Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I would like to speak to the Department of Environment and Energy's Quarterly Update on Australia's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory. In speaking to this report, emissions for the year to June 2019 are estimated to be down some 0.1 per cent on the previous year. For a nation that is supposed to be reducing its climate change impacts, for a country that is as energy intensive as we are, that is an abysmal failure. And it would have been even worse had it not been for the significant gains in the renewable energy sector that have made some room in those results. The increases in hydro and wind generation—and a decrease in coal and natural gas generation—have assisted this reduction of emissions in these sectors.

But what I want to highlight to the chamber today is that the other factor that has seen a reduction in emissions is truly tragic. The report says:

Strong growth in emissions from stationary energy and fugitive emissions were offset by the combination of the ongoing reduction in emissions from electricity and the effects of the drought on agriculture.

It is tragic that it took the drought across Queensland and New South Wales and the loss of some 600,000 head of cattle to give us this number. The government and those opposite carry on about meeting our climate change emissions targets. You need to have a good hard look at yourself in terms of the policies that lead to disastrous outcomes like this—and by 'policies' I mean a complete lack of leadership in the climate change base. I know you are not entirely responsible for global climate change, but the simple fact is that Australia has been missing in global leadership on these debates. We might be responsible for only a couple of per cent of the world's pollution but the rest of the world looks at the fact that we are incredibly high emitters per capita. We need to be seen globally to be pulling our weight in order to argue strongly that others should do the same. Farming communities are feeling the full effect of a changing climate. We've had no real global action on climate change that has seen global emissions come down. We can see that very much linked now to our drying climate. We want a government that's serious about energy policy and serious about climate change.

I note that the report also shows large gains in fugitive emissions, and that this is due to an increase in gas extraction and processing in Australia, particularly in my home state of WA. Gas production during this quarter increased by 10.1 per cent. But the problem is that this government has left us with no framework of accountability for driving down emissions in these sectors. Under our policies we had an overall cap that meant that when you had rises in one sector you would have been able to offset them as efficiently as possible and drive down emissions in other sectors as well. But there is no accountability under this government.

Today, as we've heard a number of times, marks 10 years since the Senate voted against the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, a scheme that would have given us that accountability. Under that scheme, Australia's emissions would have been reduced by 81 million tonnes a year. As this report shows, we're now on a trajectory that will see emissions rise until at least 2030 according to the government's own projections. So it's heartening that projects like Chevron's Gorgon are now sequestering carbon and storing it underground. While the Gorgon project began extracting gas two years ago, the capture and storage project only became operational a few months ago, and there have been no costs to the operator in that time. I understand the importance of the minerals and resources sector, but we need a government that shows leadership and accountability for these emissions. (Time expired)

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to speak on the same document as Senator Pratt: the Department of the Environment and Energy's Quarterly update of Australia's national greenhouse gas inventory: June 2019. It's really hard to escape the conclusion that climate politics in Australia is totally cooked. On one side, you've got a government that is basically having its climate change policy set by climate deniers; that effectively doesn't have a climate policy; and that is using dodgy accounting tricks to meet its woefully inadequate targets. Then, on the other side, you have the Australian Labor Party, that want to come in and rewrite history to focus on the past rather than the future; that still supports new coal, including one of the biggest coalmines in the world, when it gets up, the Adani Carmichael coalmine; that doesn't have a plan to phase out coal; and that still supports fracking for gas in the Galilee Basin and other places around Australia. Then you have One Nation, which are even more rampant climate deniers than the LNP. The real tragedy here is that you've only got one party represented in this place that's backing in the climate science, and that is the Australian Greens. That's the debate in the chamber.

But when you expand the debate outside this chamber to include the media gallery, you have significant and systemic failures by far too many members of the press in this place, and far too many senior members of the press in this place. They have this in-built desire for centrism, where they never saw a deal they didn't want done. But let me be very clear: there is no centrism in climate science. There is simply the climate science. I say to those journalists who are urging that we have more civility in the debate and that we move towards the middle on climate policy: what are you going to say to your children and grandchildren? Are you going to say, 'I wrote about how important it was for the Greens to compromise, to walk away from the climate science'?

Good luck running that argument to your children and your grandchildren.

Some in the media here are so afraid of real debates and so allergic to the contest of ideas that they will label anything that wasn't leaked to them by one of the major parties as extremism. There is no sensible centre on climate science. There is just the climate science. That is a fact. The status quo is making our planet's climate incompatible with human life. That is a scientific fact. Coal and gas companies are destroying this planet's climate. They're donating massively to both of the major parties in this place. That is a scientific fact. Those same corporations are riddled with people from the major parties who roll out of this place into cushy jobs for those big corporate polluters, and they are making a bloody killing. That is a fact. They are donating millions of dollars back to the political parties that they came from. That is influencing the major parties' climate policy. That is a fact. They hire former politicians and political staffers and then use their leverage and connections to keep the relationships friendly. That is a fact. Then you all come together at the Midwinter Ball, sponsored by the big fossil fuel polluters, yucking it up together, congratulating yourselves for giving a few thousand bucks to charity, amongst politicians and lobbyists who are helping to cook the climate.

Have a look at yourselves, major party representatives. Have a look at yourself, media gallery in this place, and get with the program. Get with the climate science. The press gallery has got to stop being a cosy club that stifles dissent and ruthlessly shuts down any criticism from outside the two major parties. That is what the press gallery needs to do if it wants to fulfil its obligation to future generations around climate policy. That so many journalists in this place are so wilfully blind to how the big corporates have bought out the major political parties on climate change is half of the problem that we're facing in this place. (Time expired)