that power companies can develop mechanisms to develop their resources appropriately. We are crying out for leadership in this debate. I am grateful for the members supporting the bill, but it is only part of what is a very big picture. It is time for courage from this reactionary government. Thank you.

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