Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts. Will the minister outline how the Rudd government is delivering on its election commitment to take action on climate change? What are the dangers of inaction?

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Petrie for her question. There is a wide dimension of dangers of inaction in relation to addressing climate change: regional security, our environment, the economy and our society. At the last election the Australian people made it clear they wanted a government that was prepared to rise to the tackling of climate change. Since the election, the Rudd Labor government has set about delivering on our commitments—commitments to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions to some 60 per cent of 2000 levels by 2050; a commitment to ratify the Kyoto protocol as the first act of the Rudd government; and a commitment to implement a $500 million national Clean Coal Fund and a $500 million Renewable Energy Fund.

Through my own department, we are implementing a range of commitments that will change the way the Australian community goes about energy and water efficiency. These include low-interest green loans for household energy and water efficiency improvements, along with customised home energy audits, expansion of the Solar Cities program with new solar cities in Perth and in Coburg in Victoria and grants of up to $50,000 from 1 July this year to make every school a solar school. Crucially, these initiatives are intended to complement emissions trading, which sits at the heart of our efforts to reduce emissions, and today the government have announced a detailed timetable for the design and implementation of emissions trading. We have set out a detailed timetable, which will see emissions-trading schemes commence in 2010. We will take a careful and methodical approach to finalising the design of emissions trading. An exposure draft of emissions-trading legislation will be released in December 2008 but community and industry, I must stress, will be invited to have their say on a green paper to be released in July 2008 outlining key design issues and options.

Emissions trading is a significant undertaking and it has been introduced in response to a significant challenge. Reports that some members may have seen today from the United Nations Environment Program suggesting that the rate at which some of the world’s glaciers are melting has more than doubled are very troubling and concerning indeed. For those of us that have followed closely the science of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change these reports are yet again a very clear symbol, a very clear sign and now very clear evidence of the urgency with which we must address climate change. The member asked me about the dangers of inaction. It is a danger we see almost daily when people engage in a confected debate which raises the spectres of the costs of action without ever recognising the implications of unabated climate change for our economy, for our environment and for our society. It was a debate that was engaged in by the member for Barker in this place last month, when he said:

If we are going to have problems as a result of climate change ... I think the most sensible approach would be to adapt.

He then said:

In the end, some of the other suggestions that have been put forward are going to come at a great cost to the Australian economy.

We heard another contribution to this debate from the former Prime Minister, Mr Howard, on 5 March in Washington, when he referred to discussions of climate change science as ‘intellectual bullying and moralising’. He said, when he was introducing these remarks:

The left liberal grip on educational institutions and large, though not all, sections of the media remains intense.

The government is getting on with the job of addressing the great challenge of climate change. It is not caught up in false, arid and ancient debates. This government is not scaremongering about the costs of acting on climate change whilst never acknowledging the dangers to our economy and our way of life from soaring greenhouse gas emissions. And, if there is a danger in climate change debate, it is the danger of 11½ years of delay, inaction, scepticism and scaremongering by members on the other side on this issue. I will just make this final point. When the Assistant Treasurer came to the box and produced what I thought was a compelling answer in the House, the Leader of the Opposition said to him in an interjection, ‘We’ll be back to get you when we get a price on carbon.’

Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Dr Nelson interjecting

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And he has just confirmed those comments. This underscores the different approaches between a government on one hand and an opposition on the other whose only approach to climate change is to scaremonger on the costs of action to deal with this issue. The fact of the matter is that it is the costs of inaction that outweigh the costs of action, something the government understand. We are getting on with the job of taking responsibility for securing Australia’s long-term sustainable prosperity, unlike those on the other side.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.