Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Before I come to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Climate Trigger) Bill 2022, I might quickly respond to some of the misleading claims that were just made by Senator Grogan. Senator Grogan has been saying or suggesting that the current Labor government has reduced Australia's emissions. I just checked their own accounts—their own greenhouse gas accounts—on the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water's website. Emissions have actually gone up. They've gone up under this government. So I'm not exactly sure what Senator Grogan was claiming in the last contribution we heard. She claimed they were taking action to reduce carbon emissions. In fact, when they got to power at the end of 2021, our carbon emissions were 440 million tonnes a year. By 2023, the last available year in their dataset, they were 453 million tonnes a year. They have gone up by 13 million tonnes a year. So we could pretty much strike out all of what Senator Grogan said just before, because basically her whole contribution was based, apparently, on them reducing carbon emissions, which they haven't actually done according to their own data.

To take the broader point, Senator Grogan is right that Australia's carbon emissions, as a whole, have reduced. It was not under this government, but they have reduced since the mid-2000s. In 2005, which was the date set under the Kyoto agreement, our emissions were 611 million tonnes a year. They are, as I said, 453 million tonnes, so they've gone down roughly 160 million tonnes a year. Almost all of that reduction has occurred through putting greater restrictions on our nation's farmers to be able to develop their own land. The so-called land use change category in the carbon accounts has reduced emissions by 150 million tonnes a year. That is 150 million tonnes of the 160 million tonnes that we have reduced as a country. That land use change is largely because state governments have put massive restrictions on farmers being able to clear their own property and their own land. Through the vagaries of the pretty dodgy carbon accounting schemes we have, we're allowed to say that that's a credit and it's reducing our emissions because we're not clearing as much land as we used to. Work that out at home, if you can.

Bringing myself back to the actual bill, I do support Senator Grogan in saying that this bill is not needed. It is misdirected, and it is trying to change the wrong piece of legislation to tackle this goal. I may get time later to come to the broader issues of climate change policy, but, to take the objective of what Senator Hanson-Young is trying to achieve at its face value, her own aims will not be achieved by this bill—and can't be. This bill would seek to change the temperature of the globe and stop algal blooms in South Australia, apparently by assessing the carbon emission impact on a project-by-project basis. The way the EPBC works is projects come forward for approval through our environmental law system, and the Greens are suggesting that, somehow, we would stop a project on an individual basis because of its individual impact on global temperatures and global carbon emissions.

Senator Hanson-Young pointed to the North West Shelf project, which has been conditionally approved by this government, and I welcome that. It's not completely through yet, but it would have scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions of around eight million tonnes a year—some say a little bit less, but let's take the higher amount. Let's say we get this legislation passed and we stop the North West Shelf project; if you take the IPCC formulas for the impact of carbon emissions on temperatures, stopping the North West Shelf project would lower global temperatures by a sum total of 0.000121 degrees Celsius. I don't know if that's going to stop the algal blooms in South Australia, but it seems unlikely that a change in the temperature of 0.0001 degrees Celsius is going to have a material impact on any of us. Yet that was the premise of the whole of Senator Hanson-Young's contribution. She is promising the Australian people that if we stop this one project then the weather will change in this country. That is completely and utterly absurd. It treats the Australian people like morons—they're not. Senator Hanson-Young was saying we're all stupid. No, no—I'm with stupid in this chamber! It is completely stupid to sit here and say that stopping one project is going to have a material impact on the world's climate or weather, but that's what this whole bill is trying to do. It should be rejected on that basis alone.

We know that this is inconsistent with the original objects of the EPBC Act, which has been around for a long time and does have its problems. But we know this is inconsistent with the original objectives because this matter was spoken about in the second reading speech of the EPBC Act, which then senator Robert Hill introduced. He said, in that second reading speech:

Ultimately, of course, we need more than just the best possible environmental law regime to protect Australia's environment and promote ecologically sustainable development … reducing the growth in greenhouse gas emissions is being achieved through a $180 million policy announced last year.

Clearly, the intent of the government and the parliament that passed this act was to say this act is dealing with some elements of the need to protect our nation's environment, but it is not tackling issues—there were some others he mentioned—and is not precisely aimed at tackling greenhouse gas emissions. It's not the vehicle to do that. It is just not set up to do this in a proper way. It would be completely absurd to stop projects like the North West Shelf given their minimal impact alone on the climate.

We are led to believe by the mover of the motion on this bill, Senator Hanson-Young, that somehow Australia would be getting left behind if we didn't pass this bill and that somehow the rest of the world is taking significant action on climate change. Again, there is very little evidence or facts provided to back that statement up—it is simply asserted. But all of that data is available.

Indeed, there has been some new data released in the last few weeks by the eminent Statistical Review of World Energy—it is the bible on all of these matters—which is now conducted by the Energy Institute. It is the best data source of all the different energy sources that are used around the world and it has a very good series on greenhouse gas emissions as well. That data released a few weeks ago showed that since the world signed up to this fantastical concept of net zero emissions in late 2021 at the Glasgow climate conference—the world signed up to net zero, apparently. We're constantly being told that the world is now reducing carbon emissions, and we're getting to net zero and we're going to get there—rah, rah, rah. We've now got three years of data since 2021, and since then global carbon emissions are up by 1.7 billion tonnes a year. Every year the world is emitting 1.7 billion tonnes more. This is a very inconvenient fact for those that stand in this chamber and say that the rest of the world is acting.

That none of them ever deal with it shows how inconvenient and embarrassing it is. It would be worth it, if you want your arguments to be taken seriously, to actually tackle the fact. How can you stand there and say that the world is acting on climate change when, actually, emissions have gone up by almost two billion tonnes in just the three years since this agreement was signed? Keep in mind how much that is. As I said earlier, Australia—thanks to the Labor government, we're now a bit higher than we were before they got elected—now emits 450 million tonnes a year. The world has increased its emissions by more than three times what we produce in any one year just in the last three years. So can we drop the act that the rest of the world is acting? It's not. They're not acting. They're not changing. They are continuing to produce energy for people who often don't quite have access to the 24 hours of electricity that we are lucky to have. All evidence points to the fact that countries are going to continue to do that. They're going to continue to prioritise the energy needs of their people—often, poor people, much poorer than us—rather than deal with or tackle the obsession with luxury items that those of us in the West seem to have.

It is true that some countries have reduced their emissions. They have largely lost their industry too. It is, I think, constructive to focus a little bit on those who are increasing their carbon emissions and why they might be doing that. We're constantly told that the coal industry is dying or that no-one will buy our coal anymore. I notice that Senator Grogan mentioned we've got great solar and wind resources—I agree with that—but we also have great coal resources in this country as well. The Labor Party doesn't mention that very often anymore. They're fantastic coal resources; we sell them to the world. Another inconvenient fact is that Energy Institute data shows that since net zero emissions were agreed to by the world, the world has been mining 1.2 billion tonnes more coal than it did beforehand. Putting that in context, we mine an amount of coal similar to the amount of our carbon emissions. That's 450-odd million tonnes a year of coal from Australia, and the increase has been more than double what we mined just in the last three years.

Another way that I like to put this into context is this. I think most people remember this thing called the Adani Carmichael coalmine. It was a little bit controversial a few years ago. It was the North West Shelf of a few years ago. If Sarah Hanson-Young had been giving this speech five or six years ago, no doubt Adani would have gotten a very liberal mention in her contribution. They don't mention it anymore. It is actually up and running; the mine is going. The planet hasn't blown up yet, but the mine is employing 1,200 people in North Queensland. It produces about 10 million tonnes a year. It's been a little bit more than that lately, but it's a nice round figure of 10 million tonnes a year. That's basically the Adani Carmichael mine.

I'll start at the bottom. Mongolia has increased its coalmining by 74 million tonnes per annum since net zero came into effect; that's seven Adani mines it's opened up. Indonesia have increased their coalmining by 222 million tonnes a year; they've opened 22 Adani mines in three years. Did you hear about it? Did anyone read about that in the newspaper? It was front page news in this country: opening up one Adani—one mine—of 10 million tonnes a year. But when Indonesia opens up 22 of them, there's nary a mention. I might come back to that stat, if I've got time, of the story of Indonesia. India have increased their coalmining by 273 million tonnes a year, so that's 27 Adani mines. Good luck to them. They've got much lower electricity prices than we do. But—wait for it—we can't, of course, forget our friend China. China has increased its coalmining by 654 million tonnes a year. It's opened up 65 Adani Carmichael coal mines in just three years. China produces almost six billion tonnes of coal a year, but it has increased that by 654 just in the last three years. I have to give the Chinese government officials much respect; they can keep a straight face when they talk to us about green steel and reducing emissions. Meanwhile, I bet you the Prime Minister didn't mention the fact that they increased their coalmining by 654 million tonnes. If he really cared about climate change, wouldn't he mention that?

We, little old Australia, have signed up to net zero. We haven't actually reduced our emissions, but we have destroyed our energy grid trying to. Since we signed up to net zero, electricity prices would have gone up by 30 per cent if it weren't for the enormous government subsidies, which are ending soon. The price of gas is up 39 per cent, and that is why everybody is struggling in this country. Meanwhile, we're losing our industry.

I mentioned I might come back to that Indonesian figure. Indonesia has increased coalmining by that massive amount. Why has it done that? Well, a big, big reason for its increase in coalmining—Indonesia has increased its coal-fired power as well; we think about 20 new coal-fired power stations have been built in Indonesia in the last three years, which is more than we have in this country—is that Indonesia has fuelled a massive expansion in nickel smelting. A great documentary on Channel 7 recently investigated it.

But, again, it gets very little commentary here, while we talk about this thing—that one of our closest neighbours are not only increasing their carbon emissions; they are doing so to massively expand their nickel smelting, and the effect of that has been to shut Australia's nickel refinery and nickel smelter. We've lost the nickel industry but for a couple of nickel mines that are left. We've lost 10,000 jobs in this country because of that, and it never gets mentioned. Other countries are laughing at us while we destroy our energy competitiveness and they just go on with gay abandon, expanding coalmining, building coal-fired power stations and taking our jobs.

Yesterday I was trying to listen intently to the Governor-General's address. It became a bit of a laundry list for the Labor Party, but I was trying to listen intently. One thing I did note was that there was not a single mention from the Governor-General yesterday of the Labor Party lowering electricity prices. Did anyone else notice that?

I went back and had a look. In 2022 the then governor-general David Hurley did say that his government, the then Labor government, would help reduce electricity bills by hundreds of dollars for families and businesses. That's what he said. Now, did that happen? I don't think it did. They didn't live up to that commitment. Electricity bills went up, and yesterday the Labor Party flew the white flag on the cost-of-living crisis that is still afflicting Australians. Now they're not even mentioning it.

They'll mention this clean energy stuff. Who cares! Okay, great, it's clean, but why am I paying thousands of dollars more a year for it? Why can't I have the same lower prices as other countries?