Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I second the motion to suspend so much of standing and sessional orders as would prevent the member for Warringah from moving a motion relating to the release of the ONI climate and security risk report. This should be dealt with by the House immediately, for three reasons. Firstly, the Office of National Intelligence report is likely to show that the security risks of climate change are very significant. Secondly, the public has a right to know what they are. And, thirdly, we can't proceed with a vital integrated national plan without a full picture of these risks.

I remind the members of the House that their support, or lack of it, for this motion will be on the record, and our children and our grandchildren, and the children that I see in the chamber, will be looking back on the decisions that we make today. They will be thinking one of two things: either that the 47th Parliament showed courage—we looked at all the facts, created a shared vision of the world we were creating and started to restructure our economy and how we live on this planet—or that the 47th Parliament denied the urgency of climate change, hid the extent of the challenge and fiddled around the edges.

Releasing the ONI report won't fix everything, but it will allow us to form an informed view of where we are now and where we're heading. We're off track for our 2030 targets, the clock is ticking towards an unlivable planet, 1.5 degrees is unlikely and even two degrees looks uncertain. European experts, and Australian companies behind closed doors, are now talking about 2½ degrees as a likely outcome. This ONI report is likely to contain some sobering information which puts decisions into context. I accept that it can't all be released, but we should see a lot more than we can see at the moment. Other countries, including our allies, have released their equivalent reports. The US, the UK and others have released these with some redacting, and our government is being more secret than our allies.

So what's likely to be in it? Chatham House is the pre-eminent security think tank in the United Kingdom, and the Chatham House 2021 climate risk assessment said that cascading moment impacts would 'drive political instability and greater national insecurity, and fuel regional and international conflict'. These cascading systemic risks include three types of risks. Firstly, there's migration and displacement of people. This happens inside and beyond national borders, and it's likely to cause a refugee crisis, forced or unsafe migration, and trapped populations. Secondly, there's armed conflict. The US National Intelligence Council has disclosed that all the countries north of Australia are highly vulnerable to the physical effects of climate change and a lack of capacity to adapt. It's likely we will see regional conflicts requiring military intervention, conflict between people and states, and civil wars. Thirdly, there's the destabilisation of markets, commodity price spikes, fall in asset prices, large-scale asset sell-offs, failing stock markets and potentially financial market collapses.

We have a right to know about these risks. If the ONI report includes these risks, we have a right to know. If our government is not basing its decisions on these types of risks recognised in international reports, we have a right to know why they have come to different conclusions. Building a common national knowledge base on these types of issues is essential. These are security risks; they require us to look holistically at how we'll resource the challenges ahead. I commend the members of the ADF who've responded to the emerging domestic impacts of climate. We just heard that 50 per cent of Defence members have been allocated to national disaster response in the last year, and I thank the ADF members for their service, including those at Karrakatta and Campbell Barracks in my electorate of Curtin. But, without a more holistic approach informed by an understanding of these domestic and international security risks, we will continue to take a piecemeal approach. As the member for Bruce said, the ADF cannot be treated as a shadow workforce for domestic issues.

We are going to need to make some difficult decisions and investments in the future on mitigation and on adaptation. We will need to take the community on this journey. Once we have a common view of the risks we face, we as parliamentarians can do our jobs and develop a coordinated national plan. This needs to involve rebuilding the Public Service so we have these abilities in house. It needs to cover mitigation and adaptation. So I urge all members of the House to think about how they vote on this and how their children and grandchildren will judge them. We must see this report. We must at least see the findings so we know what information government is using to make these vital decisions. (Time expired)

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