Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the release of the interim report of the review by Professor Garnaut on climate change. My position, and the position of the opposition, is very clear: we welcome this review, we welcome this release; climate change is real; it is important; it is significant; it has a degree of urgency, which is potent and powerful; and it is one of the great challenges which we face. The problem is a global one. It is a problem of 40 billion tonnes of CO2, of which Australia contributes about 1.4 per cent, or 560 million tonnes. Alone, we can do nothing. As part of a broader global solution we have an important role.

I want to make three points as to how, despite the symbolism of the new government, they are currently failing, in the first 100 days of government, to take practical, real and effective steps. In essence, they have dropped the ball on real and practical steps to clean up our air, to clean up our environment and to work on this front. The first of those is what is known as the Green Vouchers for Schools Program. This program is in chaos. There are no schools, or very few schools, which are currently applying because, immediately after the election, the program was axed. Then it was put on hold and now it has been reinstated, whilst the new Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts struggles to put in place the replacement program.

However, the government’s website sets out that, even though the program has been reinstated, schools should reconsider whether or not they wish to sign up to it. So we have gone into this position of hiatus, where the program was axed, put on hold, then reinstated but schools are told: ‘Reconsider whether you actually want to apply, whilst we put together the program that we want to replace it with.’ On the government’s own analysis the potential for 27,000 tonnes of CO2 per year to be saved is being lost. That is their own analysis.

The second great failing is that they have dropped the ball on the great challenge of global rainforest protection. The single biggest area right now for global savings over the next five years is the halting and decrease of deforestation. We have the potential for savings of up to eight billion tonnes a year and, since the opposition put forward a program on this, we have seen silence, we have seen inaction, we have seen a failure to adopt our approach for a global rainforest recovery program. It is on the table, we offer our bipartisan support and I will have more to say at a later date about their failure to pick up clean energy targets and to clean up coal and gas in Australia and globally.