2016-02-25
Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — In order to address global warming there are a number of urgent actions that we as a state need to take. It was sobering to see that the senior grains research body in Australia illustrated this week how dramatically the rainfall belts have moved in a southerly direction across Australia and the impact that has on the potential viability of grain growing. However, there are urgent actions that could be taken very quickly by this state, and they include things such as ending native forest logging and shifting over to full utilisation of the plantations that are in Mr Purcell's area; getting our freight system rapidly off road and onto rail; and assisting home owners to wean themselves off natural gas, which used to be the clean and green option, and the cheap option, but is now very much becoming the expensive option.
Unfortunately since I last updated the house on the government's global warming policy, the government has done none of those things. In fact it has continued to log native forest as fast as it possibly can. It has worked hard to flog off the port under a model that will see truck traffic through the inner city, and for that matter through country areas, continue very far into the future. And surprise, surprise! The Minister for Energy and Resources, who likes to wave around her green credentials more than most, recently cut the ribbon on a new natural gas pipeline — I think it was with Labor's sometime donor the Santos corporation — saying that this means we will be using fossil fuels and gas for decades into the future.
There is a massive contradiction there. I wish the government would hurry up and come clean with the Victorian people and explain exactly what its strategy is.
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