Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would also like to speak to Senator Carr's motion to take note of the minister's answer. Could I note in passing that Senator Sinodinos, as is his wont, has tried to be helpful and has indicated he will personally follow up those answers. But the absolute gall of Senator Carr in particular, and anyone on the Labor front bench, in complaining about questions not being answered almost leaves me breathless; some would say it is a pity it wasn't speechless! In government, Senator Carr and his colleagues would not answer questions taken on notice for up to three years. In fact, I remember questions I asked still being on the notice paper when the parliament was prorogued for the 2013 election. Senator Carr complains that these have not been answered since 1 April. That is 19 days ago. When I compare that with the months and literally years that Labor ministers failed to even attempt to answer questions, I am, as I say, breathless.

These questions relate to the CSIRO. We are apparently going to be having estimates processes in the not too distant future, as I hear the scuttlebutt around this chamber. I am sure that, if Senator Carr has questions that he must have answers to, then that would be a good opportunity for it. Senator Carr says that a committee of which he is a member is having some hearings next week, relative to this particular topic, and I would expect that, if Senator Sinodinos is not able to provide those answers from the representative minister—I hasten to add that it is not Senator Sinodinos's portfolio; it is a minister whom he represents—and so if they are not available to be tabled in parliament by this afternoon, then Senator Carr will be able to follow those questions up at the hearing.

As I mentioned yesterday, this issue relates, as I understand it, to decisions made by the CSIRO management. The CSIRO is an independent statutory authority. It runs itself. It looks at its resources. It looks at the money that it has available. It looks at what projects it is being asked to research or to conduct further scientific study into. And the management of the CSIRO then determines how it will spend its resources.

The CSIRO announced, quite openly, some time ago, that it was diverting some of the positions in its organisation from the pure science of climate change towards how to adapt to climate change—how to ensure sustainability in the face of climate change. Allegations by the Labor Party and the Greens that the CSIRO is slashing staff are simply not true. As I understand it, in the long term the staffing will stay exactly the same at the CSIRO. It is just that scientists will be diverted from dealing with the science of climate change to how to cope with climate change.

I have sat in this chamber and in various committees, and, time and time again, I have heard Senator Carr and his colleagues in the Greens political party saying that the science of climate is settled. How many times have I been told that? Someone help me—was it a hundred times or a thousand times? Senator Carr might indicate how many times he has said that the science of climate change is settled. If that is the case, why would the CSIRO be spending rare resources—I mean, it is well funded; I understand that the government is providing a record $3.1 billion in the 2015-16 budget to the CSIRO, over the forward estimates. It is a lot of money. But the work that they are doing requires careful spending of that money. And if, as we are continually told, the science of climate change is settled, why would you spend those moneys on research that is over and done with?

Accepting that there is climate change, why wouldn't you put that into what we should do about it and how we can best address the issue of climate change?

What the CSIRO said was that there will be a realignment of activity within its climate change division so that it can focus now on climate change mitigation and abatement—that is, as I said, tackling what we do about it, accepting, as Senator Carr keeps telling us, that the science is settled. This is, as I mentioned at the beginning, an operational decision of the CSIRO, which is an independent statutory authority. In fact, I might even quote Senator Carr, who was the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research when he said at Senate estimates on 3 June 2008, at the time when the Labor Party had quite substantially cut the CSIRO budget:

… the government has made the budgetary decision. The implementation issues are matters for the CSIRO and the board. The CSIRO board has to sign off on these decisions.

Again, that reinforces what I said, and what I assume the minister has said before: that these are matters for the CSIRO. These are decisions for it to make on how best to allocate the resources it has.

Unlike Labor, who substantially cut the budget of the CSIRO, in the last budget the Turnbull government provided a record $3.1 billion in funding to the CSIRO over the forward estimates. That indicates, again, that this government is serious about funding the CSIRO for the research it does and for the science it brings to this nation, but leaves it to the experts in the CSIRO—the management of the CSIRO—to determine how best to spend the increased money which the government has allocated to the CSIRO, as opposed to what we all remember were the Labor Party's cuts in funding to the CSIRO several years ago. Now, I repeat: in the face of misrepresentations from the Labor Party and the Greens, there will be no net job losses overall across the agency, and all staff entitlements will be fulfilled. The CSIRO, like any good manager, has been in the process of consulting with staff over the period following these announcements and is also seeking input from external stakeholders on how best to use the money the CSIRO has for the climate change area to deal with the impacts of climate change—how to focus on mitigation and abatement.

I have heard calls from the Labor Party and the Greens to delay the implementation of these changes at the CSIRO. But I again say: these are operational matters for the CSIRO, not for the government to make decisions upon. The CSIRO, as I have mentioned, is following its normal consultation process, as required under its enterprise agreement. I understand that its management are assessing the feedback from an extended consultation period in the context of the CSIRO's organisational priorities and their understanding of the CSIRO's future performance against existing contracts and collaboration arrangements. It is my understanding that the CSIRO's chief executive and the executive team will, after these consultations, make the assessments and finalise the planned changes. CSIRO's management, I understand, consider that further significant delays will have a detrimental impact on the staff at the CSIRO in that they will be unable to provide certainty in those areas that are directly impacted.

This is another of the Labor Party's furphies—misrepresentations, I might say—designed to divert the attention of the Australian public away from the lack of any real policies of the Labor Party and onto other issues that are not relevant. I have to say that at least Senator Carr raises issues that do have some relevance to policy unlike, regrettably, the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, who chose to get into the gutter when it came to her opportunity to ask serious questions at question time. All she could do was attempt to slur members of this parliament in a most inappropriate and unfortunate way—and I thank Senator Brandis for pointing out to Senator Wong, and hopefully to the people in Australia, just how inappropriate the opposition Senate leader's supposed questions and slurs on members of this parliament were. But I have diverted myself from the subject at hand, which, as we all recall, was a motion by Senator Carr to take note of the answer given by Senator Sinodinos, who has indicated he would try to get the answers that Senator Carr wanted.

I come back to the question of climate change. I have emphasised that CSIRO are putting less money into what I would call the pure science of climate change and are instead diverting it to mitigation and abatement. That is appropriate. I am one who acknowledges that the climate changes. As I often say, I remember—I was not around, but I have read that Australia was once covered in ice and I have read that at other times the centre of Australia was a rainforest.

Senator Scullion interjecting—

I was not around, I can assure you. I have been around for a while, Senator Scullion, but—

Government senators interjecting—

Yes! References have been made to 'dinosaur' when talking about me. I can assure you that I was not around when the dinosaurs did roam, but I understand from reading that the centre of Australia was a rainforest inhabited by, amongst other things, dinosaurs. Clearly, that is not now. Something has happened and the climate has changed. In the last thousand years or so, according to the history books, things have changed again.

I am one of those who acknowledge climate change. I have always been unpersuaded—I do not get into this argument, because I have no scientific background—that it is man's emission of carbon that is causing the climate to change. I wonder how man's emissions interfered with the dinosaurs and the rainforest back in those days, but that is for cleverer people than me to look at.

The point I always make is that if carbon emissions are the cause of climate change now—clearly, it was not back in those days—then Australia and the rest of the world need to be concerned about it and Australia and the rest of the world should do something about it. But when you understand that Australia emits less than 1.2 per cent of the world's carbon you have to understand that reducing Australia's emissions by 10, 20, 30 or 50 per cent, which we are being called upon to do, will not make one iota of difference to the world's changing climate, if it is caused by man's emission of carbon. At such a small level, if you cut Australia's emissions by 100 per cent, if you stopped Australia—that means shut down every electricity generator, stop every motor vehicle, bus, train, whatever—there would be 1.2 per cent less carbon emitted into the world's atmosphere. I challenge anyone to tell me what impact that would have on the changing climate of the world, if it is caused by man's emission of carbon.

I appreciate and I accept that Australia should always do what the rest of the world is doing with the big emitters—America, China, Russia, India. When they reduce their emissions down to 1.2 per cent then Australia should be part of the global effort. But what Labor had us doing in their time was detrimental to Australian industry and jobs while making no impact whatsoever on the emission of carbon worldwide. There is no sense in flagellating ourselves as a nation for no benefit at all. We were exporting Australian jobs overseas, to China, to India, to North America—places that have very big emission of carbon. We were sending the jobs of our workers over there, because the Labor Party government was penalising the industries that those workers worked in in Australia.

Australia used to be recognised as having the cheapest and best energy source in the world. We had a good manufacturing industry because we had cheap power. I know this from up in my part of the world at Sun Metals, the zinc refinery in Townsville. Sun Metals came to Townsville because we had good, cheap power, but I guess that 30 years on they wish they had never seen Australia, because power prices are so expensive. Why? Because Labor governments keep increasing the cost of power through things such as the carbon tax.

I have strayed slightly off the CSIRO aspect. I will come back to it now. It is an important issue that CSIRO be able to deal with and manage their budget in the best way they see fit. I have great confidence in the CEO and the board of CSIRO to do that in the most appropriate way.