Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I present the final report of the Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy, together with accompanying documents. I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

This was an eight-month inquiry of a select committee initiated by the Greens at a time when some of the greatest challenges we face—and I'm talking about humanity here, all of us, all around the world—seem almost insurmountable—challenges like climate change and the attacks on the integrity of our information systems, the war of disinformation that we find ourselves in globally now. The Greens initiated this Senate inquiry because we believe, just like the United Nations, that deliberate, deceptive, misleading information is undermining climate action globally, and we also take seriously the warnings of the World Economic Forum, two years in a row, in 2024 and 2025, that the biggest short-term risks to humanity are disinformation campaigns—deliberate, deceptive, misleading campaigns. We're not just talking about whether data is factual or not; we're talking about the manipulation of public discourse on critical matters of policy like health care and climate change, just to mention a few. The World Economic Forum said that the biggest long-term risk to humanity was these disinformation campaigns and how easily they're enabled in our modern information system with massive tech platforms. Combined with the impacts of climate change, it is the biggest threat facing humanity. So here we have the United Nations saying that the biggest stumbling block to climate action globally is disinformation, a lack of information integrity and attacks on information integrity, and we have the World Economic Forum naming it up.

This inquiry was the first of its kind anywhere in the world. We looked at the information integrity systems in Australia and how they function in relation to the issue of climate change. The reason this inquiry was initiated by the Greens, supported by the government and voted for by this Senate chamber was to coincide with the COP of truth, COP30 in Brazil last year. For the first time ever, at this COP—this multilateral agreement where nations from around the world came together to discuss how to act on our climate commitments to prevent further climate breakdown and climate catastrophe—information integrity on climate change was on the agenda.

I'm very pleased to say that this committee and this report—I'm glad it's over; I'm glad it's done, and we've taken a significant amount of evidence—have been taken very seriously by the Senate, even though, yes, at times, it's been controversial. I think that is the nature of asking people to reflect on what they believe is integrity in the information being provided on a debate like the one on climate change, which has been very politically contentious in the past. But it isn't actually contentious amongst the public and amongst citizens, most of whom want action on climate change.

We can't be silent in the face of disinformation—dangerous, destructive disinformation—and deliberate agendas being peddled for commercial reasons: to protect the profits of big multinational oil and gas companies, fossil fuel corporations. There is an abundance of evidence around the world about the role they have played for decades, just like the tobacco industry, to sow doubt and undermine and obstruct climate action globally, and it isn't just through our political systems. When people think of the climate wars, they think of politicians arguing over policy, but we need to think of climate policy not as having failed in places like the US or Australia for decades but as having been defeated, because politicians are part of this infected ecosystem but it is these structures built around peddling misinformation and disinformation and undermining integrity on climate change that have enabled this obstruction of climate policy globally. It's been picked up by the UN and the World Economic Forum and, may I say, so many experts, both in Australia and overseas, that provided evidence to this committee.

I wanted to say that, even though it was at times contentious—this very unique select committee—what we have before us today in the Senate chamber is a majority report that's been signed onto by the Greens; the government, the Labor Party; the Liberal Party, with Senator McLachlan, who's here tonight; and Senator David Pocock. That's a significant achievement, because everybody recognises how serious this issue is and the fact that we need to act on it. And that's where I'd like to finish my contribution.

There is so much constructive energy, thought and work that has gone into this report. I want to thank the secretariat especially for the incredible work they have done. We went all around the country. We took evidence from experts, community groups and the secretariat have done an incredible amount of work to keep the committee on an even keel, to keep it fair, to keep the inquiry going. The result before us today, I hope, is the first step for this Australian parliament to take towards developing a blueprint, a framework, a comprehensive set of solutions for dealing with this global attack on information integrity that has undermined climate action for decades now. It has been especially prevalent in Australia, and that information is in this report.

Every time we see the undermining of climate action happen, we need to call it out. We need to raise public awareness of the actors who are working behind the scenes, often in the shadows. We need to call out the denial machine and all its various components—the conservative think tanks, the PR firms, the Murdoch press, the conservative press and all the other elements of this machine—that has, over so many years, successfully looked like it was a genuine opposition to climate change when really the evidence before us says that it is a small group of very well-resourced, very powerful and very noisy people who have done so much damage to something as simple as acting on a changing climate that presents so many challenges to us. And it's not just damage to nature and to this planet that we all love and live on; it's to our economy, to our communities. And it will only get worse in the future. This is the challenge before us: recognise that climate policy globally, and in Australia, has been under relentless assault and will still be under relentless assault. This is a war, an information war, that we simply have to win. This is the great challenge of our time.

I want to thank all senators who participated in this. I hope this is just the first step and that there are other opportunities for us, as a parliament, to build on this work, just as this work is built on several inquiries prior to it. The recommendations aren't controversial, and that's why all major parties have signed on to this, but it is essential that we keep the momentum going. I'm glad that it's over. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes from here. I'm also looking forward to the contributions of other senators who have been on this critical, unique, important inquiry.