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

My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware of analysis cited in the report of the Australian Business Roundtable on Climate Change that a two- to three-degree Centigrade increase in the temperature could (1) bleach 97 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef, directly threatening a $1.5 billion tourism industry; (2) reduce livestock-carrying capacity by 40 per cent, directly threatening $17 billion in livestock exports over time; and (3) reduce water flows in the Murray-Darling by 15 per cent, resulting in reduced irrigation and a decline in GDP of three-quarters of a billion a year. In the light of these disturbing projections cited by business, why won’t the Prime Minister direct the Treasurer to commission detailed modelling of the impact of climate change on the Australian economy and on jobs?

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

I will direct the Leader of the Opposition’s attention to the ABARE study, which spelt out in detail the implications of a 60 per cent reduction by the year 2050. I would invite—I would not be so presumptuous as to direct—the Leader of the Opposition to use common sense and extrapolate that and imagine what the implications are of the other proposition he has embraced, and that is a 30 per cent reduction by the year 2020.

What the Leader of the Opposition is arguing is that in a bare 13 years we cut by 30 per cent our consumption of electricity and that we cut by 30 per cent our use of motor vehicles and trucks, our agricultural activities and all the other things that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. That would do great damage to the Australian economy. It would cost tens of thousands of jobs, particularly in the coal industry. It is a scenario that I do not embrace. While ever this government remains in office we will not sell out the medium and longer term interests of the Australian economy and the medium and long-term interests of Australian workers for a particular commitment to a specific target. What we on the contrary will embrace is an approach that in a practical way, as outlined by the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, tackles the problem of deforestation around the world. Deforestation in fact contributes more to greenhouse gas emissions than does the entirety of the contribution of the transport sector. If we were able to achieve even modest outcomes in relation to deforestation, the greenhouse gas emissions eliminated thereby would far exceed those postulated by the implementation of the Kyoto protocol. What we need in relation to climate change are decisions taken by people who have been tested by experience and who understand that you need a balanced approach which produces a measured reduction in greenhouse gas emission but not at the price of destroying thousands of jobs for Australian workers, particularly in the coalmining industry.