Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Minchin. I ask: does the minister recall that, when scientists were warning this time last year of extreme drought and fires for the summer, the Prime Minister said that he was sceptical about a lot of the more gloomy predictions about climate change? Does he further recall that the Prime Minister said in February of this year that the jury is still out on the relationship between climate change and drought? If so, do the Prime Minister and the government still believe, in the face of ongoing drought and terrible crop failure predictions today, that the jury is still out on the correlation between the intensity of drought on the one hand and the higher temperatures, higher evaporation rates and changed rainfall patterns of climate change on the other hand?

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We know better than most, because we do represent rural Australia, just how severe the drought is. We take that extremely seriously and just this week we announced an extension of exceptional circumstances relief for Australians who are suffering one of Australia’s most prolonged periods of drought. We have extreme concern for the position of farmers and other communities affected by what is a very serious drought. I accept that there is bipartisan concern for the consequences of what is clearly one of Australia’s most severe droughts during the period of European settlement in this country.

The fact is that scientists have made it clear that there have been periods of drought of this order in history in Australia. This is not unique; there have been other prolonged periods of extreme drought in this country. Peter Cullen, a significant scientist who has spent much time in my home state of South Australia, recently made the point that Australians may have been led, unfortunately, to believe that the good seasons and the good period of the fifties, sixties and seventies would go on forever. This was when much of the irrigation licences were issued in the Murray-Darling Basin under the now clear misapprehension that the good periods through that time would simply continue. As Professor Cullen pointed out, what seems to be occurring is a return to the sorts of conditions which prevailed prior to those three decades of exceptionally good conditions. I think it is fair to say that, objectively speaking from a scientific point of view, the period of prolonged drought which Australia is currently experiencing has not yet been proved to be directly linked to global climate change.

That is not to say it is not linked, but I think it is proper for the Prime Minister to objectively state, based on the many scientific statements to that effect, that it is not yet clear that this prolonged period of drought is a direct consequence of or directly linked to overall global climate change. That, of course, does not derogate from the responsibility of state and federal governments to do their utmost to deal with the reality of this drought and to seek to ameliorate its significant effects upon rural Australians and those dependent on rural communities.

On the other hand, it also is a fact that we take seriously Australia’s role as part of the international community to do what we responsibly and sensibly can to deal with global climate change—and we are. We have detailed on many occasions in this place the billions of dollars and the significant number of programs, and the extent to which we are seeking to engage the international community in responsible, sensible, pragmatic, effective programs to deal with and to ensure that the world can adapt to the reality of global climate change. But if the question is, ‘Is the Prime Minister right to continue to say that it has not yet been proven that this period of drought is directly caused by or linked to global climate change?’ the answer is that he is quite right.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I thank the minister for his frankness about the ongoing climate change scepticism in the government. I ask the minister to apologise to rural Australians for the ongoing misleading of those people to the view that climate change is not real or urgent and that weather patterns will return to something of the past. Does the government believe that we need to do more than just provide bandaid cheques for drought relief, flood relief and fire relief? Does the government believe we need a new strategy for a transition in rural Australia to adapt to the realities of climate change?

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think, with respect, Senator Milne has completely represented the government’s position on this. She asked me a question about the assertions of a link between this drought and global climate change, which, it is asserted, is anthropogenic. I was answering that question. The question was not about the issue of climate change per se. I have detailed to her the extent to which we are taking seriously our responsibilities as members of the international community to address the reality of climate change. Of course the climate is changing and of course this country has the least reliable climate in the world. We have known from the outset of European settlement that this is the driest inhabited continent on the planet—and I live in the driest state on this continent—and it has the least reliable climate. It is right to say that we must all in our farming practices ensure that we continue to live with that reality.