Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Milne’s motion this afternoon has highlighted some core aspects of agreement, and I think that is really important. We have spoken many times before in this place about the importance of this issue being openly discussed in the parliament. As this motion puts it, it should be openly discussed and accountability should be taken at the international level. We will have a real opportunity at Cancun, the first international gathering on these issues since Copenhagen, to accept that we have moved on. I remember debating this issue in this place for many hours in the lead-up to the Copenhagen conference. People were talking about whether we were going the right way and what the appropriate response to these issues would be, and there was a lot of pain expressed in those debates—and all of that continues.

But the core aspect of Copenhagen, despite the frustration and anger that we did not get the result that we wanted in terms of an effective international agreement, was that, through that process, there was effective discussion of the issues, and there was agreement by a large number of countries—which consistently gets forgotten—about the need for action and the need for concurrence on the science. Through those hours of discussion in this place, it certainly became clear that there was a genuine difference in the whole of the parliament—the House of Representatives and the Senate—about the science. The government remains committed to having an open and aware discussion of the science. Professor Garnaut’s paper in 2008 was the basis on which we went to the community to look at the issues of climate change and the need to take action in this country. Minister Combet has worked with Professor Garnaut to continue his extraordinarily important work and update the work he put in place in 2008. So we still have the core assessment, the knowledge that all of us shared in 2008, and we are going to update that.

I am sad to say this, but the reality is that that does not mean there will be agreement in this place on these issues. We will hear that in this afternoon’s debate. We will hear many of the same people—quite rightly, because it is their right and it is their job in this place—put forward their views on the science and the issues around climate change. We know that there is not agreement here. What we should do is try to bring ourselves forward so that we can find out what we agree on and what we disagree on, and then it will come down to the numbers, as it so often does in this place. Frankly, the government knows that the last time issues around climate change came to this chamber we did not have the numbers. We hear a lot about alliances in this place, and during that debate there was an alliance of people who had agreed to vote down the proposal for climate change action in this country leading up to Copenhagen. But that is history. Moving into the Mexico round of discussions we now have the opportunity to make progress—and I believe there is real hope.

But that does not mean that everybody in this place is suddenly going to have a Damascus experience and believe in the issues of climate change. I wish that would happen but I am doubtful. I think what will happen is that we will have the same disagreements. I have six regular correspondents who email me on, I think, a daily basis with an amazing amount of email references—often the same ones—which can prove beyond doubt that there is no such thing as climate change. That is their belief and they should put it forward. I do not agree with them. I actually believe that we have a genuine responsibility and climate change is a huge issue. But it is not just an issue for Australia. We cannot talk about this as a purely Australian issue. Leading up to Copenhagen we said we needed to take our role as part of an international response to an international issue. Climate change knows no boundaries. You cannot draw boundaries on a map and say climate change is an issue for one country but not for a neighbouring country.

And that is particularly clear in our region. One of my clear memories of Copenhagen—I was one of those people who was mad enough to watch it on the Sky Channel news to see what was going on; and I am sure there were a few other people in this place who did that—was the evidence put forward by a group of people from the Pacific nations. They knew their science but, more than that, they knew their reality.