Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

I may well say no to mining on Christmas Island when I read the assessment. But we are making an assessment, so I can say either yes or no. I have a question to those who want to say, ‘Let’s put an assessment requirement into the act which will require every coalmine in Australia to be subjected to an assessment based on greenhouse impact’.

You can already accurately assess the greenhouse contribution of a coalmine, based on—as Senator Siewert would understand quite well—a fairly simple calculation about the greenhouse gas emissions from each tonne of coal. Depending on the quality of the coal, you will know exactly—give or take a small percentage error—what the greenhouse gas emissions will be for a coalmine when the coal is burnt. That is quite easy.

I do not think it is so much a question for the Greens to answer, because I think Senator Milne very explicitly and very honestly said that—I do not want to verbal her on this but I think she said—‘On a moral and ethical basis we would say no to coalmines, knowing that the coal will be burnt and will create greenhouse gases.’ The real question—I think I said last week—is one for either Beazley Labor or, potentially as it was then, Rudd Labor. I made the point that we do not take any joy out of leadership fights; we have been through a lot ourselves on this side. But there is an issue for Rudd Labor if they are proposing to apply a Commonwealth assessment for greenhouse gas emissions to coalmines. And this is even more interesting because Mr Rudd is from Queensland and he is pushing the idea of cooperative federalism. He needs to now tell Mr Beattie why he would put a new layer of Commonwealth assessment process across every potential coalmine in Queensland, if, in fact, a future environment minister—say, Peter Garrett in a Rudd Labor government—were not going to say no to opening a new coalmine in Queensland. I think it is a very important question for Labor to answer. I repeat the view that—and I do not want to go on ad nauseam; I would like to keep my answers shorter today—