Page 3236 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 13 November 2007
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Environment, Water and Climate Change, Minister for the Arts) (11.56): As everybody knows, the greenhouse gas emissions scheme that is jointly operated by New South Wales and the ACT is an Australian first and the most significant of greenhouse gas abatement schemes in operation within Australia. It is a credit to both the New South Wales and this government that we have pursued at least a scheme of this sort in the face of 11 years of obdurate opposition by John Howard, the great climate change sceptic; a sceptic until he read the polling and realised that the rest of Australia—indeed every Australian but he—thought that climate change was the most significant issue facing the nation.
As a result of the stubborn refusal of Australia’s number one climate change sceptic, John Howard, the Prime Minister of Australia, to deal with any of the states or the territories in a meaningful way in relation to the development of a holistic, all-of-Australia, national approach to greenhouse emissions, the states have been forced to go it alone. We all know this. It is the history of Australia, regrettably—a dark and sad history in relation to climate change within this nation—that the Liberal Party of Australia has refused for 11 long years in government to engage, on its own behalf or with any of the states or territories, in a meaningful, concrete, consistent way to develop any coherent program to address climate change and its impact or effect on this nation or the world.
It is a matter of enduring shame that the Liberal Party of Australia and the Prime Minister of Australia have been in splendid isolation, with their failure to acknowledge the truth of climate change, their failure to understand that this was the issue of most grave concern to all Australians. None of the states or territories have been able to induce the commonwealth to work with them to develop an emissions trading scheme for this nation. That scepticism, that refusal by John Howard and the Liberal Party of Australia, supported by their colleagues in this place, to refuse to engage with Kyoto, to refuse to work with the rest of the world, to refuse to work as a nation determined to confront the consequences of climate change, is a matter of enduring shame for the Liberal Party in Australia.
That was why the ACT government, in concert with New South Wales, pursued this particular scheme and we now have the Liberal Party, with hand on heart, saying we do not need this scheme anymore because of the road-to-Damascus conversion by John Howard and the Liberal Party in relation to an emissions trading scheme. They say, “Look, it will happen. It will happen in 2010 so therefore you can now abandon your scheme. You don’t need to worry anymore about emissions trading. John Howard has got it under control.” Who in Australia believes that for one minute? Who in Australia believes for one minute that John Howard or the Liberal Party has climate change at the top of their agenda or as a priority for this nation? Nobody. For this government to now abandon the only significant operating emissions scheme in Australia on the basis of John Howard’s road-to-Damascus conversion in the face of an election, which the polls suggest he is going to lose, along with his own seat, really is to test the credibility of the Liberal Party within the ACT on greenhouse gas emissions, emissions trading or climate change.
For the Liberal Party of all parties to stand up in this place and moralise about the necessity or otherwise of the only successfully operating scheme, namely the New South Wales-ACT GGAS scheme, is just a bit rich. This scheme, so far as it applies
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