Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This seems to indicate that the rebates may if anything be too generous, in my view, especially for a one-kilowatt system. I think we need to have some real policy debates about these issues in the future. I note that COAG is currently examining feed-in tariff schemes, and it is my hope that these will provide an important part of the way forward.

There is no doubt as we move into a time of carbon constraint, as we make efforts to reduce climate change impacts, that these issues will remain at the forefront of public policy debates. They need to remain at the forefront of public policy debates because we have real issues before us in terms of coming to grips with the need to constrain the carbon that Australia generates and puts out into the atmosphere. It is going to mean big changes for industry, households and communities, but if we do not take serious and meaningful action we will really be betraying our environment.

Australia is highly vulnerable to climate change. I know in the south-west of my own state of Western Australia we have already experienced significant declines in rainfall as a result of climate change. The impact of climate change is already being felt on biodiversity in the south-west of WA. In the south-west, the lowered rainfall has meant much less water for the environment, let alone for farmers and community use. We have seen changing weather patterns already having a substantial impact, and climate change scientists tell us that this is just going to get worse. It is going to escalate in ways that we cannot yet imagine. So we need to take real action in this time of carbon constraint, as we make efforts to reduce climate change impacts, and we are going to need to make some really hard decisions in the future—but we need real policies to do this and not cheap political shots like those before us. As a matter of public policy, it is clear that Labor has made the right decision to means-test this rebate, and therefore Labor opposes this bill.