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

I rise to respond to the government's response to the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Reference Committee report Australia's future activities and responsibilities in the Southern Ocean and Antarctic waters. This is an inquiry that I instituted early last year. We held a number of hearings, both here and in Hobart. I would like to say, as I did when I rose when we tabled the Senate recommendations, that this is a very thorough, wide-ranging and detailed Senate inquiry into Australia's responsibilities and future activities in the Southern Ocean and Antarctica. Of course, why this is important to me—and no doubt Senator McKim and my Labor Tasmanian colleagues in this chamber—is that the science community is the heart of Hobart. It plays an enormous role not just in the economy in Tasmania and the community but also in the contribution it makes globally to climate research, which is second to none.

What we learnt about Australia's responsibilities in the Antarctic and our treaty responsibilities is that science is the currency of the Antarctic Treaty. It is devastating for me today, on the same day that I was going to rise to make mostly positive comments about the government's response and commitment to the Antarctic and Southern Ocean research, especially the climate research, to have heard the shock news—as no doubt it is devastating for the science community in Hobart: all the good people who are internationally recognised for their work, all their families and all those businesses, and the community that supports the science community—that potentially we may lose up to 110 jobs in climate research in Hobart. My understanding is the climate study, and the scientific community in Hobart more broadly, is fewer than 1,000 folks. So, if we lose 100 people, that is a really big hit.

But it is also a really big hit to our international reputation and to our commitment to climate research. After Paris, the imperative was obvious to the world that we needed to take action and that we needed to take seriously action on tackling global warming. Yet those same scientists who told us that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet was melting and going into the Southern Ocean and those same scientists who study ocean acidification and rising salinity levels—the critical things that we use and that are used in international modelling around climate change—are potentially going to lose their jobs.

We are waiting on the detail on the decision that was made by CSIRO today. But I just wanted to highlight—and I only have a few minutes left, unfortunately—that it is really disappointing that that news came on the same day that the government is tabling its response to the report of an excellent Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee inquiry that I thought had tripartisan support—all political parties want to see the Hobart scientific community thrive. They had high expectations that the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, was going to be a supporter of climate research. In fact, I do not have time, but I would like to have read his comments that he only recently made to the Hobart scientific community. But let me say publicly that they were, 'I'm a Prime Minister who's here to back you up, there's nothing more important than science, and you are highly valued.' And yet today we heard from Minister Sinodinos that the CSIRO has made this decision that we do not need some of these scientists anymore and that we are moving more into an area of mitigation. Well, you cannot mitigate what you do not understand.

Some of these scientists are global leaders and global experts who are working on long-term projects, and this is going to be devastating for morale in Hobart. It is potentially devastating for the community and for the economy at a time when Tasmania can ill-afford to lose hundreds of scientists from its community. I say that the government has been caught out here. It has been caught out and it has not put its money where its mouth is.

I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted.

Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

This document is the government response to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee report Australia's future activities and responsibilities in the Southern Ocean and Antarctic Waters. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It being 4.30 pm we are now going to go back to the business of the Senate notices of motion that we have not dealt with before. The agreement is that after 4.30 there will be no divisions. However, if there is any call for a division that can be held over until another sitting day.