Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very interested in the Migration (Climate Refugees) Amendment Bill 2007, although it has only recently been drawn to my attention. I will ask some questions in the committee stages of the bill on just how it would operate, because a cursory look at the terms of the bill suggest to me that it would be wide open to abuse and that it really has little to do with climate change, immigration and visas but a lot to do with the Greens normal stunt-like approach to parliament and their policies. In the committee stage I will be very keen to ask some questions and try to get some answers.

I want to generally indicate that the Australian government over a succession of environment ministers, and particularly under the current environment minister, has been not just very concerned about climate change but actually doing things about it. I reiterate a point I always make: the Labor Party and others have come to this debate recently because focus groups I think have indicated to Mr Rudd that this is an important issue. Labor has a focus group approach and answer to climate change.

In contrast to that, the Howard government has been looking at this issue since the former Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator Robert Hill, initiated the Australian Greenhouse Office back in, I think, 1997. As I recall, the Australian Greenhouse Office was the first government agency of that type to be set up anywhere in the world to address the issue of climate change. So, unlike Mr Rudd, who has come to this issue because focus groups have told him to do that in the last 12 months, the Howard government has been addressing this issue for 10 years or more. The Greenhouse Office has been very well funded to do its work. The Australian government has financed any number of initiatives—it would take the whole of my 20 minutes to go through them—at very great cost to the taxpayer. But I think the taxpayers, along with the government, are happy to have spent the money because what we have achieved has been important.

It is also very important to highlight that this is a global problem. Australia produces less than two per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. If you turned off every electric light bulb, shut down every power station and closed every mine in Australia tomorrow, the greatest impact that would have on greenhouse gas emissions would be about 1½ per cent. It would still leave a real problem for the globe, in that 98.5 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions would continue to pollute the world. So Australia’s principal contribution to mankind is to try to get the big emitters—China, India and the United States—to the table so that some sensible program can be agreed upon and implemented to stop global greenhouse gas emissions.

Some of our respected and supposedly responsible politicians are determined that Australia should damage itself economically for a result that would not make one iota of difference to greenhouse gas emissions and, therefore, climate change. They are determined that Australia should destroy itself economically without making any real contribution to climate change. What we have to do is try to convince those big emitters—and, in that way, we can make a real contribution to the climate change debate. Notwithstanding that Australia is such a small emitter, we have done more, proportionally, than most other countries to address greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. The programs the government has been involved in have contributed very substantially to that.

Mr Rudd’s current policy—I think it is still his current policy—is to sign up to the Kyoto protocol. But I suspect that will not be his policy after he speaks to the Bowen Basin miners, members of the CFMEU, who, along with me, recognise that Labor’s policy of signing the Kyoto protocol is a ridiculous response to climate change. Signing a bit of paper will not make one iota of difference to climate change. In fact, a lot of the countries that have signed the Kyoto protocol have done nothing. I think 167 countries signed onto the Kyoto protocol—and only 34 of them have attempted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Even those who had the best intentions have not reduced their greenhouse emissions as they agreed to do at Kyoto. Indeed, Australia is on track to meet its target of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions to 108 per cent of 1990 levels. We are one of the few countries that are doing that. Signing the Kyoto protocol will not make one iota of difference, yet that seems to be Labor’s main policy approach: sign a bit of paper and the world will be all smiles again. That is just ridiculous, but it is typical of the focus-driven policy approach from the Labor Party at the present time. They are focus driven on everything, it seems, except tax policy. Their only tax policy is to have no policy at all.