Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's nice to be back and to see everybody so fresh and early. On this very important issue, I'm representing the minister who is due to be here this morning, Senator Ayres, the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. Pursuant to the order of 3 September relating to the national climate risk assessment and the National Adaptation Plan, I welcome others' contribution on this very important matter.

Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the statement.

I cannot believe that not only did the government not really in the first place want to comply with this order for the production of documents and made a public interest immunity claim but now the minister responsible has refused to even turn up and give us a statement. Not only did he do that; he didn't give the acting minister, the minister on duty, the words to read out to tell us all to go jump. This is unbelievable. It is the height of arrogance of the government, not even wanting to demonstrate to us, the Australian Senate, as it's composed here, that they take seriously this issue of transparency. They promised that they would be a transparent government that would share information and provide accountability. Well, no—none of that happening here.

As we know, the Centre for Public Integrity has said this is the most secretive government in history. Look at the pure numbers of responses to freedom-of-information requests and orders for the production of documents. This crowd over there, the Australian Labor Party—again, a government that came to office promising to be a government of transparency, of openness, of honesty and integrity—have decided that they will not comply with these orders.

On this occasion, of course, the government did eventually provide the climate risk assessmentand the National Adaptation Plan. That sounds like a pretty innocuous document, especially when this government tell us that it is a critically important area of policy and we need to ensure that Australians are well equipped to deal with the problems and issues that arise out of a changing climate as it impacts on human life in this country. Why wouldn't you equip the Australian people with the climate risk assessment and National Adaptation Plan? What was it they were seeking to hide? It's a beautifully produced glossy document, with lots of information in it; I've gone to have a look at what the government ultimately tabled. But I just find it astounding that this government (a) refused to provide a copy of this document and (b) made a public interest immunity claim—that is, that it is not in the public interest. The people in the gallery do not deserve to see this document because it is not in their interest to see it, because it might jeopardise national security or because it might cause some issue for an individual, a private citizen—none of that. This is a report that Australians both in business and in households, and land managers and government officers should be able to see—government officers in order for them to actually do their job and do what it is the government is asking them to do when it comes to a response to climate change in this country.

You only have to look at the contents of this report, now available online—again, this was something that the government was going to extreme lengths to hide: adaptation planning in Australia, with 'a vision and objectives for a well-adapted Australia', principles and guides for the actions that the Australian government is taking and 'cross-cutting enablers to strengthen effective action'. It goes through a range of areas, like primary industries, and health and social support—hardly a secret document that people shouldn't be able to see. So I do wonder why this government went to the lengths it did and why Minister Bowen decided that the Australian people should not have access to this document that underpins their capacity to make decisions around this issue and be well informed.

But this is not the only document that this minister, Minister Bowen in the other place, and this government, the Labor government—that, again, promised to be transparent, promised to be open, promised to be accountable—have been seeking to hide. Only a couple of weeks ago, at Senate estimates, the minister at the table for the portfolio of environment, climate change and energy backed in a very, very bad decision by this government to not release any incoming government brief. Of course, the foreign affairs department have released all of theirs. The finance department have released all of theirs. A number of agencies—in fact, nearly all of them—have released all of theirs. But, for some reason, this government, that minister and that agency have refused to release that one volume of incoming government briefs.

There's a pattern of secrecy and of a desire to hide from the prying eyes of the public what this government is up to when it comes to climate change and energy. This approach to transparency which is just so egregiously appalling was demonstrated today, yet again, when the minister didn't show up. There was no statement to be delivered. The poor minister on duty was left to read out something off the Notice Paper that didn't really relate to what was going on here. This government needs to open up. It needs to do what it promised. It needs to be transparent. Australians deserve no less.

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

It took the Senate forcing the disclosure of the climate risk report for us to even see this thing, which had been gathering dust on government shelves for months and months. Frankly, it makes sense now why the government was so keen to keep this secret—the revelations in the report about the impacts of the climate crisis on all of us are absolutely chilling. The fact that the government had this information and still released a climate target that is so weak, that does not keep any of us safe and that just keeps on delivering for coal and gas corporations is a complete betrayal of the Australian people and of their duty to the country.

Anything less than net zero by 2035 condemns Australia to more than two degrees of warming. It's a breach of the Paris Agreement, but it's not just numbers on a page. We know, from this climate risk report, that that will lead us to devastating climate impacts, like heat related deaths surging over 400 per cent in Sydney and Darwin; three million people—a third of the coastline—getting smashed by coastal inundation and storm surges; Meanjin, Brisbane, flooding for 300 days of the year and Fremantle for 200 days of the year; and over $600 billion wiped from the property market.

The government was sitting on this report that revealed all of those impacts—keeping us all in the dark—and it still went ahead and approved Woodside's North West Shelf gas project just 15 days after being sworn in for its second term of government. That Woodside project would emit more emissions every year than all of Australia's coal-fired power stations combined. It also threatens the oldest art gallery in the world by pumping more nitrous oxide and sulphur oxides onto the 50,000-year-old rock art at Murujuga.

This Labor government doubled down on that terrible climate decision and decided to add some more coal to the mix too when it approved an extension of Glencore's Newlands coalmine until 2045. Have they ever met a coal or gas company that they're willing to say no to? Now, we're up to 31 coal and gas projects approved by the Albanese government. At the same time, they've got the audacity to say that they're taking climate action. Coal and gas are the biggest drivers of global heating, and approving more only makes the situation worse. Coal and gas corporations, which are beloved by both big parties, are delivering all of us a bleak climate future. But, with their 2035 target, this Labor government have decided that that is who they want to deliver for—the polluting, tax-avoiding coal and gas corporations. They've got their profits protected while the rest of us and all the species that we share this planet with are put in harm's way.

Coal and gas companies are reaping megaprofits from cooking the planet, and this Labor government is giving them a free pass to do so. It is absolutely appalling. The coal and gas profits soar, the big parties get to keep taking their donations, and the rest of us pick up the tab for climate fuelled weather events and watch the planet burn. The climate crisis is the biggest risk to our safety, to nature, to our way of life, to our economy and to productivity. The Climate risk assessment report should have been a wake-up call to Labor, but it wasn't. It was kept hidden because it clearly lays out what the government are trying to hide—the fact that they are putting the profitability of coal and gas corporations before the safety of people and the future of our planet. The significant loss of life, the strain on health systems, more extreme heat, more devastating floods, crop failures, fires, global insecurity and the death of every single coral reef around the world—that's what this Labor government have signed us up to. Their own report confirms it. They are driving us off a climate cliff and backstabbing climate-vulnerable communities in the service of coal and gas profits and hoping that nobody will notice. Well, it's pretty hard to miss the record temperatures, the increased severe weather events, the soaring insurance premiums, the thousands without power and the streets turned into rivers by floodwater.

Labor could change course and work with the Greens to prevent climate collapse, but this Prime Minister has made it perfectly clear that his preference is to keep big business happy. His commitment to coal and gas giants, like Woodside, BHP, Santos and Rio Tinto, means that he is in fact committing all of us to the dire revelations in the climate risk assessment report. It is not worth it. You were elected to protect the people and to protect the planet, and we will keep trying to force you to do that. (Time expired)

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a quarter past 10. Tick-tock, Minister Ayres: we are still waiting for you. The contempt and disrespect that the government shows this chamber of the Australian parliament is demonstrated by the fact that there are only two Labor Party senators in the room. The Greens are here to debate this and to hold the minister to account. One Nation is here to hold the minister to account. The National Party is here to hold the government to account. And the Liberal Party, as part of a strong coalition, is here to hold the minister, and therefore the government, to account. But the only two government people in the chamber are the minister on duty and the government whip. That is absolutely appalling.

In the response to this chamber's direction to the government that a minister come and be accountable for the Labor Party's appalling reports and lack of transparency, the minister who was forced to stand up on behalf of the responsible minister, Senator Gallagher, read some mealy-mouthed report. She simply just read out the explanation. That shows the Australian people the level of contempt this government has for being held accountable on behalf of the Australian people. As the shadow minister for infrastructure, transport and regional development, I was looking forward to Minister Ayres explaining to us the role that the industry sector plans had in actually setting the aggressive emissions reductions targets that Minister Bowen announced a while ago, because apparently these sector plans were the basis on which they could go out and announce this incredibly aggressive target.

We questioned them during Senate estimates on the veracity of these plans and their target, and it seems that Mr Bowen, the emperor, has literally no clothes. Whether it was the transport sector, my own sector, or other areas across the ministry, these sector plans were produced with no modelling of their impact. For the transport sector, the myth is that we'll meet the 2030 target that Labor have announced when they haven't been able to achieve anything in the last three years. The sector plan for transport means that, in the next 10 years, six million new electric vehicles will need to be purchased by everyday Australians—mums and dads in the suburbs and in the regions rushing out to buy electric vehicles that won't serve their purpose and actually won't be able to be driven on the highways and byways of our great country. It is not a credible target. It is not the coalition saying this; industry itself has said that it is almost impossible—and I would say that it is impossible—to reach that target. Australians need and love to drive SUVs, four-wheel drives and utes right across the country to do the things we love to do and to get to and from work. If the Climate Change Authority's aggressive emissions reduction target were credible, it would take into account that this just simply will not happen. There are an estimated 350,000 electric vehicles on Australian roads currently. None of them is paying for the upgrade of those roads, I might add. New EV sales represent less than eight per cent of all new car sales. Somehow, that's going to be ratcheted up to see 50 per cent of new vehicles purchases being electric vehicles. That is going to be an incredible change in behaviour by the Australian public. That's not going to happen unless you tax petrol and diesel cars out of existence, which is exactly what the Labor Party is planning to do. That is what is going to happen.

There is no modelling to underpin these targets. There is no transparency. We stand with the Greens in saying that this was your opportunity, Labor, to put your credibility on the table and to say, 'We're setting these aggressive targets that are going to kill our economy and make people poorer.' You know that's what's going to happen, and that's why you are silent today.

Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When climate-wrecking corporations like BHP and Chevron are backing this government's EPBC reforms, that should tell you everything you .need to know about how much this government actually cares about the climate and the environment. When the government is forced to release key documents after keeping them secret and hidden for months and months about the existential climate risks we are facing, that should tell you everything you need to know about who they are really here to serve.

The Labor government has proven time and time again that it is here for big corporations, billionaires and their fossil fuel donors, who are given free licence to wreck the climate and cook our planet. Labor knows the climate cliff that we are hurtling off. They know the seriousness of the crisis we face, otherwise their own climate risk assessment report that they kept from the public would have been released a long time ago, and the Senate would not have had to force their hand to make that public. The climate risk assessment lays bare the climate devastation we face—the extreme heat, flooding, disasters and deaths. No-one will be immune from the effects of the climate crisis in the years to come, but it will be our most vulnerable communities who will be hit the hardest—First Nations people, disabled people, people in poverty and migrant communities. Of course, the global south, which has done nothing to create the climate crisis, is on the front lines of the extravagance and greed for profits of the global north.

Climate-driven disasters are becoming more frequent and more extreme, we know that, and that is adding to the housing crisis that has already been supercharged by Labor's reckless support for the profits of big banks, big developers and the rich. With climate-driven disasters making more houses unable to be occupied and uninsurable, housing insecurity will continue rise. We know that insurance is out of reach for many people. It is a major stressor for at-risk communities, and, as usual, it is families, communities, renters and retirees who are suffering because of the skyrocketing prices of insurance premiums.

In recent weeks, the earth reached a catastrophic tipping point, with warm-water coral reefs now facing long-term decline. We are on the brink of other tipping points as well, including the dieback of the Amazon, the loss of ice sheets and the collapse of major ocean currents. We have already hit 1.4 degrees of warming, and we will reach 1.5 degrees in the next 10 years, given the direction that Labor is going, because, with their pathetic targets, Labor is paving the road to destruction, hand in hand with the same coal and gas corporations who are cooking the planet and where billionaires are pocketing profit after profit—obscene profit after obscene profit. People and the planet are paying the price for the excesses, greed and profit of billionaires and corporations. Labor is doing nothing to rein that in.

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

The government is not communicating at all and has no respect for the people on whose behalf it's spending money—wasting money. I'll tell you why the government won't share the information: they're escaping accountability because they have no plan for the transition and no plan for what's coming.

I've managed large projects with plans. Firstly, to have a plan, you need to have scientific proof on which to lay everything. There is no scientific proof. The CSIRO have not provided it. I've checked with them and held them accountable three times, in three meetings, each of which were 2½ to three hours long. Nature alone determines the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. That's been scientifically proven. It's been proven by actual experience on this planet in 2009 and 2020.

Secondly, the atmosphere cools the land surface and the ocean surface. How can it possibly warm it? It doesn't. It cools it. The temperatures in the 1880s and the 1890s in Australia were far warmer than today. In the last 30 years, the temperature has been basically flat apart from natural variations due to El Nino and La Nina. That's it. We're producing record quantities of human carbon dioxide in China, Brazil, Russia, India, America and Europe, and the temperature has been flat. For extreme weather events, there's no trend. It's just flat. What are we basing all of this on? The government is basing it on computer models which are self-fulfilling. There's no scientific proof. We need to end the climate scam now.

Let's look at the next thing that should be in place. There should be a policy basis for the specific effect of human carbon dioxide on various climate factors: temperature; rainfall; snowfall; drought severity, duration, and frequency; and storms. There is no policy basis at all. The CSIRO has, again, failed to provide that, and we've seen that time and time again. There is no policy basis, so there's no policy. But, still, the people keep paying. If there were a policy basis, the next thing to consider in developing a plan is to have a cost-benefit analysis—to look at the various options and evaluate their costs and benefits. That's not been done. It has not been done on windmills and solar panels converting wind and solar to power—eking it out because of the high capital cost and the low productivity of the power.

If there were a cost-benefit analysis, it would identify a business case. There's been no business case for the transition. We're basically taking the whole country and its No. 1 infrastructure piece, the electricity grid, and hurtling over a cliff blindfolded. There is no business case whatsoever. If we had scientific proof, if we had a policy basis, if we had a cost-benefit analysis, if we had a business case—none of them are in existence, but, if we had all of them, then we would embark on a project plan. That's where you allocate resources—money and people—over time. There is no project plan. There's not even a costing. Who's going to pay for it? The people of Australia will pay for it in many, many ways. There's no project plan whatsoever on the biggest undertaking ever given to the Australian people.

The Australian people are now facing the trauma for no benefit whatsoever. We have the highest electricity prices in the world. We went from having the lowest in the world to amongst the highest in the world—it's certainly the highest outside of Europe, which has also been besotted with a solar and wind fixation. Minister Bowen is going to blow up the electricity grid, and the Greens and the Labor Party are colluding to bring in the misinformation and disinformation censorship bill. That is what they are doing. It's in their inquiry. Not one witness who opposed it was seen in the first two days of hearings—not one—but there are many who oppose it. We're putting a blindfold on and taking the people of Australia over the cliff. Electricity prices have never been higher. They were lower in the past. We've gone from having the lowest cost electricity to the highest cost electricity. Costs of living, standards of living, families being forced to pay—there's no competitive advantage in our country anymore. Tomago looks like it's shutting. Only One Nation opposes net zero, and only One Nation will pull out of the Paris Agreement.

Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of the minister's non-explanation. It was not an explanation. In fact, this government needs to take urgent action to address the climate crisis and the housing crisis hitting Australians. The Greens forced the public release of the national climate risk assessment report that Labor sat on for months. The government's own report shows 1.5 million people at risk of losing their homes through flooding or falling into the sea in the next 25 years. These chilling scenarios include twice as many catastrophic fire weather days, 50-degree days in major cities, a surge in heat related deaths and over $600 billion wiped from the property market. What will it mean for the homeless people living on our streets in their growing thousands? Despite the government knowing all of this, they still approved massive gas projects like North West Shelf and others in the first weeks of the 48th Parliament. Shame, shame on them!

A recent report by the Climate Council and PropTrack showed that homeowners are paying a climate disaster penalty as climate driven floods become more frequent and severe. We're in a housing crisis as well as a climate crisis, and the increasing frequency and intensity of climate driven disasters is making the housing crisis worse. It's making more homes uninsurable and uninhabitable, and it's lowering the value of homes in flood-prone areas, affecting many lower income households and widening inequality in our communities. Homeownership is already out of reach for so many Australians, and climate driven events hike up the cost of insurance and make properties unoccupiable.

This is further proof of where this government's priorities lie—appease coal and gas corporations whilst ignoring the costs of climate impacts on Australian households and keeping more and more of them out of homes. Many households across the country spend decades saving for their home deposit and then face huge recovery costs and huge and risky insurance premiums arising from climate driven disasters. Why should Australians continue to bear the cost of decades of government inaction on climate change?

Labor, you are captured by the interests of coal and gas corporations. You are prioritising the interests of polluters' profits ahead of a safe climate future for everyday Australians and nature. Where is your truly ambitious target based on science, based on the avoided costs of disaster that are putting too many of us at risk and pouring fuel on the housing crisis—a housing crisis made worse by inaction on climate, affecting so many thousands of Australians who find themselves homeless or unable to get that first home deposit together to get into housing, and affecting our renters as well. We need action on both the climate crisis and the housing crisis, and Labor needs to make it happen as a matter of urgency.

Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I cannot believe we are here bearing witness today to Labor's complete disregard for democracy in this country. Young people like the students in the gallery should mark this date as the date when Labor demonstrated how little regard they give to the Senate's instruction for the minister to appear. There's so little coordination within the government. I'm ashamed and I despair for what this means for government in Australia. As the coalition, we are working hard to hold the government to account on the looming disaster we are seeing for Australians right across this country.

Mostly, though, I want to focus on their completely radical and outrageous climate targets that are shutting down small business, that are seeing households and homes bear a cost of electricity that is crippling them and forcing them to make choices that no Australians ever thought they would have to make, and that is meaning that businesses that provide jobs to those very families are also threatened. This should be our No. 1 cause for concern when we see the new jobs being put on in Australia being government employed jobs but not the jobs that pay the taxes that keep Australians prosperous and able to enjoy the First World lifestyle that we've had. I am really worried about, as have been talked about, the communities in regional Australia, whether they be Indigenous communities, white communities or, as we in regional Australia love, those communities that are Australians working hard to mine the minerals, grow the food and fibre and be the great tourism places. But they are dying under the cost of electricity and energy that we're seeing under Labor's failed policies.

Indeed, the safeguard mechanism, introduced by Labor, is, as we warned, just a big tax on business. It is a big tax on coal and gas companies—the only source of reliable electricity that we have in this country. We risk the lights going out not just in regional Australia but in Sydney and Melbourne because of these rushed policies that have no place in reality. In fact, we are seeing Australia lose jobs overseas. We are seeing us demanufacture, de-industrialise, thanks to Labor's rushed policies that are making Australians poorer.

But today we saw that the minister didn't even have the common courtesy to turn up when directed by parliament, and we should be very afraid of what this means for democracy in this place—more guillotined legislation, more legislation that comes before the Senate and the parliament without having been properly scrutinised. This is a sad day for Australia. This is a fail from Labor, and, worse, it's a fail for all Australians who are struggling.

Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for the debate has expired. The question is that the Senate take note of the minister's explanation.

Question agreed to.