MPI - Climate Change
Mr HAWKE (Mitchell) (16:14): If anybody can tell me what the member for Richmond said, I will give you 50 bucks right now! You might think that because someone speaks really fast they have a lot to say but I am certain that, listening to the Labor Party's back bench over several years on this debate—
Mr Fitzgibbon: I rise on a point of order. I would be happy to take up the member's offer. The member for Richmond said that the Nats have gone missing in representing their constituents in the bush.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is an abuse of the standing orders. The member for Hunter should know better.
Mr HAWKE: Over several years we have heard this kind of drivel that passes for debate on climate change in this chamber. I will make another bet with the member for Hunter. I will give him 100 bucks if any member of the Labor back bench can name five elements of the periodic table right now. Of course they cannot, but they are quasi scientists. We are supposed to listen to them on the science of climate change. If they could name one climate scientist—any climate scientist—right now other than an activist, I would give them 150 bucks.
They do not know any climate science. These scientific debates are, in fact, completely non-scientific. And that is the criticism that most people have about the standard of climate science debate in politics today. It is pure political activism and not science based on factual evidence.
What is the record of governments in this country in relation to climate based policy? We have seen graphic failures at state and federal level. They have made a real hash of climate change. That is why people used to rate the environment as one of their top five priorities and today they do not rate it within the top 10. Governments have really made a hash in leveraging political activism and have not used real science about what is going on on our planet.
It was never better expressed than by the man who they dare not speak the name of—the Gillard government's handpicked appointee on climate change. Who was that? It was Tim Flannery. He was paid $180,000 by the taxpayer to make pronouncements. Is there one member of the opposition who has mentioned their former government's handpicked expert, climate change commissioner Tim Flannery. There has been not one mention.
We heard from the member for Fremantle. Her authority—her bible on climate change—was Crikey. Her one quote was from the Crikey website. I have no doubt that those on the other side of the chamber are experts on what is on Facebook and twitter and that they are experts on what was said at the local rally of ALP branch members. They are experts about what Tim Flannery or Al Gore might say but they know nothing about climate sciences. They know nothing. And for them to say that the government knows nothing and has a set against science is completely wrong.
Mr Conroy: What does Lord Monckton say?
Mr HAWKE: Member for Charlton, I would not be spruiking your scientific credentials in this chamber. You are no rocket scientist. I will put it this way, member for Charlton: you are no rocket scientist. I just want to make that clear.
But this is a serious issue that deserves attention, and the government came to office on a pledge to remove the carbon tax because, as my colleagues and the government has pointed out, the Australian taxation system is not going to solve climate change. I know that the Labor Party believes in taxing and spending, and that that is the solution to all problems in life. Those opposite believe that if you have a problem the government has a taxation and spending plan to solve your life story. But taxation cannot and will not solve climate change.
It is a real problem and it deserves real scientific solutions—real evidence based solutions. We have seen state Labor governments do the same as the last federal Labor government. They have made a hash of climate change policy. We have seen them introduce solar bonus schemes that pay such a whacked out price that people who sign up to them make a hell of a lot of money and these schemes have to be abandoned, giving renewables a bad name.
We have seen Bob Carr in New South Wales—who described desalination as 'bottled electricity'—build a desalination plan on the advice of people like Tim Flannery, who said that all dams in capital cities would be dry within five or 10 years. He said that the rivers would not run and that the dams would be dry. Now, everybody in Sydney is paying a premium on every electricity bill, for a desalination plant that produces no water ever and has no benefit to anybody but uses a lot of people's capital. That is the bad name that the Labor Party, state and federal, has given to climate policy in Australia. They have made a real hash of it.
And the public are not mugs. They are more scientific than members of the opposition back bench, I can assure you. Scientifically, they have looked at it. They have looked at the rhetoric and the in-fighting and squabbling. They have listened very carefully to people like Tim Flannery, who said that even if every country in the world stops emitting carbon today it would take almost a thousand years before we saw any temperature difference.
I ask the member for Charlton: does he believe that? His government paid this person $180,000 a year to tell us that there is nothing we can do on climate change. I do not believe that there is nothing we can do on climate change; I believe there are scientific responses we can make. (Time expired)