Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Milne’s motion points to the important and serious role that the Greens take, and have taken over the last decade and more, in trying to bring to the attention and the notice of government and this parliament the incredible impact that climate change is going to have on every Australian’s life over the coming centuries. The motion from Senator Milne is notable for its conservatism. It is a motion to have a Senate inquiry look at the impact of sea level rises on Australia—to gather from the scientific community, the planning community, the business community and from all Australians information about the impact that climate change, through sea level rises, is having and will have on every Australian.

It needs to be reiterated, if I may short-hand it, that Sir Nicholas Stern said in this city, in Canberra, earlier this year, that if we are not prepared to have a one per cent diversion of our wealth now to tackle climate change then the impact on our grandchildren may be a 20 per cent diversion of wealth. With that will come a massive disruption to the psychology of peace and happiness for this planet as it tangles with mass migrations and, potentially, civil conflicts and wars, huge impacts on business and on the general sense of wellbeing on the planet as the environmental catastrophe overtakes us in all areas of living on the planet. I congratulate the opposition, by the way, it having rejected Senator Milne’s earlier move for an inquiry three months ago, for now seeing the sense in our proceeding with an inquiry and agreeing with Senator Milne that this is the responsibility of the Senate, that this is the proper function of the Senate.

The question now comes onto the government. This is again a very big test of the Howard government’s commitment to using its numbers in the Senate with prudence and in the interests of all Australians. There is no way the government can use its numbers to prevent this inquiry and stick with that commitment. Yesterday the Prime Minister reasserted his authority in government. He said he is about to reveal goals for the future and he will see them through before handing the reins to his Prime Minister-in-waiting, Mr Costello. One of the challenges for Mr Howard is to throw off the inhibition, if not the scepticism, of the last decade and to not only make this nation prepared to deal with the reality of the impact of climate change but also put us back in the forefront of the world in legislating to minimise that impact, which is coming down the road on our children, our grandchildren and their offspring for many generations to come. This is a prime responsibility of us as parliamentarians. It is a responsibility that Prime Minister Howard has failed to meet and which now challenges him as Prime Minister of this country. If the direction from the Prime Minister’s office to this Senate, through the government, is to squash an inquiry to look into the fundamentals of the impact of climate change on Australia’s coastlines, it will be a clear statement by the Prime Minister that he is still unable to rise to the Australia of the 21st century, that he is still back in last century’s thinking.

As Senator Milne has pointed out, even the scientists have been too conservative on the matter. Anybody watching our television programs in the last week will have seen the astonishing and extremely frightening break-up of the Greenland icecap. Senator Milne is talking about massive glaciers, which were almost static just a few decades ago, now moving at two metres per hour. We know about the loss of glaciers around the world. In Glacier National Park in the United States 30 glaciers that were there just a century ago are now non-existent. They are rapidly melting in the Himalayas, in the Andes, in tropical West Papua and in Papua New Guinea. Right around the world this is happening. And now there are grave fears for the west Antarctic icecap. The sea level rises that Senator Milne is talking about, of four to six metres, as a result of the Greenland and west Antarctic icecap events, are again conservative measures. To bring this into focus, when you put the tip of a measure at four to six metres on the historic buildings of the Salamanca waterfront in Hobart, the tip is up at window level on the first floor. We have to face the reality of that prospect—