Page 1126 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 29 May 2007
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There were, however, I believe some significant missed opportunities and some catch-up being played by the Prime Minister and the federal Treasurer in relation to this. I refer to catch-up in relation to issues around climate change that are being pursued and—
Mr Mulcahy: So you are not doing badly? Where is the strategy?
MR STANHOPE: Well, where is yours? Why don’t you table yours after I table mine?
Mr Mulcahy: We have one.
MR STANHOPE: Why don’t you table yours? I will move a motion for the suspension of standing orders on the day I table mine to allow you to follow me.
There was a missed opportunity by the commonwealth in relation to climate change. It was an issue in respect of which the Prime Minister has clearly dropped the ball. The polls are showing the response of the people of Australia to the fact that he has ignored this most important of all issues. He has ignored it to his peril and he is now paying the price through the polls as he struggles along to clear defeat in months to come. (Time expired.)
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (4.37): The Howard-Costello 2007 budget was certainly not about dealing seriously with the environmental and social challenges confronting Australia. Certainly the allocations relating to improvements in Canberra’s institutions and roads are welcome but this budget fails to deliver on the most significant issues for many of the people who live here. Instead, it was about providing very short-term sweeteners to give the appearance and the illusion that several important groups of voters that the Howard government thought were important were being helped. It was a budget that completely lacked vision—that is, at least, beyond the coming federal election.
Priorities for a Greens’ federal budget would include halting climate change, conserving water resources and protecting the environment, ensuring that the 650,000 Australians on dental waiting lists received the care they need, reducing the 17-year gap in life expectancy between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, increasing education funding to meet the OECD average education spending levels, increased funding for public housing and house affordability, and increased foreign aid that actually leaves the country and is used for poverty eradication and development.
The Howard-Costello budget failed to tackle the greatest threat to this nation’s future, which is climate change. The Howard government clearly does not get climate change, and the Canberra people are not hoodwinked by its desperate and belated attempts to catch up on the issue. It is obvious that for John Howard the need to be seen to be doing something about climate change is a political necessity, but not because our future depends on taking decisive action now. Under Howard-Costello’s latest budget the allocation to the environment has barely moved. It increased by only $281 million, or just two per cent of that unprecedented budget surplus of $15 million.
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