Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

We hear this mantra from Labor time and time again that the Howard government has done nothing about greenhouse issues or climate change. It is absolute nonsense, as we have said time and time again in this chamber. Usually Senator Evans gets his lieutenant, Senator Wong, or one of the other people in his party to put up this nonsensical argument, presumably because he is too embarrassed to persist with it, but today Senator Evans has jumped in with the absolute nonsense claim that the Howard government has not done anything about greenhouse issues or climate change.

Senator Evans is fully aware that one of the first things the Howard government did when it came to office in 1996 was to establish the world’s first greenhouse office. If the previous Labor government had any awareness of climate change, it was open to them during the 1990s to establish a greenhouse office, but it did not do anything. In fact, it is a matter of great pride within the coalition that it can say that it established the first greenhouse office of a government anywhere in the world. That probably should be enough to completely destroy the credibility of the rest of Senator Evans’s remarks.

One of other comments Senator Evans made was that we were doing nothing about renewables, but of course we have a very strong renewable energy program and we have committed almost $3.4 billion to initiatives that directly address climate change and over a quarter of a million dollars to more indirect measures. The Howard government’s energy white paper is the most definitive statement on lowering greenhouse gas emissions. The strategy includes, for Senator Evans’s information, the $500 million Low Emissions Technology Demonstration Fund and the $100 million Renewable Energy Development Initiative—so much for the Howard government, Senator Evans, not doing anything about renewable energy.

Most significantly, in terms of what Senator Evans just had to say, the $75 million Solar Cities initiative very much underlines our commitment to seeking to develop the science and technology to enable solar energy to be used in this country. Of course, Australia is blessed with abundant sunshine and if we can develop the science of solar energy to a degree that it can be used to power cities and plants and provide lighting along highways then Australia will have developed a very useful technology indeed. In Victoria we have set up the largest solar energy plant in the world, at the cost of many millions of dollars. Senator Evans, rather than criticising the Howard government in this chamber, should give credit where credit is due. The Howard government surely deserves credit for its imaginative initiatives in setting up Solar Cities programs around this country.

The government’s climate strategy has also stimulated significant private investment in low-emission technologies. One of Senator Evans’s criticisms was that business was not happy with the government’s policies on climate change, but the mandatory renewable energy target is expected to leverage $3.5 billion in private investment over the coming years. Lastly, the Prime Minister recently announced the next major plank of our climate change strategy, which is a national emissions trading scheme due to begin in 2012. Senator Evans knows that and his remarks about us not having an emissions trading scheme are quite wrong and misleading. Again, the government deserves to be congratulated. (Time expired)