Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind the Senate that in fact it was this government that initiated the process of developing Australia's first-ever comprehensive assessment of the risks posed by climate change across the country and a plan for how Australia can adapt. It is this government, not the previous government nor any of the parties represented in this place, that commenced that work and has that work underway. The movers of this OPD know that the NCRA is being finalised and will be shortly released. They know that but are proceeding with this in what can only be described as a political stunt, complete with already drafted motions and media releases.

I'd just say in relation to this kind of behaviour that what it does is diminish the Senate and diminish the power of the Senate by misusing, at industrial scale, over and over and over again these kinds of processes in a way which should be designed—I'll give you the tip for the way that you do it: you try and do it in a way that has impact. What this will have is zero impact because it doesn't have the gravity, the moral seriousness, that you are trying to confect.

As the Senate is aware, from the public comments made by the minister, both the National Climate Risk Assessment and the National Adaptation Plan will be released in September following the conclusion of cabinet deliberations. Consistent with our position on all of the motions related to this request, as Minister Bowen has already made clear, the reports referenced in this motion are being used to inform government decisions at cabinet level now. They have not been previously released or published and a decision has not been made yet on some aspects of the deliberations. The release prior to the finalisation of cabinet process would inevitably negatively impact those deliberations.

These aren't new principles. They're not principles that the government has made up. They are basic cabinet governance Westminster principles that you would imagine every senator would understand. As Minister Bowen has said on a number of occasions, when the government has completed those relevant deliberations, the reports will be released. The minister continues to claim public interest immunity in relation to the reports for the reasons that I've mentioned and those set out in his letter.

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the statement.

After burying it for nine months, Greens pressure and this Senate has ordered Labor to release the National climate risk assessment report. Brave whistleblowers who have seen the climate risk report say that it details a future where we face a world on track for three degrees of warming, which means 50-degree days in Sydney and Melbourne. It means homes within five kilometres of the coast, which applies to many of us, facing regular flooding and inundation. It means much of the country stuck in drought, leading to crop shortages and price spikes for essentials, and all coral reefs dead.

The government has claimed cabinet confidentiality as the reason for hiding this report, but a document that informs cabinet is not a document that reveals cabinet deliberations. So there is no legitimate reason to keep hiding this climate risk report. It's a cover-up from a government that is increasingly revealing itself as anti-transparent. Labor must announce Australia's 2035 climate target this month, but they are hiding the true impacts of climate change from the public. The government have said that they will release this at the same time as their 2035 climate targets—later this month—but not before.

People need to know the true impacts of what awaits them before the government announces the new climate targets. Those targets must be science based, and the science says that what is needed is net zero by 2035 to keep us safe from turbocharged natural disasters and to ensure a prosperous economy. A low target favours coal and gas business profits—those same folk who donate to the government's re-election coffers—but modelling from Deloitte released last week shows that a higher target is actually better for the economy and benefits every other business and household in the country. Deloitte's modelling shows that Australia's GDP would be $370 billion better off by 2035 with a 75 per cent emissions reduction target than with a 65 per cent target. It's good for business, it's good for the community and it's good for nature, which sustains our life. It's clear that this Labor government wants to roll out the red carpet for the fossil fuel industry, whether it's for Woodside, with a mega gas project approval just after the election, or by not holding Santos to account for leaking methane for 19 years.

The refusal to accept the risks of climate change means that we can have an environment minister who says he doesn't think it's a good idea to consider the climate when issuing approvals under the environment laws. Clearly, he urgently needs to read the climate risk report, and definitely before he approves the thermal coalmine extension proposal in Mudgee currently on his decision-making table. That extension would result in massive land clearing, putting threatened species, like koalas and swift parrots, further at risk. It would extract an extra 18.8 million tonnes of thermal coal and extend the mine's life to 2035. Approving that coalmine—yet another one—would be yet another betrayal from a Labor government that claims to be serious about climate action but just keeps approving coal and gas projects. If this government were serious about action on climate and the environment, it would stop approving coal and gas projects and end the subsidies—the free public money—that Australia gives to those dirty industries. People are already feeling the impacts of the climate crisis. Natural disasters that are turbocharged by coal and gas are wreaking havoc on community safety and on biodiversity and nature. If our nation is about to be signed onto a plan for 2½ or three degrees of warming, Australians deserve an honest conversation about what that means for them.

Climate change is here, and we can either build the Australian economy through clean energy, advanced local manufacturing and secure, well-paid jobs or stick our heads in the sand and continue to do the bidding of the fossil fuel industry. The science says we need to get to net zero by 2035, and the only reason for the government hiding this climate risk report is that they don't want people to have the information they need to work out that this government's 2035 target is going to be inadequate and will not keep them safe. The 2035 target needs to be based on science and not fossil fuel lobbying, or we will be consigned to live out the terrifying future that is documented in this hidden report that's described as 'dire' and 'extremely confronting'.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I make my remarks in reference to the minister's comments about notice of motion 129, an order for the production of documents, specifically clauses (a)(iii) and (iv). This is about hiding, and the minister simply reinforced that with his lack of data.

Let's see why I've come to that conclusion. What's the core climate claim? Climate alarmists claim that carbon dioxide from human use of hydrocarbon fuels—coal, oil and natural gas—and from farming animals for food is raising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, which, they claim, will raise the temperature, leading to catastrophic warming in some distant, unspecified time. That's the basis for claimed solutions that will have devastating impacts on society. These include taxing and controlling farming for food to stop the raising of animals; stealing property rights to control land use and control citizens; taxing and controlling energy—every type of energy; and pursuing UN Sustainable Development Goals to control every aspect of people's lifestyle and life—what we eat, energy, travel, finances and homes. This is all claimed to be based on science. What science? When done properly—and I hope the Greens are paying attention—science investigates and explains our physical world. It's absolutely essential. Science is the systematic, objective study of our physical world through observation, experimentation and testing of theories against the empirical data—hard data and logical points proving cause and effect. Scientific proof needs data and logical points proving cause and effect. Graduate engineers like me are trained in science because we apply the science. We understand scientific proof because it prevents us killing people—it helps us keep people safe. My science training includes geology, atmospheric gases and statistics—three of the most important topics of climate science.

Let's define the problem. Every person, business and employer uses and relies on electricity, petrol and diesel at home and at work. Australia has gone from having the most affordable power in the world to having one of the world's highest power prices. The key to global competitive advantage is having the lowest price. Firstly, consider parliament and what it's done. From 1996 to 2007, John Howard's Liberal-National government committed to complying with the UN Kyoto protocol, which led to Mr Howard's solar and wind Renewable Energy Target, his national electricity market—which is really a national bureaucratic racket—and stealing farmers property rights, and his party was the first major party to promise a carbon dioxide tax policy. This was all claimed by his government to be based on climate science. Yet, in 2013, six years after he'd been booted from office, Mr Howard admitted in distant London that on the topic of climate science he is 'agnostic'. He did not have the science, and he admitted it six years after he claimed he had it.

Since then, the LNP, the Liberal-National coalition, has introduced every major climate and energy policy. Labor then accelerated each. As a senator, I wrote letters to 10 members of parliament, and they all confirmed, in writing, they had never been given scientific proof of climate change. I wrote letters to another 19 senators who advocate cutting carbon dioxide from human activity. Four replied, and none provided scientific proof. The Greens and others refuse to debate me. I asked Senator Larissa Waters in 2010, 2016 and repeatedly from 2019 to debate me. She won't front up.

Senator Waters is a lawyer and makes many false and unsubstantiated claims, and misrepresents the climate. She's never provided scientific proof. Instead, we see climate alarmists invoking so-called experts and other logical fallacies. They use emotion—especially fear and catchy slogans. They have no scientific proof. Those are the characteristics of every Greens speech. They repeatedly lie, misrepresent and sideline science with personal attacks.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Roberts, I'll ask you to withdraw that comment.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw. So let's see why they have no scientific proof. Firstly, CSIRO admits that it has never provided empirical data and logical scientific proof. In their first three-hour presentation to me in 2016, CSIRO's climate chief stated that CSIRO has never said that carbon dioxide from human activity is a danger. He said, 'Determination of danger is a matter for the public and politicians.' This was from one of the presentations. The second one was also a three-hour presentation. They confirmed that today's temperatures are not unprecedented. There's no substance and no basis. That's what Senator Ayres is hiding.

Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to respond to the attendance by the minister, which I would characterise as arrogant and disingenuous. How are we here? How have we ended up in a position where the very people living on the front line of the climate crisis are being denied access to the truth? The public, farmers, families, First Nations communities and coastal towns are being kept in the dark about the risks that they are living through every single day. It may have escaped the government that we can no longer speak about the climate crisis in future tense. It is not a far-off threat and it is happening right now.

Drought is ravaging Victorian farmers, destroying harvests and livelihoods. Floods, cyclones and record-breaking rainfalls are hammering communities from Queensland to Western Australia. And, in the Torres Strait, communities are watching their homes and sacred sites being swallowed by rising seas and are facing the terrifying reality that their culture and existence are at risk. We are already seeing climate displacement. We are already witnessing mass coral bleaching and reef destruction. We are already watching species disappear, biodiversity collapse and ecosystems unravel. This is the lived reality of climate change in this country, yet, while it all unfolds, the government thinks it's acceptable to withhold a report that details the very risks that Australians are breathing and surviving every day.

The refusal to release the National climate risk assessment is an insult. It's an insult to the climate scientists who have poured their expertise into this report. It's an insult to the communities across the country who are already facing climate catastrophe. And it is an insult to the Australian people, who rightly expect this chamber to do its job as a house of review. Let's be very clear. This is not just a climate scandal; it is a crisis of democracy. And the Albanese government has a worse track record at responding to OPDs than the Morrison government. That is a shameful indictment.

This government's track record on transparency is abysmal. Public interest immunity claims are being used indiscriminately, without oversight or independence, to block the release of documents that the public has a right to see. Why this secrecy? Why this culture of cover-up? We have a pretty good indication of why. The fingerprints of the fossil fuel industry are absolutely everywhere. Their capture of our democracy is so pervasive that, if they were handed a pen and paper to draft out our climate environment laws themselves, they probably wouldn't even blink. Successive governments have bent over backwards for gas and coal lobbyists who bankroll campaigns and glide effortlessly through the revolving door between ministerial offices and boardrooms. That is the state of our democracy. Public interest is sold out to corporate interest, transparency is traded for secrecy and accountability is traded for profit.

Every hour, every day and every minute that this report remains hidden, public trust erodes further. But, Minister, it's not too late. Trust can be mended and confidence can be rebuilt, but you'd better get to work. Release the National climate risk assessment report, give the public the information that they need and deserve to understand the risks that we face, and, most importantly, share what the government plans to do about it.

This could be the last week before we see those 2035 targets. We deserve to know the risks we're facing beforehand. Let those plans and those targets be worthy of this moment—bold climate targets, no new coal and gas approvals, an end to the toxic ties between industry lobbyists and our democracy. I challenge you to please release that donation data imminently so we can understand that, when we see those targets—I hope they're strong and what the science demands—they're not influenced by dirty fossil fuel donations to your party. The choice is yours: continue to shield the fossil fuel industry and betray the public or put people and the planet first.

David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We're debating this today because the Labor government has made secrecy its default setting, and I am really concerned that the contribution from the minister reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the function of this chamber. I would refer the minister to page 665 of Odgers' Australian Senate Practice, which states that the Senate should reject the proposition 'that anything with a connection to cabinet is confidential'.

It goes on to say:

… it has to be established that disclosure of the document would reveal cabinet deliberations. The claim cannot be made simply because a document has the word "cabinet" in or on it.

Quite clearly, providing the risk assessment would not reveal cabinet deliberations.

But, to go back to the subject of the assessment, we're just weeks out from the government setting our 2035 emissions target, and the government is still hiding the National climate risk assessment. This report isn't some bureaucratic box tick. This shows which communities will face unbearable heat, which coastlines we'll lose and which parts of our economy will buckle under climate pressure. Insiders have called its findings dire and diabolical, yet the government is keeping it locked away and keeping Australians in the dark about the risks to their homes, their livelihoods and their safety. How can people judge whether the 2035 target is strong enough if they can't even see the facts?

Worryingly, the withholding of the risk assessment is part of a wider secrecy agenda that we're seeing from the Albanese government. Let's remember that, when the numbers were crunched, the last parliament had the second-most-secretive government in the last 30 years. Only one in four FOI requests are now granted in full; that is the lowest on record. The average FOI review wait time is 15.5 months. Today we've learnt that they plan to make it even harder to lodge an FOI request, reducing transparency below the basement level.

But, not to be limited to FOI, the government has shown disregard for this chamber. Compliance with Senate orders for the production of documents has collapsed to less than a third. Again, to be more secretive than the Morrison government, a government where the Prime Minister had five secret ministries, is quite an achievement from the Albanese Labor government.

Australians know what's at stake. We've lived through the Black Summer, through the Lismore floods and through towns running out of water, and we cannot prepare for what's coming if the government keeps us blindfolded. It is clearly in the public interest for this information to be made public. Remember who you work for. You work for the Australian people. How do we have a government that has such contempt for Australians and the Senate when it comes to information that it is gathering in our name? I urge the government to turn course on this.

I'm inviting all Canberrans and any of my Senate colleagues that might be in Canberra to a town hall on transparency at Canberra College, in Phillip, from 5.30 pm on 16 September. We need to have an honest conversation about what it means when you have a government that refuses to be transparent, when you have a government that seems to forget who it's actually in here to work for and when you have a government that is stifling the ability of the Senate to actually be the house of review and to hold the government to account. It seems like the Senate is simply an inconvenience for a government that has a whopping majority in the House but does not have a majority in the Senate.

So I urge the Albanese Labor government to think about the legacy they want to leave. Do you want people looking back and saying, 'That was "Antitransparency Albo"'? Is that really what you want? Because that's what you're on course for. You're the second-most secretive government on record, and we keep having to have these debates as a Senate trying to simply force you to release documents that the Senate is ordering you to release. It doesn't cut it, and I urge my colleagues in the Senate to continue to put pressure on this government to comply with Senate orders.

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

I invite people listening to this debate to ask themselves a question. The question I'd like people to ask themselves is: why is this parliament and, in particular, this Senate so abjectly failing in its responsibilities in regard to climate change, and, specifically, which group of people in this Senate are most responsible for this chamber failing in its responsibilities to help deliver a safe climate? People might think it's someone like Senator Roberts, who is a climate change denier. I'm sure he wouldn't mind me saying that. It's riddled in all of his speeches. But it's not Senator Roberts who is most responsible for the failings of this chamber to take climate change policy seriously. Is it the coalition? No, it's not the coalition. Even though they abjectly failed to take climate change seriously when they were in government, we all know that's what we're going to get with the coalition.

I'll tell you which group of people it is in this chamber that are most responsible for our collective failures. It is the mob sitting in government at the moment, the Australian Labor Party. Let me tell you why. Just as they do across the full range of progressive issues in this country, they take the hopes, the dreams and the aspirations of progressive people and people who want strong climate action, they absorb those hopes and those aspirations and they do next to nothing. In doing so, they are the biggest blockers of climate action as they are the biggest blockers of true progressive action in this country. They can gab up a storm and they can say, 'We're taking climate change seriously,' or, 'We've got strong policies in place to reduce our country's emissions,' but the actual reality is that that is a load of rubbish.

They are still publicly subsidising the burning of fossil fuels. They are still rampantly approving new coal and gas projects. They are facilitating fossil fuel corporations to lie about their greenhouse gas emissions. They've got a woefully inadequate 43 per cent emissions reduction target by 2030, and they're about to announce another woefully inadequate target in regard to Australia's 2035 target. Mark my words: it will not be anywhere near what we need to do to meet our Paris obligations of delivering a safe climate for humanity. This is a government that talks up a storm on the one hand and is abjectly failing in reality to deliver strong climate policy on the other hand. They won't even release a report to inform Australians about the risks to our society from climate change.

Climate change is not just the biggest economic risk facing Australia. It's not just the biggest national security risk facing Australia. It is not just the biggest risk to our society. It is the biggest risk to literally everything. We should be doing everything we can in every area all the time to reduce our emissions and take a global leadership position on climate change. But what is the Labor Party doing? Just as they do across a range of other progressive issues, they are absorbing all the hopes, aspirations and dreams of progressive Australia and of the people who want a strong response to the greatest challenge facing humanity at the moment, which is the twin crises of climate and biodiversity collapse, and they are doing nothing with them. In that way, the Australian Labor Party is the biggest blocker to progressive reform in this country and the biggest blocker to strong climate policy. It's not Senator Roberts and Senator Hanson. It's not the Liberals, who have abjectly failed. It is the Australian Labor Party. Shape up. Shape up and do better.

Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a five-minute statement in response to Senator Faruqi's motion from Monday 1 September regarding social cohesion.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry, Senator Hanson. We just need to finish the item we're on at the moment, which has a hard market of 12:36. Do you wish to speak to this motion?

Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I will speak to this motion on climate change because I think it's very important. You talk about the science. We've signed up to the Paris Agreement without any real debate on the implications and impact it would have in our country. We're heading down the path of global emissions. People should know that our emissions are one per cent of total world emissions. Australia is at one per cent of carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide is a necessary gas, at 0.04 per cent, and therefore it is necessary for growth. If we don't have it, we have no growth whatsoever. So what we're doing is heading down a path of destroying our economy and putting pressure on the cost of living for ordinary Australians. This is what it's all about.

We've lost over 1,400 manufacturing companies since 2023 that have become insolvent. We've lost 30,000 small businesses that have become insolvent. With them have gone jobs. I speak to manufacturing industries, and they're saying they cannot afford the electricity prices driven by this climate change BS that's being pushed by the Labor Party, whose policies are destroying us even further, including their failure on green hydrogen. Some reports say that the money that has gone out the door in subsidies they have given to these companies in Australia amounts to $29 billion. When I investigated this, my estimation is that around $50 billion plus in subsidies have been handed out to companies and everyone who wants to jump on the bandwagon.

I also want to inform the Australian people that this has been an absolute scam that has brainwashed kids in the education system on how climate change is happening. If you oppose it you're called a climate change denier. They talk about the science. Do you know that Senator Roberts would be the most knowledgeable in this area of anyone in this chamber who can debate the issues? Since 2016, he has been asking Senator Waters to have a debate. She won't debate him. They will not debate him—

Because they don't know what they're talking about. They don't understand the science of the whole lot. They don't understand it. What do they have to fear from having a debate? You can't have a real debate. The public need to know what is going on here—the science. You've got a lot of people making a lot of money out of it, at the expense of the Australian people. Why are we chasing our tails trying to get carbon emissions down in our country, which are only one per cent, yet you have China that doesn't have to adhere to it until 2060 and India until 2070 because they are classified as developing nations? China has one of the biggest militaries in the whole world, and it is a developing nation! Most of our imports come from China, a developing nation. Yet we are destroying our economy to appease them on this. That's what I think is ridiculous, because the debate has not been had.

My concern is the cost of living for Australians. I hear from farmers. They can't afford the cost of electricity anymore. The irrigators, the dairy farmers—all these people—can't afford the cost of it. Now, I'll tell you what's going to happen next. We're going to lose a lot of our farming industry. They're going after the farmers out there, because that's 14 per cent of carbon emissions, and they've got to rein it in even more to come up with what they want to do: 43 per cent by 2035, with the carbon emissions of 2030, and then eventually 82 per cent. Other countries around the world—Spain and Portugal—have their lights out. We've had blackouts in this country since we've moved away from the dispatchable power of coal-fired power stations. Please don't think that this is what the climate emissions are. You can build coal-fired power stations now that are over 90 per cent emissions-free. That's not the problem. Why the hell are we digging up our coal and sending it overseas to China, India and other countries to burn to deliver cheap power to their own countries and we're not doing it ourselves? We have been absolute fools! People have been dragged along with this scam and the reduction in our cost of living—that's affecting all of us.

Let's have an open, honest debate and let the people know exactly what is happening in this country, because they've used it for political gain. They don't give a damn about Australian people out there and what they are suffering. It just amazes me. Shame on the whole lot of you. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.