Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question again is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, is it the case that after 11 years in government the government has refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol, failed to increase the mandatory renewable energy target and failed to introduce a national emissions-trading scheme? Prime Minister, how can a government that is full of climate change sceptics be part of the climate change solution?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is true that we have not ratified Kyoto, because to ratify Kyoto would not be in Australia’s interests. The truth is that this government is composed of a lot of people who are sceptical about certain things. They are sceptical about knee-jerk environmental solutions that would damage the jobs of coal miners in Australia. They are sceptical about responses to climate change that would put Australia at a competitive disadvantage with the rest of the world. They are also sceptical about ruling out solutions that are clearly in the long-term interests of this country. Let me say to the climate change purists, or the climate change fanatics, on the other side: the cleanest and greenest energy source of all is the one you will not look at, and that is nuclear power. It is the cleanest and the greenest, and those who sit opposite will not look at it. I am a sceptic, yes. I am sceptical about the capacity of the Australian Labor Party to provide an answer to this great challenge that does not damage the long-term interests of the Australian economy.

Joanna Gash (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources. Would the minister inform the House what action the government is taking to manage the effects of climate change? Is the minister aware—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Joanna Gash (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not think that is funny—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! When members are asking questions they deserve to be heard in silence. I call the member for Gilmore.

Joanna Gash (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the minister aware of detrimental proposals in this area?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Gilmore for her question. She has a great passion and, indeed, knowledge about water matters. I have learnt a great deal about water, particularly groundwater, from her.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Snowdon interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lingiari is warned!

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian government moved quickly and decisively more than a decade ago to address the consequences of climate change. Australia was the first country to set up the Greenhouse Office or any organisation of that kind. We have a comprehensive climate change strategy in which we have invested, over a decade, $2 billion that is building scientific understanding of climate change, helping us meet our Kyoto emissions reduction target and investing in the future technologies that we need, such as renewable energy, clean coal and carbon capture for treating coal-fired power stations. We will need all of those because technology will be the key driver of the ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The opposition, on the other hand, hold up one solitary proposition—sign Kyoto. They are spreading a most pernicious untruth.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You know it is untrue. And that untruth is that, if you ratify Kyoto, the drought will break, global warming will stop and everything will be right in the world. The message from the IPCC fourth assessment report, the message from the Stern report and the message from every piece of science we have seen for many years is that there is so much inertia and so much heat in the system that global warming is going to continue for decades—probably until the end of the century. We have to live with the consequences of this phenomenon for many years.

The mitigation efforts that we take today will rebound to the benefit of our grandchildren, if not our great-grandchildren. We in the government are committed to long-term planning. We are committed to ensuring that our children and grandchildren will benefit. I would compare that with the extraordinary complacency and neglect by various state governments with respect to their water resources. All around Australia the greatest manifestation of a hotter and drier climate is water scarcity, not just in the bush but also in the cities. Every day when pensioners pull muscles or crack backs lugging heavy buckets to water their gardens in Brisbane and they look at their dry and desiccated lawns and their dead roses, they remember the Leader of the Opposition. It was he and Wayne Goss who, in 1989, chose not to build the Wolffdene Dam. Brisbane is in a drought today. Brisbane is short of water today because of the failure to plan ahead. It suited the Leader of the Opposition politically and electorally not to build a dam. If that dam had been built, Brisbane would have enough water to tide it over this dry time. This is not just the case in Brisbane: Bob Carr did exactly the same thing.

We know the Labor Party’s record on water resources. We know their form—and their form is just like that of Mr Micawber: ‘Something will turn up. Don’t worry. Cancel the project. Put it on the backburner. It’ll rain next week. Pray for rain.’ We are planning ahead. We have the runs on the board. We are looking at every option, including nuclear power. We are looking at an emissions-trading scheme. We have everything on the table.

Kim Wilkie (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Wilkie interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Swan is warned!

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What does the opposition have to say in response to that? They have defined a new heresy. What is the heresy? It is the heresy of scepticism. A sceptic is a person inclined to question or doubt accepted opinions. Oh no! We cannot have any questioning or doubting—I question myself whether we are moving into some new form of totalitarianism—where the great edicts from the opposition, the gospel according to the Labor Party, cannot be questioned and cannot be queried.

The government has moved to deal with climate change. We are mitigating climate change. We are adapting to climate change through the biggest investment in water resources this country has ever seen. We are making up for the failures of Labor governments to invest and we are working internationally through the AP6, through the United Nations, to ensure that we achieve what all of us know is the only answer to reducing emissions in a manner that will abate global warming, and that is a global commitment. Without that global commitment there will be no abatement, and all that we do—and we will do all that we can—on mitigation in Australia will be for naught without a global commitment. That is our policy: mitigation, global commitment and ensuring that Australia is secure and sustainable in the face of a hotter and drier time ahead.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is again to the Prime Minister. I refer to his answer to my previous question, where he indicated that a decision to ratify Kyoto would be a ‘knee-jerk reaction by environmental extremists’. Prime Minister, if that is the case, why did you sign Kyoto? Why did you say at the time that the Kyoto protocol was a win for the environment and a win for Australian jobs?

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Eleven years!

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Lilley is warned.

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition takes a debating point, which he is entitled to do, but he knows as well as I do that we have not ratified the Kyoto protocol. We will not ratify it not only because it would be a knee-jerk reaction but because it would actually impose obligations on this country—

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Bowen interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Prospect is warned.

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

that would be damaging to us because the same obligations would not be imposed on countries with which we are competitors. Our reason for not endorsing Kyoto—ratifying it or whatever description you want to use—is that it would damage this country’s interests unless we can have an international arrangement which includes the great emitters of the world—for example, the United States and China. Effectively, about 32 per cent of the world’s emissions are covered by those who have ratified Kyoto.

This country emits 1.6 per cent of the world’s global emissions. It has been said before that, if we closed down everything in this country tomorrow, in nine months the emissions that were saved by the closure in Australia would be equalled by the addition to emissions by China. That is the scale of the international problem. The Leader of the Opposition knows that. He can have his little debating points. He can turn around and look self-satisfied about having scored a debating point, but nothing can absolve him from the fact that he is advocating a policy that would put us at a competitive disadvantage with many of the countries against whom we must compete in a global environment. I want to make it very clear to him and to the rest of the House that, in responding to climate change, this government has no intention of damaging the competitive position of Australian industry.