Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Again it is with great disappointment that I rise for the second time today to speak on an issue on which this Prime Minister has failed the nation. He has failed to show the leadership that is necessary to tackle the great issue of our generation—that is, the issue of catastrophic global warming. He has failed to show any respect for the great body of scientific evidence that demonstrates the need for urgent action. He has failed to acknowledge the community view that has shifted so profoundly since he has taken office, in which there is a great demand from the community for their political leaders to show action on climate change. It is because of that failure that we were treated yesterday to the spectacle that was the announcement of this government's climate change targets. We were bamboozled by graphs and power point presentations from the Minister for the Environment, Greg Hunt, in this Svengali-like presentation—Al Gore it was not—in which he tried to confuse and obfuscate the issue of what Australia is doing in order to tackle the great issue of our generation. It was a deliberate change of tack.

Until recently, climate change was 'absolute crap', according to the Prime Minister, who described himself as a weather vane on the issue. Of course, the many climate change sceptics within the coalition were egging on the Prime Minister to do nothing but he knew he could not go out there and maintain what this government has done since it has taken office—that is, to sit on its hands, to do nothing. He knew that he had to give the impression of action when the reality was that they would do nothing. So this was a political fix designed to convince the Australian public that the government had learnt that it was important now to start taking global action on the issue. But what it did was tricky, it was deceptive and it was misleading because it tried to give the impression that somehow Australia was in the middle of the pack when it came to tackling the issue. Instead, with some closer scrutiny of those numbers, we learnt that the baseline the government chose was the baseline when Australia was a significant contributor to global carbon pollution. He chose that 2005 baseline very deliberately and then tried to compare how we were acting with the rest of the world, not comparing like with like but using different starting points and, in some cases, a different end point.

The simple fact is this. Before the announcement yesterday, Australia was the world's biggest greenhouse gas polluter per capita—anywhere in the world. Yesterday's announcement does not change that. Tomorrow, the next day and well into the next decade we will continue to be the world's biggest greenhouse gas polluter per capita. We will continue with that unenviable record and at a time when we are desperate for the transformation that is necessary in our economy to decouple economic prosperity with carbon pollution, we have a government which has hitched its wagon on a business model which belongs in the last century, not in this century. Yesterday's announcement has deprived this country of its potential—the enormous potential that exists in the renewable energy industry, the enormous potential that exists in making the transformation away from those energy-intensive, polluting industries that belong in another era, with those pollution-free, jobs-rich industries which this country must adopt if we are to create economic opportunities and jobs for this generation and for generations to follow.

The good news is we can change this. We can these measly targets. We can ensure that over the coming decades we take the action that is absolutely necessary. We now know that we have significant segments of the business community behind us, we have significant segments of the scientific community behind us and, most importantly, we have the community behind us.