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

Can you believe it? The government is so cavalier about this regulation to again featherbed the most polluting component of the Australian economy in 2009—that is, the big coal and energy generators, distributors and transmitters—that it cannot even get Senator Carr, the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, the minister who represents the Minister for Resources and Energy in the House of Representatives, Mr Martin Ferguson, to be here. He has another appointment. That is how much this matters to the government. Senator Milne has quite rightly moved to disallow the extension of time for the prodigious greenhouse gas producers and polluters to be exempted from legislation. They should bring in, or at least discover and give to the government, opportunities for energy efficiency—that is, for producing energy without producing pollution. The rest of economy—the big polluters, at least—are put under the requirements of this legislation, but not the most polluting industries in the nation, the coal-fired power stations and their distributors. No, not them.

The Howard government was the most negligent government you could imagine for a country like Australia when it came to its responsibilities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a time of high public alarm and global awareness of an increasing threat to the planet and its future. We thought at least we would see a change with the new government. But the Howard government legislated for a three-year exemption for the big polluters and here we have the Rudd government—of course, supported by the coalition, made up of the Liberal Party and the coal corporation party—to have four years further exemption. Senator Evans, who has been commissioned to speak on Minister Ferguson’s behalf, said, ‘We’ll review it after that.’ He also told the Senate that all submissions received on this matter recommended keeping the exemptions. Wall-to-wall, self-invested big polluters presented themselves to the government with their submissions and had the Rudd Labor government fall into line, as they repeatedly do.

One would have liked to have heard the minister tell the Senate what the submission was on this matter from the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Hon. Peter Garrett. What did he think about exempting these formidable polluters from the requirement that they simply look at what they are doing to see how energy efficiency—that is, non-polluting processes and freeing up energy without further pollution—could be found within their industry. Of course it could. Senator Minchin says that may be an expense to these big polluting corporations, many of which send their profits out of this country. Senator Minchin would say that, wouldn’t he, because he counts the impact of climate change as zero. We have global economists like Sir Nicholas Stern warning that, if we do not expend some money—one per cent of GDP—fixing and redirecting our economy to a green economy so that we avoid catastrophic climate change, our grandchildren will be diverting six to 20 per cent of their gross domestic product to try to ameliorate climate change. But the philosophy of the two parties in here is, ‘Well, let the devil take the hindmost and let future generations look after themselves.’ This is despite having our eyes open to the evidence which we all know about and deal with here.

We have a government which in policy like this is controlled by the coal corporations—the big polluters. It says it did not have a recommendation from anybody who felt otherwise than to give the exemption to these big polluters and keep it going. Senator Minchin, in his submission, was blithely unaware of the fact that the efficiency of big coal-burning power stations itself has to be looked at in this matter. It is well known that many of these coal fired power stations are struggling at about 30 per cent efficiency—that is, of the coal they burn, 60 per cent is simply polluting the atmosphere for no good to the community. Should we not be asking those corporations to look at their processes and to improve on that? ‘No,’ says Senator Minchin, ‘because it might cost them some money.’ They will not be able to repatriate as much of their profits to New York, Berlin, London or wherever. That is because they come in here and get politicians who have no vision, who have no eye to the future, who accept no great responsibility but who nevertheless will be given no excuse—because Senator Milne brought this up this afternoon—to do the wrong thing by this nation. The other corporations who are receiving the energy and using it in whatever way do have to look to producing energy efficiency, but not the big coal burners. What an extraordinary situation.

I remember this legislation when the Howard government brought it through and the dereliction of this exemption for the big polluters. But I would not have credited then that three years later we could have a Rudd Labor government in office which wants to give them an even longer exemption. It is negligent. It is culpable. It is an affront to the future of the economy, as well as the wellbeing of this—