Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

The dishonesty and hypocrisy of the Greens’ argument knows no bounds and it causes me to explode in laughter when I hear about the burns of the residue in Tasmania having a Hiroshima-like, mushroom cloud above it. One thing I will give Senator Brown is that he has a very expressive way of putting his argument—a way that has confused and fooled so many Australians over a long period of time. It is a totally dishonest argument, I have to say. If the Greens were at all interested in climate change, they would be doing something about the massive land clearing in Indonesia, the Solomons and the Amazon delta, about which they do nothing. They would be leaving alone the world’s most well-managed, most sustainably managed forest in Australia. Rather than using well-managed Australian timber, they would much prefer you to use illegally sourced, clear-felled timber from the rainforests of the Solomons, Indonesia and the Amazon basin. Never do they argue about that. They are always attacking a magnificent industry in Australia that is so sustainable, creates so many jobs and so much wealth and, in fact, creates carbon sinks for greenhouse gas emissions.

I did not want to spend my 10 minutes speaking about the Greens but, as always, Senator Brown, because of the dishonesty of his arguments, gets a reaction from me. I just hope that one day the Australian public will realise how it has been fooled by the ramblings and ravings of the Greens political party over many, many years. Fortunately, in recent elections the good people of Tasmania, and indeed federally, have not voted for the Greens. In fact, the Greens got the worst result that one could ever imagine at the last federal election. The result was far worse than ours, and ours was pretty terrible. Eight of the ‘Left Left’ senators—four Democrats and four Greens—are retiring and they will be replaced by just five Greens. The Greens political party has done enormously badly and I am delighted that the people of Tasmania are waking up to them at last. Perhaps it is too little, too late.

What I want to concentrate on today is the ministerial statement. As I interjected during Senator Wong’s answer in question time: when are the cyclones up my way going to stop; when is the drought going to stop? We have signed the Kyoto protocol now and everything should be fine! It is pointless for Australia to go through these symbolic exercises unless you can get the big emitters, as Senator Johnston pointed out, to the table. You could shut Australia down. Of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, 1.4 per cent come from Australia. I asked the experts at estimates committees—and they are getting back to me with a more precise answer—and they indicated to me that, if you shut Australia down and did absolutely nothing in Australia, it would not make one iota of difference to the changing climate of the globe. If we are going to make these symbolic approaches and, at the same time, shut down the Bowen coalfields, affecting all of the working families of Australia who rely on the Bowen coalfields for their living, and shut down the manufacturing plants that the working families of Australia use to earn their bread and butter, then we are going to be in a terrible position if we are the only ones doing it.

We always acknowledged in government that Australia had to show leadership, and we did show leadership. At the APEC summit in Sydney just last year, Australia succeeded in getting the United States, China, India, Russia and the other big emitters to the table—the very first step. Signing the Kyoto agreement will do nothing towards solving the world’s changing climate; getting the big emitters to the table and getting them thinking about it will. None of the symbolism that the new government have gone through, none of the pretty books that they are printing and tabling and none of the rhetoric that a fawning Australian media has given to Senator Wong—attention, I might say, that was not shared by any other media throughout the world attending the Bali conference, but then that is the way it goes—will make any difference to the world’s changing climate. It seems quite base to me that this government is talking about putting working Australian families in a really difficult economic situation over the next 20 years, and it will not make one iota of difference to the changing climate.

We have to get China, Russia, the United States, India and the developing countries to stop or severely rein in their greenhouse gas emissions. Then, and only then, will we as a global community be able to really start making some inroads into the greenhouse gas emissions which do change the world’s climate. I will continue to ask the Minister for Climate Change and Water what difference all of these initiatives that are being floated for the Australian people will have on the changing climate of the world. I keep emphasising that. It is not about Australia feeling good and it is not about some journalists around Australia getting on the bandwagon and saying, ‘This is pretty good stuff; we all feel warm and fuzzy about this.’ I want to know what impact it will have on the changing of the world’s climate, and we have to look at it from that point of view. You are not going to stop cyclones in the north and you are not going to stop droughts in the Murray-Darling Basin or anywhere else in Australia simply by signing a bit of paper and reducing Australia’s 1.4 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions by a figure. You have to get the big emitters there.

I would like this government to forget the rhetoric, to forget the glossy brochures, to forget the huge media machine trying to convince people that we are doing marvellous things for climate change and to get real on the subject of those who are causing this. I was frightened to hear Senator Johnston’s comments about—what was it?—500 coal fired power stations opening up in China in the next few years. Imagine what that would do, but do you hear Senator Bob Brown or any of the Greens political party talking about these sorts of things? No, no. It is all to attack the Australian sustainable forest industry. Do not worry about India, about Japan or about China—they do worry about America, because they will take on any chance to attack the United States; you never hear that from the Greens political party.

I urge the new government to continue what we started in government and progress the sorts of initiatives we started at APEC in Sydney last year. You do not need a Bali climate change conference. You do not need Kyoto to do that, because the big emitters are not part of the Kyoto protocol. They have not signed up. A couple of them have signed up, but they do not have any targets or restrictions. It is pretty easy to agree when it does not cost you anything. You have to get those big emitters to make a real contribution, and then Australia should make the same sort of sacrifice. I am not for a moment saying we should not position ourselves and take a leadership role—we must take a leadership role and position ourselves—but talking about shutting down Australia’s industry and the coal fields that support so many working-class Australians, and working families that Mr Rudd is so keen on, without any change whatsoever to the changing world climate is, in my view, a futile exercise. Until you get the big emitters to reduce, there is nothing Australia can do. We have to continue to show the leadership Australia has shown over the last several years, and I encourage the new government to do that, but do not destroy the Australian economy for a pointless exercise until such time as the big emitters are making the same sorts of reductions and as those big emitters reduce their output to a point where it will have a real impact on the globe’s changing climate.

Question agreed to.