Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to draw attention to the government's short-sighted attack on climate science at the CSIRO. In Paris just a few months ago, Malcolm Turnbull and Greg Hunt committed Australia to greater investment in climate research and innovation, yet this same government is now overseeing the slashing of about 350 climate science jobs at the CSIRO. These cuts to climate science are totally contrary to that commitment and, according to the Climate Council, may actually breach Australia's obligations under the Paris agreement on climate change.

Australia's and the world's need for comprehensive and evolving research into the effects of climate change have never been greater. In my home state of Tasmania, for example, the spring and summer months are getting increasingly hotter, with December 2015 breaking records. Bushfires recently devastated more than 22,000 hectares of precious forest in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area—and I commend the Senate for supporting yesterday the joint motion moved by Senator Nick McKim and me that the federal and Tasmanian governments establish an independent inquiry into those fires and the impact of climate change in causing and fuelling them. Scientists have continually found that climate change is increasing the risk of wildfires, and government inaction on climate change is fuelling that risk.

Fourteen of the 15 hottest years on record have occurred since 2000 and, on current trends, the UN estimates that climate change will displace up to 200 million people by the year 2050, creating an unprecedented refugee crisis. Currently, our only major line of defence against the dangers posed by climate change is our comprehensive and rapidly evolving scientific knowledge, such as that provided by the CSIRO.

In order to help prevent, adapt and mitigate climate change, we need to know exactly how much the world is warming and how the climate will change in particular regional areas, and we need to know and understand how local rainfall will be affected over time as climate change evolves. Yet the cuts to the CSIRO are a direct assault on that very knowledge. They are a direct assault on our best asset in the fight to understand and control the effects of dangerous climate change both now and into the future.

Speaking out against the CSIRO cuts, respected scientist Dr John Church recently told the ABC that Australia would not be able to properly respond to climate change if it did not measure the changes. In light of those cuts, he asked:

How will Australia's rainfall change? How will Australia's drought-flood cycle change? This has really important implications for water supply, for food supply …

Furthermore, the President of the Australian Academy of Science, Professor Andrew Holmes, has said:

Without a nationally coordinated effort, our diminished research capacity will mean Australia lacks the local knowledge necessary to adapt to a changing climate.

A recent petition signed by 2,800 international scientists from more than 60 countries expressed outrage at the CSIRO cuts, saying:

The decision to decimate a vibrant and world-leading research program shows a lack of insight and a misunderstanding of the importance of the depth and significance of Australia's contributions to global and regional climate research.

The common excuse put forward by the Turnbull government and CSIRO Chief Executive Larry Marshall to justify the CSIRO cuts is that we now know climate change is happening and we should move on and move all our stocks into adapting to and mitigating its effects. But as Dr Church and Professor Holmes have illustrated, we have no hope of adapting to and mitigating the effects of climate change, either globally or locally, unless we fully understand what those specific effects are and go on monitoring them closely for years and decades to come.

Moreover, if Australia, through the CSIRO, does not continue that vital in-depth research, there is a very real risk that it will not happen at all, anywhere in the world. As Dr Church said:

If Australia pulls out of key activities in the southern hemisphere then that will leave significant gaps, we will be losing partnerships with key agencies all around the world.

Just this morning I met with concerned officials from the Australian Academy of Science. The academy has highlighted to me that Australia is internationally recognised for its expertise and unique position in climate and environmental research. The academy sees that there are no other countries in the Southern Hemisphere that are able to do what we do and that that role carries a great responsibility—not just for us, but for the global community. By sabotaging the CSIRO's vital climate research, the Turnbull government is actually threatening the global community's ability to respond to and monitor the dangerous climate change that is affecting the entire Southern Hemisphere.

The harm caused by these cuts is both global and local. From my recent questioning of the Australian Antarctic Division and the Bureau of Meteorology in Senate estimates, it is clear that the CSIRO collaborates strongly with those key agencies, some of which exist in my home state of Tasmania. There is now massive uncertainty around those collaborative projects and the jobs that they support. I am very worried about the future of these important science programs, including those in my home state of Tasmania, and also the potential to lose a great deal of scientific talent and important climate research data. It will cause our local community and economy untold harm. For that reason, I have written to the Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, urging him to rule out the possibility of any collateral damage being inflicted on other science agencies as a result of these alarming cuts to the CSIRO. But a better move by the Prime Minister would be to prevent these cuts from happening in the first place.

In some respects, one could say that these alarming cuts come as no surprise at all. This government has committed Australia to some of the weakest emissions-reduction targets in the developed world. It has tried to delist parts of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. Carbon emissions have actually gone up under its woeful Direct Action fraud.

Just recently, the Tasmanian Liberal Party has shown its true colours by endorsing a climate sceptic as its third Senate candidate. Jonathon Duniam, who is a protege of Senator Eric Abetz, has told The Examiner that he is yet to be convinced that climate change is man-made. At a time of great climate peril, when Australians are demanding serious action, the Liberals are still trying to put climate deniers into the federal parliament. By contrast, Labor has a serious plan to tackle dangerous climate change through ensuring 50 per cent renewable energy by 2030, a commitment to zero net emissions by 2050 and an emissions trading scheme.

I sincerely hope the Turnbull government comes to its senses and intervenes to prevent these senseless and downright stupid and dangerous cuts to the CSIRO. Our understanding of the global and local effects of dangerous climate change depends on it. Our ability to monitor and respond to our dangerously changing climate depends on it. The future work of our talented scientific community depends on it. Above all, the health of our planet and our shared humanity depends on it.