Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I second the motion and offer a few additional comments. It's self-evident that Australia must do everything in its power to combat climate change and to do so urgently, and any sensible strategy surely must include Australia banning any new coalmines and winding down existing coalmines.

The significance of this must not be underestimated. We need to understand that something like 29 per cent of coal that's traded globally comes from Australia. When we export coal, we export emissions. When you include our exported emissions with our domestic emissions, you understand that we are a very, very significant producer of greenhouse gases. In fact, if you include our exported emissions, Australia produces more emissions than Russia, a country of 146 million people, hardly an exemplar of responsible climate action. We create more carbon emissions than Russia. In fact, when you include our exported emissions, our total gross emissions are not much less than those of India, a country of 1.3 billion people. In other words, we must do everything we can to get out of the global coal trade, and that must include no more coalmines and winding down existing coalmines.

This is especially relevant to me as a Tasmanian at the moment because we had the remarkable revelations just in recent weeks that, when the country is talking about shutting down coalmines, we're actually looking to create a new coalmine. In fact, we had the remarkable revelation just recently that Midland Energy has been granted $50,000 by the Tasmanian government to establish mines in the Midlands of Tasmania, around Woodbury and Jericho, that would produce three million tonnes of coal a year for export to Asian markets. How the Tasmanian government can think that that is sensible absolutely beggars belief. Tasmania has a reputation as a relatively clean and green place. Why would we put our food exports and our tourism industries at risk by becoming just another global climate pariah? It beggars belief, and it's some of the most irresponsible behaviour I could contemplate by a Tasmanian government.

So I'm very happy to back the member for Melbourne in this motion for the second reading of the Coal Prohibition (Quit Coal) Bill 2019, which would ban coalmines and wind down existing coalmines. It would be entirely consistent with what should be this country's strategy—a strategy to, within a reasonable period of time, achieve zero net carbon emissions and, indeed, 100 per cent reliance on renewable energy. That's the way to deal with the future. It's not to be opening new coalmines in the Midlands of Tasmania, North Queensland, the Hunter Valley or who knows where else. That's why this is an eminently sensible bill introduced by the member for Melbourne.

I would add that until now the philosophy has been progress at any cost. Whenever there's talk of a new coalmine, politicians are quick to talk about the jobs. Well, it's time to draw a line in the sand and to understand that progress at any cost is the strategy that has created the climate mess we now have. So we've got to draw a line in the sand, or perhaps scratch a line in the coal, and say that from now on there will be no more new coalmines, we will have plans in place to shut down existing coalmines and we will have plans in place to shut down existing coal-fired power stations in this country, because only by doing that will we genuinely be putting our country on a pathway to zero net carbon emissions. That's what the community expects of us. Whenever you go out to the community across the whole of the country and you do polling, the evidence is unambiguous that the community wants strong action on climate change. But regrettably, until now, this place has been completely out of step with what the community wants—another case where we in this place are not representing our community. So I second the motion, I applaud the member for Melbourne and I think that the crossbench—or most of the crossbench at least—speaks genuinely on behalf of the majority of Australians, who want us to get out of the coal industry and to get out of it quickly.

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