Motions

Censure motion on the Government

Motion | Spokesperson Bob Brown
Monday 1st March 2010, 11:49am
in

Senator BOB BROWN (Tasmania) (Leader of the Australian Greens) (3:38 PM) -by leave-I move:


(1)censures the Government for its gross and systematic failure in the delivery of its climate change programs including home insulation, green loans, solar rebate, renewable remote power generation program and the renewable energy target; and
(2)calls on the government to put in place a unified Ministry and Department of Climate Change and Energy.
I begin by assuring the Senate that this is done with great gravity. There has not been a motion of censure of a minister or of the government in the period the Rudd government has been in office. The use of the censure, I can assure senators, is not taken by me, after 24 years parliamentary experience, lightly at all.


However, as a nation we are witnessing one of the grossest episodes of mishandling of the public money and the public trust in recent governance history. The Rudd government came to office in a very large part on the basis of its commitment to the Australian public to address the issue of climate change. Two big election promises to that end were the 20 per cent renewable energy target and the promise that 150,000 Australian homes would be given green loans to improve both their water efficiency and their ability to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels and therefore help in the fight against climate change.


In the event, the 20 per cent renewable energy target program has failed, not least because of the government's refusal to take note of warnings from my colleague Senator Milne. Instead of including photovoltaics and solar hot-water services within the target, Senator Milne advised to make them additional to the target. The government did not take that advice; the Prime Minister did not take that advice; the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts did not take notice of that advice; and, in this place, the Minister for Climate Change and Water did not take notice of that advice. Now we have a renewable energy target program which is in corrosion if not at the point of sheer collapse. The wind energy system in Australia, which had such promise of investment, job creation and clean energy creation, is in the doldrums, to say the least, with hundreds of jobs and the expectation of many small businesses and, indeed, some large businesses blighted by the government's failure to take better advice, on this occasion from a Greens senator who knew much better and was much better informed about the state of that industry and the delivery of this program.


The second commitment to the Australian people, which attracted a great deal of voter approval, was the promise by the government of 150,000 green loans. In the event, 1,000 have been and will be delivered. This is a less than one per cent success rate on that promise. Amongst the blighted promises is the program rollout to skill people to be able to take part in this program, thousands of whom now are skilled with nowhere to go, with their investment lost and with no promise of future employment.


When we look at the now renowned Home Insulation Program, which was part of the stimulus package, there was a promise which led everybody in Australia to believe that they could safely have their homes insulated and their power prices brought down to make a contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. In the event, we know that this is now an utter shambles. It has led not only to potential loss of life and injury but also to some 90 house fires and some 1,000 or more potential electrified ceilings. Many people around Australia who have had this insulation installed in their homes wanted to think they would feel good about this as a result of their contribution to climate change and their lower power bills; but instead they are worried about whether death lurks in their attic or ceiling. It is a terrible situation.


I quote from an article on the front page of the Age today which outlines one account of the outcome of this program:


LIKE a chain of dominoes, the once booming insulation industry was collapsing yesterday, with hundreds of jobs axed and thousands more expected to go amid warnings the sector could freeze for a year.


At the top of the insulation food chain, Australia's biggest ceiling batt manufacturer warned that factories could close within weeks.


Several companies have been running their factories 24 hours a day, seven days a week for months, creating a huge glut of batts that are now largely unwanted in the wake of the rebate scheme being axed on Friday by Environment Minister Peter Garrett.


Fletcher Insulation makes about 40 per cent of Australia's insulation, and managing director David Isaacs said he expected 8000 jobs to be lost from the industry.


It is an utter shambles. We have been left to wonder how the government could get into such a mess. One of the problems is that there was not due diligence from the top. We do know that the Prime Minister's office is inordinately interested in what the various departments, including the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, and the Department of Climate Change, are doing in the delivery of infrastructure and public spending. As the Prime Minister himself has said in the last 24 hours, he takes-and Prime Minister Rudd must take-responsibility for the way in which this extraordinary failure of billions of dollars of potential investment of taxpayers' money, and money from the private sector, has been botched. That is what has happened.


Then we discover that the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts commissioned last year a report from Minter Ellison about the proposed programs and Minter Ellison reported to the department and to the minister-and no doubt to the Prime Minister himself-in April last year that there was great concern about the government's ability, the department's ability, to handle such a mammoth program. They recommended a delay of three months from July to the end of September. The report warned otherwise of the extreme risk of house fires, fraud and poor quality insulation, amongst many other things, and said that up to $195 million of taxpayers' money could be wasted if delay, due diligence and prudent rollout were not undertaken. But we also now know that neither the Prime Minister nor the minister for the environment looked at that report until a couple of weeks ago. In other words, it was commissioned by the government and it gave a warning of things that were to happen.


We are not talking about hindsight here; those things happened because the government did not take notice, and the ministers, the Prime Minister included, must take responsibility. Now we understand that neither the minister nor the Prime Minister even read the report. We have it from the bureaucracy that government was told about the consequences coming from those reports. I am not going to split hairs here, but when ministers-even if they have not read a report they have commissioned themselves-get advised on the content of that report with such dire warnings and such horrendous consequences if advice is not taken, and they listen to neither, they have to accept that there has been a gross failure of governance by the Rudd government in this area of the rollout of a green program in an age of climate change which had such promise and should have had such a massive triple dividend-economic, employment and environmental-for the Australian people.


This censure is warranted. This government ought to be censured. This government stands censured, if this motion passes by the Senate, for a gross failure of governance which involves several ministers, not least the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts and the Prime Minister himself.


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Motion on Liu Xiabo

Motion | Spokesperson Bob Brown
Monday 1st March 2010, 11:45am
in

Senator BOB BROWN (Tasmania) (Leader of the Australian Greens) (3:53 PM) -I move:
That the Senate-
(a)expresses its disappointment at the Chinese Government's decision to uphold Liu Xiaobo's sentence of 11 years in prison on the charge of ‘inciting subversion of state power';
(b)notes that Mr Liu has peacefully worked for the establishment of political openness and accountability in China; and
(c)joins calls by the European Parliament and the Governments of the United States of America and Canada that Liu Xiaobo should not have been sentenced in the first place and should be released immediately.




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Motion for Senate Inquiry on toxic plantations

Motion | Spokesperson Bob Brown
Monday 1st March 2010, 11:33am
in

Senator BOB BROWN (Tasmania) (Leader of the Australian Greens) (9:48 AM) —I, and also on behalf of Senator Milne, move:  That the following matter be referred to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee for inquiry and report by 17 June 2010:
The toxicity of the George River in north-east Tasmania, with particular reference to:

(a) possible causes, including the potential impact of leachate from Eucalyptus nitens plantations;
(b) the impact of the toxicity on human heath, wildlife and regional oyster farms;
(c) previous investigations into the toxicity of the George River and any consequent actions, including whether the actions of local, state and federal governments and the private sector have been adequate;
(d) whether past selective breeding or genetic modification of plantation trees has deliberately or inadvertently increased the trees’ toxicity and whether any risk assessments or monitoring of impacts have been conducted;
(e) the current breeding programs for eucalyptus species and any ecological and human health implications of current research into reducing foliage palatability;
(f) possible short- and long-term mitigation measures; and
(g) any related matters.


This is now a matter of intense national interest following the Australian Story episodes in the last two weeks on the work of Dr Bleaney, a GP in St Helens in Tasmania, and Dr Marcus Scammell, a scientist from Sydney, pointing to the potential impact of toxins from Eucalyptus nitens plantations being a factor in the death of fisheries, particularly shell fisheries in the George River, and the intake of water from that river to the citizens of St Helens potentially causing a rise in cancer and other health issues in St Helens, which is Dr Bleaney’s concern. Added to that is speculation that the facial tumour disease which is now ravaging and decimating Tasmania’s Tasmanian devil population began in the north-east of Tasmania and has spread rapidly to much of the rest of the state, excepting now the south-western and western corners.


We do not know—it has not been established—what the cause of these problems is. But we do know that, for example, in 2004, following a flood tide down the George River, 90 per cent of the shellfish died. There has been speculation about atrazine and other spray-on chemicals, both for agricultural and forestry purposes, being the culprit. But now the very logical case is that it may be toxins coming from Eucalyptus nitens, an imported eucalypt species from Victoria, the grandchildren of which are in these plantations in the St Helens catchment.


We cannot prejudge this issue, but it is a time-honoured role for the Senate to investigate such matters when they are of such national interest. An inquiry has been established under the Environment Protection Authority in Tasmania but, once again, people in St Helens, including Dr Bleaney, have expressed some reservation about that inquiry being too close to government. Similar inquiries have never stopped the Senate investigating such critical matters as this in the past. It is a logical and simple concept that the Senate and its committee system are very well placed, and in fact have an obligation and a responsibility if the issue is raised in here, to undertake such an inquiry. Senator Milne and I are asking the Senate to refer this matter to the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee.


I have no doubt that we will hear from Labor, if not Liberal, that this is a stunt—the usual terminology used to dismiss it. But studied ignorance is never excusable. If there is not support from the bigger parties, there can be no other argument than studied ignorance here. It is the right of the citizens who are concerned about the impacts of toxins on their water, whatever the cause may be, to have the Senate committee system come to their assistance to help sort that out. I would think the Senate committee system has the reach not only to get to the science of this—local, national and international—but to ensure through its own processes or recommendations that, where there are gaps in the science, they too are looked at.


I note that the industry in Tasmania has welcomed a proper inquiry into this matter. I therefore can see no argument against it. My ear to the ground tells me that the government and the opposition may well be wanting to obstruct this matter. I am sure that if that happens there will be a bit more in the public arena about it, because it is just not sensible to do so. It is not responsible to do so. In my opinion—I am being very serious about this—it would be a crude and rude political obstruction of the public’s right to know through the Senate committee system. This is a search for knowledge. It is not prejudging what the case is. On the information we have, it would be welcomed by the industry, by the citizens who live in the north-east region, by Tasmanians generally and, I have no doubt, Australians generally. It is a also a very serious matter if there are toxins coming from plantations, whether they be from what is applied to them or from the trees themselves that have been planted—and I do not call that natural, because plantations are not natural. We should be looking at that.


This is a copybook case of a matter of public interest that the Senate committee system should be looking into. It would be quite irresponsible for senators to simply dismiss this as a political matter that should not be looked into. This is a real matter affecting the health of real people, affecting the livelihoods of real people, affecting the jobs of real people and concerning many, many people in the community. Of course, if there is no answer to be forthcoming from it, let us find that out. If there is a genuine culprit for the disturbing effects on the shellfish alone, let us find that out. None of us can say that has not happened and is not continuing to happen and that it is not continuing to worry the shellfish producers in this region. If we cannot find the culprit let it be so. If we can help to find it through the Senate committee system, we should responsibly be moving to do that.


I congratulate Australian Story. I congratulate Dr Bleaney and Dr Scammell and the oyster farmers and mussel growers, the people who have put so much effort into trying to find out what it is that is so clearly and definitely troubling them. It has been a long, long road. They deserve now to have not just an airing of the claims they are making but a testing of the science which goes with those claims and a look at the alternatives. That is what our Senate system does, that is what our Senate system is set up to do and that is the responsible course of action for us to be taking in this Senate.


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Motion on Industrial Manslaughter

Motion | Spokesperson Bob Brown
Monday 1st March 2010, 11:29am
in

Senator BOB BROWN (Tasmania) (Leader of the Australian Greens) (9:37 AM) —I move: That, with regard to the comments made by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Abbott) on industrial manslaughter, the Senate accepts the need for strong national industrial manslaughter laws.


Question put.


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