Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In respect of Minister Ayres's explanation relating to the order for the production of documents concerning Climate Change Authority advice of potential 2035 national greenhouse emissions targets, I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation.

There are two things that will harm the economy. The first is high energy prices, and the second is hubris from the government. What we had this afternoon is a classic example of hubris.

What the coalition is seeking is information—documents that are available and that we know are in the possession of the government—with regard to advice the government is receiving about the 2035 national greenhouse emissions target, which we know, because Senator Ayres revealed it, will be announced in September. My colleague Senator Bragg is in a very, very privileged position. He gets documents from the government, even if they are heavily redacted. I don't even get documents from the government. The order for the production of documents is one of the most significant powers available to the Senate. It is a power that is derived from the Constitution of our country itself, and that power says there are no documents that cannot be ordered by this Senate. And what does it take for a set of documents to be ordered by the Senate? It takes 39 senators to agree to the release of those documents. I thank the 39 senators who agreed to the release of those documents, and, over here, called 'government senators', are the people who opposed the release of these documents.

Senator Ayres, in his explanation, says that the government claims cabinet confidentiality over these documents. That is a claim they have made for the first time this afternoon. They didn't make that claim in any of their previous defences about why these documents should not be released. Hubris is the key character that is now taking shape in this government. The release of these documents goes to the core of whether or not Australian families and households can deal with rising energy costs.

It's been a bad week—a bad month—for the Albanese government when it comes to its emissions targets. Just this month, we had a report from the Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner that confirmed that regional Australia is shouldering the burden of large-scale renewable projects, transmission lines and storage developments while Labor fails to provide a framework to deliver affordable, reliable energy to Australia's households and businesses.

More than that, this month we've also seen a report from the Australian Energy Regulator which shows that the wholesale 30-minute energy price exceeded $5,000 per megawatt hour on 66 occasions in just three months—66 occasions, which compares with just 11 times in the previous quarter and just 19 times in the same period last year. Added to that, we saw another report from the Australian Energy Regulator this month that highlighted the lack of adequacy of AEMO's explanations of key inputs and assumptions used to inform the content of what is known as the Inputs, assumptions and scenarios report, which is a key input—a key ingredient—when it comes to modelling and doing the cost-benefit analysis on what we call the integrated system plan, which goes to the core of whether or not energy prices in our country are affordable or unaffordable, whether it goes to the core of the issue about whether energy is reliable or unreliable.

This month, we'll find out exactly what the government's 2035 national greenhouse gas emissions target will be, but they will have turned their back on a fundamental issue, which is transparency in their decision-making about energy policy.

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

Sadly, once again, the government is refusing to disclose even the most basic of materials to the Senate. This is a very simple and straightforward request to provide documentation within a fairly narrow timeframe that relates to the 2035 climate targets. Labor is due to announce Australia's 2035 climate targets this month, but it is hiding the true impacts of climate change from the public by hiding the National climate risk assessment report, and they're now hiding documents that would show whether or not the Climate Change Authority and the minister are working together.

The Greens and Labor worked together to create the Climate Change Authority to be an independent climate adviser to government. The documents that this OPD and attendants are seeking to reveal could ascertain whether or not the climate minister is trying to direct or corral the Climate Change Authority, which would be a breach of its statutory functions. But once again the government has claimed public interest immunity, and it's difficult to escape the conclusion that the government is so full of hubris that it feels like they are a walking claim of public interest immunity from parliamentary oversight. It seems that the only people whose views this re-elected government cares about are coal and gas companies. What we need is a science based 2035 climate target to keep us all safe, to keep our communities safe and to keep nature protected. A low target, a target that is not based on science, will simply favour coal and gas profits—those same folks that donate to the government's re-election coffers.

It's pretty clear that this Labor government wants to roll out the red carpet to the fossil fuel industry, whether it is approving Woodside's mega gas plant within 16 days of taking office or failing to hold Santos to account for leaking toxic methane for 19 years, which three federal agencies knew about but nobody did anything to stop—and they kept giving them fresh approvals. But that's not all. Overnight, they've approved yet another thermal coalmine by a multinational tax avoider, Glencore. This is clearly not a government that takes the climate crisis seriously, and they are definitely not a government that takes parliamentary oversight seriously. If the government were serious about action on climate and the environment, it would stop approving coal and gas projects and, to boot, it would end the free public money—those fossil fuel subsidies—provided to those dirty, polluting, tax-dodging industries that are cooking the planet for all of us.

The stakes are very high. Ordinary Australians are already feeling the impacts of the climate crisis: algal blooms, insurance premiums going through the roof, bleached reefs in Ningaloo and the Great Barrier Reef. And all of that is just the beginning; it will only get worse from here if the government keeps on approving coal and gas projects and sets a low 2035 target. What with Woodside, what with turning a blind eye to Santos's gas leak and what with approving a thermal coalmine for multinational company Glencore overnight, it's pretty hard to escape the conclusion that Labor is addicted to coal and gas. It's sitting like a dark cloud on the parliament's climate ambition.

Approving coal or gas in this day and age is a climate crime, and yet, for Labor, propping up the coal and gas export industry seems to be business as usual. But you've got to stop gaslighting the public. Opening new coal and gas is the opposite of the climate action that people voted for at the most recent election and at the one before. Opening these new coal and gas projects simply locks Australia into providing the world with yet more coal and gas for decades to come and puts threatened wildlife, like our precious koala, further at risk. This is an extremely concerning trend. We are in the throes of the weeks and days before the 2035 climate target will be announced by this government, and we are seeing this government sneak through approvals for thermal coalmines, extending them out to 2045, extending Woodside's gas out to 2070 and refusing to release a report that warns about the massive damage from coal and gas. And now they're trying to hide the receipts about whether or not they have been pressuring the climate authority to lower the potential ambition for our climate targets. Stop letting coal and gas run this place and start letting science, nature and the public interest do that. (Time expired)

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

I rise to take note of Minister Ayres's comment. One of the most fundamental parts of a senator 's job is to review and scrutinise the government. That's why I support almost every single order for the production of documents, regardless of who moves it. Most importantly, scrutinising the government means scrutinising how the government is spending money—and, by the way, scrutinising the impacts of government policy on the national economy and on individual Australians is part of scrutiny of government.

To build back on the first point, scrutinising how the government is spending our money: the government forgets that what it spends isn't the government's money; it's taxpayer money. Minister Walsh recently couldn't utter the word 'taxpayers'. I asked her what government money was. She said it is about revenues and that the policy was fully costed. She twisted and turned and gave me several other answers, but she could not utter the words 'taxpayers' money'. There is no such thing as government money. It is all taxpayer money. As taxpayers, we all pay taxpayer money. It is Australians' money.

Last week I spoke in the Senate about Minister Bowen taking subsidies, completely away from parliamentary scrutiny. It was a cosy little deal worth billions of dollars. I mentioned a potential deal with a fund taken over by Julia Gillard, the former Labor prime minister. I made no imputations. I'm just saying we need to have a look at that data. The government is hiding, hiding, hiding and stopping scrutiny, stopping us from doing our jobs, which is a theme for this government. Too often the government is willing to waste hard-earned tax dollars. The minister has just been hauled in front of the Senate to explain because the government refused to answer where they're spending taxpayer money. This is the second—we've just had discussions about Housing Australia—and the government has refused again. This secretive Labor government refuses to tell Australians where it's spending its taxpayer money. Why the secrecy? Why the hiding? It's not your money. It's the Australians' money. It's because you don't want Australians to know that you don't treat taxpayer money with respect.

Now we come to the second motion that Labor is trying to keep secret, on climate targets. There's a backstory here that shows how incoherent the Liberals and the Nationals are. The motion is from the Liberal-National coalition asking the government to hand over documents in relation to the Climate Change Authority and their targets. Australians hear all the time that the Liberals and the Nationals want to ditch net zero, yet here's a motion that the Liberal-National coalition pursues that's criticising the government for not putting out information on net zero targets. This is insane. It's almost as insane as the net zero pipedream.

While the Liberals and the Nationals spin their wheels and try to figure out which way the wind is blowing, One Nation is clear. On this motion, One Nation says to the government, we're not bothered about you handing over your net zero targets. We say, don't bother pursuing net zero at all. All of these billions of dollars amounting to trillions of dollars and efforts to keep things secret are a waste of time and money. Every minute you spend making climate targets, bogging businesses down in green and blue tape and hamstringing our productive capacity harms the country. Give it up, government, and start putting Australians first.

Remember that the Liberals and the Nationals introduced every major climate and energy policy, including net zero. You did it. That Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison introduced net zero after breaking his election promise to not pursue net zero. What about the government spending trillions on net zero without a detailed project plan—no milestones, no measures of progress, just leading Australia towards an economic cliff blindfolded. Worse, net zero is taking Australia to energy ruin without any policy basis. The CSIRO have never specified—and I've asked them repeatedly in personal sessions and in Senate estimates—the specific, quantified effect of human carbon dioxide on the climate. Without that, you can't have a policy. Thus there's no basis for policy cutting human carbon dioxide. That's why there's no way of measuring the progress of implementing climate and energy policies. That's why you've got to keep it secret. That's why you've got to hide it. I'll continue my remarks on this topic in the future.

Question agreed to.