Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This weekend sees two very important events in Australia. The first is the opening of the 2007 AFL football season, when the mighty Saints will take on Melbourne on Friday night at the MCG. Unfortunately, I will not be there. I do not go out on Friday nights anymore. Like all long-suffering Saints fans, I hope and expect that this will be the year. A Saints flag in September and a Labor government in October would make 2007 a year to savour.

The second important event will be the climate change summit here in Canberra, convened by the Leader of the Opposition and the honourable member for Kingsford Smith, who are emerging as the national leaders in Australia’s long-delayed response to the global challenge of climate change. Five state premiers will be there. Peter Hendy of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry will be there, as will Mark O’Neill of the Australian Coal Association, Mitch Hooke of the Minerals Council of Australia, Brad Page of the Energy Supply Association, Heather Ridout of AiG and Belinda Robinson of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association—a galaxy of business leaders. They will be there to debate issues with Greg Bourne of the Worldwide Fund for Nature, ACTU Secretary Greg Combet, Clive Hamilton of the Australia Institute and Australian Conservation Foundation chairman Ian Lowe. Missing in action, as usual, will be the Howard government, which is still deeply divided on the issue of climate change and what to do about it. This government is paralysed by the continuing resistance of a faction of ideologically driven climate sceptics in its own ranks.

Only today in Senate question time, Senator Minchin, who we know is one of the Prime Minister’s chief advisers, refused to agree that climate change is driven by human activity such as greenhouse gas emissions. We also know that Senator Minchin has an industrial relations agenda that most of the government ministers do not know about—if they win the next election, to the disadvantage of Australian workers all around the country. We know that the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, Ian Macfarlane, agrees with Senator Minchin on climate change. What can we expect of such a divided government?

Fortunately we have in the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Kingsford Smith, together with the shadow parliamentary secretary for environment and heritage, the member for Throsby, people who are highly committed to seeing Australia become a world leader in the response to climate change. The Leader of the Opposition was referred to in the press this morning as ‘doing a Tony’, meaning that he was seeking to emulate Tony Blair. Well, I hope he is, because among his many achievements Tony Blair has put Britain in the leadership of the world’s response to climate change, going far beyond the Kyoto requirements, taking on the vested interests and accepting the political risks. Thanks to the Howard government, he has had no support from Australia.

That is about to change. Under Labor, Australia will join Britain as a world leader on this issue. Labor does not pretend that there are simple solutions to climate change questions. The science and the economics are complex, but reasonable people—people not blinded by reactionary ideology—accept that climate change is a reality and that there is a high probability that human activity is responsible for most of it.

We do not say that the Kyoto protocol offers a simple solution to climate change. But it is an important first step. Sir Nicholas Stern, who is in Australia this week, has recommended that Australia ratify Kyoto and that we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent by 2050. That is Labor policy. But it seems that even the first step is too much for the Howard government, which cannot see past the most short-sighted economic and political considerations such as whether it might be able to grub up a few votes in Lithgow or Rockhampton by scaring people in the coal industry and misrepresenting the Labor Party as being associated with the fundamentalist Greens.

State and territory governments support a national emissions trading scheme and the mandatory renewable energy target. The two can and should coexist. Labor supports a national emissions trading scheme and substantially increasing the mandatory renewable energy target.

Australia’s refusal to sign up to Kyoto has had serious international consequences. China, for example, justifies its refusal to take the issue of emissions control seriously by pointing to Australia’s refusal to ratify Kyoto. So the blame game goes round in circles, undermining efforts to get a global response. The real blame rests with the Prime Minister and a key circle of climate change sceptics in the government who see this is just another excuse for partisan exploitation. History will judge him harshly for this, and I think the voters will, too.