Russell Broadbent (McMillan, 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 how the Australian government is investing in clean coal as a part of its comprehensive climate change strategy? Is the minister aware of any alternative plans?

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

I thank the member for McMillan for the question. His commitment to the coal industry and to clean coal is well known, and the benefits of our investment in clean coal technology will be felt particularly in his electorate.

The Australian government have committed $2 billion to climate change mitigation, and we are getting results. We are going to meet our Kyoto target. By 2010 there will be 87 million fewer tonnes of carbon in our atmosphere. That is equivalent to the total emissions of the entire transport sector. This is being achieved by investment in a range of projects, in renewables, but above all we are focused on clean coal. Why is that? Because coal is the world’s most abundant energy source. It dominates the energy sources of the world’s most active and growing economies—China and India. They are 70 per cent dependent on coal; they need coal, they have coal and we have to help them clean it up. We are helping them do that. We have invested more than $410 million in projects and technologies to clean up coal, including the world’s single largest carbon capture and storage project. We are working with China through the AP6 and through the bilateral relationship, because, unless China can get the energy it needs and have the technology to enable it to reduce its emissions, all of us know that, no matter what we do here, no matter what hardships we endure, they will have no effect on global warming. Cooperation on clean coal technology is vital to our future.

But what are the alternative views? We have the Greens policy. Senator Bob Brown proposes that we shut down the Australian coal industry. The member for Kingsford Smith has said that the expansion of the coal industry in the Hunter Valley is a thing of the past. When he is asked, ‘What is the impact of your climate change policies on jobs going to be?’ he says, ‘That’s a hypothetical question.’ When he’s asked by a reporter who, out of sheer frustration while trying to get a response, says, ‘Does this mean we’ll have to pay more for our energy?’ the member for Kingsford Smith says, ‘I don’t know what “pay more” means.’ It is not just on US bases that he is coy: he will not answer a question on anything.

I have looked carefully to see where the precedents are for the policies of the opposition for this big 60 per cent unilateral cut in emissions. What are they looking at? What are the examples? What is the history? There have been two groups of countries which have had enormous reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Take Russia. Russia’s emissions dropped 25 per cent between 1990 and 2004. Why was that? Total economic collapse, inflation of more than 11,700 per cent, a halving of GDP, and by 2004 they were still 15 per cent below 1990 GDP in real terms. So that is one example. If you want to cut greenhouse gases dramatically, slam your economy into the ground, impoverish your country, shut down your industry.

That may be the example that the member for Kingsford Smith is looking at. But there could be another, because Labor looks not just to Hugo Chavez for political inspiration but also to Margaret Thatcher. In 2004 Britain’s emissions were down by 15 per cent. How did Britain achieve this? I will tell you. They shut down the coal industry. The member for Hunter should listen to this because his constituents include many descendants and relatives of British coalminers. In 1990 Britain produced 100 million tonnes of coal. This year it will produce 20 million tonnes of coal. There were 280,000 workers in the British coal industry in 1990; today there are 10,000. Now Britain is importing coal itself. Which of the two choices does the member for Kingsford Smith favour? Does he want to be Bob Brown in government or play Margaret Thatcher to the coal workers of Australia? Either way, it is a grim prospect for our greatest export industry.