Ann Corcoran (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to talk about two things this evening—the first being climate change. There can be no question that climate change presents an enormous threat to the future prosperity and security of Australia. The harsh realities of climate change are now well beyond debate. To say that it is an issue that demands serious attention is at best an understatement. For those of us who respect the commitment, hard work and intelligence of the global scientific community, a half-hearted, complacent or compromised approach to this issue would border on the criminal. Yet that is precisely the approach that we have seen from the Howard government.

The approaching consequences of climate change simply cannot be ignored—more severe weather, reduced rainfall and extended droughts with a resulting decline in employment and economic growth. So far it has cost an estimated $8.1 billion in lost farm production, and taxpayer funded drought assistance to farmers is likely to top $500 million. Recent CSIRO research suggests that eastern, south-eastern and south-western Australia are heading for drier winters and springs—just when farmers most need rain. By 2070, average annual rainfall in these seasons could be 35 per cent lower in south-east Australia and as much as 60 per cent lower in the wheat belt of Western Australia. This is backed up by a recent report by the Indian Ocean Climate Initiative, which suggests climate change could be behind a predicted decline in autumn and winter rainfall in southern Western Australia over coming decades.

The threat to agriculture and farming looms large, but what about the range of other vital Australian industries that are threatened? Tourism is a part of the lifeblood of the Australian economy, yet I wonder who will want to visit us to see a decaying Barrier Reef, dying rainforests and barren plains. The Australian Insurance Group underlined the threat from climate change. It has said:

Any reduction in the industry’s ability to underwrite weather-related risk will have serious ramifications for the economies of those vulnerable regions where climate and weather risk is greatest.

These are components of our own economy. The issue takes on even greater proportions when we consider what role Australia might play in reaching out to our neighbours in the Pacific, as their island homes begin to be swamped by rising sea levels. There is no mistake about that—sea levels are rising. Tuvalu already faces the prospect of total inundation by rising seas, as do Vanuatu, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia and Papua New Guinea. The disaster waiting to happen has already introduced itself to our neighbours.

In the face of the mountain of evidence on climate change, it appears that this government’s main priority is to find not solutions but reasons for inaction. True to form, this government has relied on the economic fear factor in defending its inaction on climate change. After first signing the Kyoto protocol in 1997 and describing it as ‘a win for the environment and a win for Australian jobs’, the Prime Minister has since predicted that to join the more than 160 nations that have ratified the treaty would be an economic disaster for Australia. Of course, the Prime Minister also likes to trumpet the fact that Australia is set to meet the emissions targets set by Kyoto. It begs the question: what is Kyoto—an economic disaster in the making or an achievable aim? At the least, to not join the rest of the world in the fight against climate change is to let an economic opportunity slip through our fingers. The report released by the Australian Business Round Table on Climate Change found that early action to address climate change would mean 250,000 more jobs would be created than if we delayed.

Labor’s approach is quite different. Our approach to climate change is very clear. Australia needs to be part of the ongoing global effort to fight climate change by ratifying the Kyoto protocol, which will continue well beyond 2012. Rather than strangling clean energy projects, the Howard government should support energy efficiency and seize the economic opportunities of the worldwide push to clean, renewable energy. China has a renewable energy target of 15 per cent, compared to our appalling two per cent. This is another sign that Australia is being left behind.

There is a trillion dollar industry emerging globally in renewable energy technologies. That industry provides enormous opportunities for Australian business and technology. Rather than engaging that opportunity, the Prime Minister has immersed himself in the delusion of a nuclear solution. Labor’s climate change blueprint provides a responsible plan for a world-beating, renewable energy industry. Labor will ratify the Kyoto protocol. We will cut Australia’s greenhouse pollution by 60 per cent by 2050. We will establish a national greenhouse emissions trading scheme. We will establish a climate change trigger under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Labor support substantially increasing the mandatory renewable energy target and will be announcing details of that increase closer to the next election. It will be a stronger target than our previous policy of five per cent.

Labor will ensure all of Australia’s 10,000 schools are solar schools. Labor will work with state, territory and local governments to make five-star energy efficiency provisions mandatory for new homes. We will consider expanding the first homeowners grant with top-up grants for home buyers which are related to the energy rating of their homes. We will examine ways to reconfigure the incentives and disincentives in our tax system to encourage more investment in clean and renewable energy technologies. Labor will also rebuild Australia’s great research institutions, including the CSIRO.

Ours is a serious and dedicated approach. From the government we have an industry minister who doubts the reality of global warming, an agriculture minister who believes that alternative energy sources like wind power are a fraud and an environment minister who has, amazingly, said, as recently as February, that ‘no-one has shown more support for the Kyoto protocol than Australia’. For this government, climate change is a political inconvenience.

For the world, climate change is the ultimate challenge of our generation. In a system such as ours, rising to that challenge can be a politically difficult task. Focusing on the interests of Australians of this and future generations means planning beyond the next electoral cycle. It is about identifying our long-term needs and not getting absorbed in the next campaign of fear or vote buying. To seriously tackle climate change, Australia needs a government with courage, vision and the willingness to be in it for the long haul—and the only way that Australia will get there is with a Labor government.

The second issue I want to raise was raised with me a few weeks ago when I received letters from five year 7 students at Kilbreda College in Mentone. The students are studying Indigenous history and reconciliation and wrote to me highlighting their many concerns about Aboriginal health, reconciliation and the stolen generation. Time does not allow me to read out all the letters, but I take the opportunity to read some of what the students wrote and to acknowledge the students who took the time to write.

Catherine Deppe wrote:

I don’t think it is fair how the Aboriginals were kicked out of their homes just because non-aboriginals wanted the land.

Adele Di Bairi asks us to remember who has the power to change the way Indigenous Australians are treated. She ended her letter by asking:

Do we want to live in guilt about what happened all those years ago? With everyone’s help we can make a difference and say sorry, let’s try to reconcile together.

Nicole Waterfall was disappointed that the Prime Minister has not apologised to the Aboriginal people. She said:

Just because Mr Howard was not Prime Minister back then when these terrible things happened to the Aboriginals does not mean that we cannot apologise now. Anyway, if we don’t apologise ... who will?

Jemma Mulvaney acknowledged in her letter that things are done by local communities to try and promote reconciliation, but she said more needs to be done:

I think we need to take a step further and change our thoughts and actions and say sorry for what we have done, even if it was our ancestors who did it.

And Stephanie McCarthy wrote:

Australia is already a very strong and peaceful country, but I believe it could be even better if we could achieve total reconciliation.

The students’ teacher, Ms Louise Harmes, said they were keen to write to me following a visit to the class from Betty Pike, who spoke of being forcibly removed from her family and of the work that she does now promoting reconciliation.

It is the students’ hope that in some small way they too can promote and contribute to reconciliation by writing and becoming involved in this issue. While these girls wrote to me, others in their class wrote to newspapers with the hope that these letters would raise awareness in their community. The students’ teacher said she hopes that I am inspired by the mature and compassionate approach taken by them in their writing, and I certainly am. I am also encouraged by the stand taken by these students and their preparedness to act on something they feel strongly about. I congratulate Catherine, Adele, Nicole, Jemma and Stephanie for their action. With young women like these students, I think our future is in safe hands.