Page 3233 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 13 November 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
New agreements for reducing emissions and for carbon trading currently being negotiated in the context of the 2012 Kyoto-plus protocol could cost Australia billions of dollars if it does not reduce its emissions. With Canberra heading the list of emitters in Australia, how much will that cost the ACT? The bottom line is that this government’s plan, like most of its plans, is a bit too late. It is too little and it is certainly way too late. Even some of the environmental conservationists who are traditionally sympathetic to the ideas of the ALP agree on that.
The government needs to take real action really soon—a lot sooner than this climate plan strategy contemplates. We need to take a very proactive look at technology, science and community education and sentiment. We need to ensure that we cover all the options. We need to be bold. We need to take up new ideas. We need to work with scientists and engineers at the CSIRO and the ANU and look at groundbreaking things. We need to look at things like sliver technology, which I think is more advanced than what Mr Gentleman’s scheme is proposing. There are a number of options we can put in place now.
In his presentation speech on 15 March, Mr Hargreaves said:
It was originally envisaged that both schemes—
that is, the ACT and New South Wales greenhouse gas abatement schemes—
would be interim measures until a national greenhouse emissions trading market was established.
The Prime Minister’s Task Group on Emissions Trading has handed its report to the Prime Minister. Amongst other things, it proposed that a national carbon emissions trading scheme be introduced on 1 January 2010. Mr Rudd agrees with that—should he be the Prime Minister after 24 November. He agrees with a hell of a lot of things that the Prime Minister says.
Whilst the proposals in the report will need to be turned into policy, they do pave the way for a national approach that will enable the ACT to participate much earlier than is anticipated by this bill today. We have to look forward to the development of a national approach and to Australia taking a unified approach and doing our bit in the global environment. What the ACT government needs to do in the interim is to go and talk to the New South Wales government and come up with some sensible, sustainable, realistic proposals in terms of dropping further the amount of greenhouse gas we are all consuming in the ACT—rather than just wiping its hands of it, letting this bill go through and taking no further action until the national scheme comes in.
There are things we can do. I do not know what the magic formula is in terms of that, but surely that is something the government and the New South Wales government can work on—and they do need to work on it, because time is running out. Whilst it is great to see a national carbon trading scheme to start in 2010, there are a number of things we can do in the interim.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (11.48): It is interesting that this debate has been brought on. I know that, when this bill was introduced in March, there may have been
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .