House debates

Monday, 5 September 2022

Private Members' Business

Climate Change: Pacific Islands

12:14 pm

Photo of Sharon ClaydonSharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

It's with great pleasure that I speak to this motion moved in the name of my good friend and colleague the member for Jagajaga today, because on 21 May of this year Australians voted for change. They rejected the Morrison Liberal government's refusal to take action on climate change; the blatant disregard for science; and the brutal and senseless climate wars that prevented any real action on climate change for more than a decade. Australians also understand that we have a very important role to play as a member of the Pacific family and that taking action on climate change is a crucial issue for our Pacific neighbours. As Fiji's Prime Minister, Mr Bainimarama, tweeted after meeting with foreign minister Penny Wong in June, 'Our main concern isn't geopolitics—it's climate change.'

The previous government was responsible for years of neglect in the Pacific. Former Prime Minister Scott Morrison's inaction on climate change, cuts to development assistance, poor management of Pacific labour mobility programs and disrespect for our Pacific neighbours eroded trust in Australia across the region. The Morrison government underinvested in core elements of our international relations and left vacuums for others to fill. The former Liberal government slashed Australia's official development assistance budget by $11.8 billion, shut down the Australia Network and forced the cessation of ABC short-wave radio transmission in the Pacific—a service which, according to reports, has now been taken over by Chinese state owned radio providers.

Labor, however, has long advocated for deeper engagement with Pacific countries, to meet our shared challenges and build our region's resilience. That's why the Albanese Labor government has hit the ground running, with the Prime Minister, the foreign minister and the Minister for International Development and the Pacific all spending significant time in the Pacific in our first 100 days of government. Labor will continue to strengthen Australia's Pacific partnerships by delivering a comprehensive package of new programs to secure our region and build a stronger Pacific family. Australia is proud to be part of the Pacific family, but being part of a family means that you listen to each other, and the Pacific family have been very clear: climate change is the No. 1 security threat to both their nations and their peoples. Australia stands shoulder to shoulder with Pacific island countries in response to the climate change crisis.

The Prime Minister joined Pacific island leaders in Fiji last July, declaring a climate emergency and a commitment to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. This was an incredibly important meeting and one that had been long overdue, and it was vital in being able to reset our relationships in the Pacific and send a very clear message not just to our region but to everyone watching that the Australian government is taking this issue extremely seriously and that we understand our Pacific neighbours' anxiety about the lack of action on climate change for the last decade.

The diplomatic agreement that was reached at that meeting in Fiji has already been followed with concrete action, and that is exactly what our Pacific neighbours want to see. The Albanese Labor government has passed the Climate Change Bill 2022 through the lower house. That bill will deliver on our election commitment to reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions to 43 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and to reach net zero by 2050. We have also internationally agreed to these targets by signing up to them at the United Nations. The Albanese Labor government has also made a bid to host a United Nations conference of the parties on climate change by 2024, in partnership with the Pacific. I can't think of anywhere more appropriate to host a climate change global conference than in the Pacific. Labor committed to this during the election. We intend to see it through because, unlike the former Liberal government, we will always work in partnership with Pacific nations, because that's what families do. (Time expired)

12:19 pm

Photo of Helen HainesHelen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | | Hansard source

I thank the member for Jagajaga for this important motion. No-one, in our near global neighbourhood, understands the existential threat of climate change better than our Pacific neighbours. Recently I participated in a multiparty parliamentary delegation to Fiji funded through Save the Children Fund and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I wish to discuss three issues we addressed through this delegation, each of which is fundamental to this motion. The first is ambitious policy to respond to climate change through scientifically driven emissions reductions targets. The second is disaster relief. The third is building economic resilience by expanding our Australian Pacific workforce partnerships in the agricultural sector.

First, I will talk about climate. It was a great honour to meet the secretary-general, Henry Puna, at the Pacific Islands Forum. Mr Puna described the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent and the crucial top-order priority of a scientifically backed response to climate. This was not new. The Pacific Islands Forum was formed in 1971, and the Pacific Islands Forum have been global leaders for more than a decade in calling for action. Climate action and climate adaptation are already happening at speed in the Pacific islands. They have no choice. Take biosecurity as an example. Climate change is threatening biodiversity and food security in Fiji. I visited the Centre for Pacific Crops and Trees. They're responsible for the conservation of the region's genetic resources, especially food, and they maintain an extraordinary seed and plant tissue bank. I visited the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, and they're focusing on emerging pests and diseases in the Pacific. They were clear when they told me that climate change is creating new challenges for them. Australian investment in these centres is not only vital to Fiji, but it's vital to us here and our agricultural industry.

Nowhere is the impact of climate change more dramatic than on the frequency and the intensity of extreme weather events in Fiji. In December 2020, at Christmas time, Cyclone Yasa, a massive category 5 storm, hit the islands of Fiji, and those communities are still desperately trying to recover. The people in many villages I visited told me that cyclones such as Yasa had never before affected their particular islands. They were absolutely clear that this type of storm was something they had never experienced in Fiji before. Those people—like many of our bushfire victims—are living in tents, and COVID has had a devastating impact on their recovery. It's been so slow and so difficult. I visited health clinics and women's projects, and everyone, without exception, talked to me about the physical and psychological impact of climate change and their feelings that the world is acting way, way too slowly—because climate change is not going slowly in Fiji.

Finally, I met with several communities who participate in the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme, the PALM scheme. The importance of this scheme to the economic stability of Fiji cannot be underestimated. It's not just good for us in our agricultural centre, but it's crucial to economic security and relationship building with Fiji. I was profoundly struck by how much the Fijians supported this scheme. Being able to have a family member travel to Australia to work in the agricultural sector and send wages home was transforming people's lives and transforming communities. With the incursion of rising sea levels in the Pacific and the relocation of villages, the economic opportunity that PALM offers is not to be underestimated. And yet there are many workers across the Pacific who want to come—and many Australian farmers are crying out for more farm workers—but there are such long delays in getting them here. Recently I heard from one of my berry growers who lost 80 per cent of her harvest last summer because there was no ability for those Pacific island workers to get to her farm.

I urge the government to think creatively about how it can solve these urgent problems. There are 50,000 people waiting to come here on the PALM scheme. I urge the government to look beyond that, too, to a broader agricultural visa to address our desperate need for agricultural workers and the important economic impact it has on these communities. I urge the government this week as the Senate debates the Climate Change Bill. We've passed it through the House, and, while I was pleased to support it and have my amendments successfully moved, we need to do better. Forty-three per cent is not enough. We must do better. (Time expired)

12:24 pm

Photo of Luke GoslingLuke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Jagajaga for this important motion, because Australia is proud to be a longstanding and deeply engaged member of our Pacific family across the three regions of Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia. We have strong relationships with countries and peoples across these three regions, which we saw senior Australian leaders reaffirm immediately following the election of the Albanese government. In the government's first 100 days, the Prime Minister, the foreign minister and other ministers visited Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea. This sent a clear message about Australia's contribution in the region as a partner of choice and about our desire to be reliable, to turn up, to show respect, to listen, and to be transparent and open. These visits signalled that Australia will be an honest partner on issues that the Pacific cares about and will respond to shared challenges like climate change, COVID-19 and development.

The government is working hard to repair some of the reputational damage done by those opposite since 2013. When in office, the opposition undermined Australia's standing in the Pacific by cutting aid by $11 billion in 2015 and by dismissing the Pacific's vital interests on climate change. Who can forget former prime minister Scott Morrison, current Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton and others laughing at jokes about Pacific island countries being swallowed up by the effects of climate change? This government, the Albanese government, is bringing new energy, respect and resources to the region to help build a stronger Pacific family.

We recognise that climate change is the single biggest threat to the security, livelihoods and wellbeing of many of our island-nation neighbours. It is an urgent global challenge, and it is one in which we will play our part to help tackle. Towards this end, our government will increase support to the Pacific through a new Pacific Climate Infrastructure Financing Partnership for climate related infrastructure and energy projects in the Pacific and Timor-Leste. We'll also increase official development assistance by $525 million over the next four years, including to address climate change adaptation and resilience.

The recent Pacific Island Forum Leaders Meeting in July welcomed Australia's renewed commitment to Pacific climate change priorities. At this meeting, Australia joined Pacific leaders in declaring that the region is facing a climate emergency. We also stressed the urgency of lifting our ambition to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Pacific leaders welcomed our interest in partnering with the Pacific to host a future UN climate change conference.

I commend Pacific island countries for being world leading in their commitment to addressing climate change. They're on the front line and they're facing more extreme-weather events, such as cyclones and flooding, and rising oceans. These will have a direct impact on people's access to fresh water and on major essential industries such as fisheries, forestry, agriculture and tourism, all of which could seriously suffer from the effects of climate change. I'm proud to be part of a government that pledges to listen to and to stand shoulder to shoulder with our Pacific family.

Australia is also strengthening cultural and sporting ties. Sports diplomacy can play to Australia's strengths in the Pacific by leveraging our shared love of various codes like rugby union, NRL and cricket. After meeting with PNG's Prime Minister Marape in July, Prime Minister Albanese suggested potentially creating an NRL team for PNG, possibly including the wider Pacific. As the Prime Minister said, rugby league is one of Australia's proudest legacies in Papua New Guinea. As I'm sure you'd agree, Mr Deputy Speaker Buchholz, rugby union is much loved in many of our key Pacific countries. I want to congratulate Rugby Australia, who's got the women's A team going to Fiji in January next year. As well as cultural, church and historical connections, sport is among the visceral ties between Australia and our Pacific family.

12:29 pm

Photo of Alex HawkeAlex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

The opposition welcomes the motion from the member for Jagajaga in relation to our Pacific family and the role that Australia has played for a long time in supporting our region and the peoples of the Pacific. It was, of course, the Turnbull, Abbott and Morrison governments that stepped up and ensured that Australian foreign policy pivoted from the rest of the world to our region, and we weren't alone in doing this. For those members who were here, you will recall President Obama announced on the floor of this House that US foreign policy would also pivot to our region. This was continued by President Trump and has been continued by President Biden. What it says is that in foreign policy terms the Pacific region is one of the most significant to the world and also to the United States of America but, most importantly, to Australia.

Our Pacific family came first under the previous government, it came first in our foreign policy objectives and it came first in our aid and other delivery budgets. That's why most of our aid budget was spent in the Pacific. That's why Australia is still the largest development partner of every single country in the Pacific today. We welcome the government continuing the policy to ensure that this region is at the forefront of Australian foreign policy and at the forefront of our development dollar. We know that our family here in the Pacific is the most important for the security of our region, for the economic prosperity of our region and for the success of the peoples of it. That's where we could recommend to the government that they enhance a motion such as this from the member for Jagajaga.

They could have spoken about some of the economic challenges that face our region. When you go to the countries of the Pacific, as I had the opportunity to in government as the minister, you'll see the abject poverty that many people live in, in the Pacific. It's a serious issue. Abject poverty has led to malnutrition. Malnutrition has led to issues like stunting of entire populations and generations of young people, which Australians still don't know enough about. I believe it's incumbent on all of us here—and I know the government shares my view—to do as much as possible to help our Pacific neighbours—our friends and family—to make sure that we lift people out of this abject poverty and malnutrition, and to make sure they have healthy lives. We welcome motions like this, which promote healthy living and ensure that Australia will be at the forefront of efforts to do just that in the Pacific.

Climate change is, of course, a significant concern. When you go to places like Tuvalu you understand that the highest elevation is about two metres above sea level—any human population on the archipelagos of Tuvalu will always and primarily be very concerned, every single day, with changes in the climate, changes in the weather and changes in the sea levels. Coming from an island like Australia, with huge mountain regions, it's hard to understand the psychology, but when you go there you see two metres above sea level is the highest elevation. It's a prime concern. We understand that, and we accept it.

The government will, as it says here, continue our government's policy of having climate at the centre of our infrastructure development, and that's why Australia has been such a good partner for this region. The infrastructure we build is resilient for the climate. It has to take into account the frequent tropical storms and cyclones that have happened in the region over many generations and that happen more these days. There frequent and extreme weather events are mentioned here. Our funding has been resilient and has taken climate into account, and it's better placed than all of the other efforts that come from other partners of the Pacific in this region. That's why Australia has spoken loudly about other partners—and there are some notable ones, whether they be the United States or China—who come into this region and spend their development dollars in a way that is not resilient for the climate. There are plenty of examples of environmental disasters from other countries that do not take the care that Australia takes in relation to environmental projects or economic projects in the region. They have wrecked the environment of many particular countries. You can go to examples in PNG and Solomon Islands, where we've seen the strip-logging of forests and vegetation in the most environmentally unfriendly way. We've seen pristine waters spoiled by mining operations from certain countries and partners that wreck the environment.

The opposition knows that Australia has always had a very, very good environmental record in the Pacific region. It's our backyard, just like it is our prime foreign policy area, and we would never despoil the environment of Pacific, but that's not the attitude of other partners. We welcome motions like this that recognise Australia's role and we support the government in its attempts to keep the Pacific at the forefront of foreign policy, but we take to task those partners who do not have the care or concern for the peoples of the Pacific at the heart of their agenda. We say that Australia will always put the people of the Pacific first.

Photo of Scott BuchholzScott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his contribution. The time allocated for the debate has now expired.