Speaker 1: Look, the two party system has made change difficult, but
Speaker 1: we're seeing a breakdown now of the two party system.
Speaker 2: I think as a scientist, Tim Flannery says he's seeing
Speaker 2: climate change kicked around Parliament for decades and Australians are
Speaker 2: already paying for the years of denial, distraction and delay
Speaker 2: from our politicians.
Speaker 1: You know, I've seen a decades worth of warming. Just
Speaker 1: in a couple of years, temperatures have been like about
Speaker 1: one point six degrees above So you know, if we
Speaker 1: are to deal with that adequately, we need to cut
Speaker 1: harder and faster than we ever thought about doing before.
Speaker 2: While the last election sent the major parties a clear
Speaker 2: message that Australia should act on climate change, he says
Speaker 2: this election is all about how, and he's optimistic that
Speaker 2: this could actually be the last climate election. From Schwartz Media,
Speaker 2: I'm Rubby Jones. This is seven am today, Chief Counselor
Speaker 2: of the Climate Council, Tim Flannery, and the choice Australians
Speaker 2: are facing between expanding renewables or repeating the mistakes of
Speaker 2: the past. It's Monday, April fourteen, So Tim, three years
Speaker 2: ago we had Australia's so called climate election, and at
Speaker 2: the moment that that election was called, Australia was really
Speaker 2: an outlier on the global stage when it came to
Speaker 2: taking real action on the climate crisis. We were not
Speaker 2: addressing the enormous problem that was confronting us. So how
Speaker 2: much progress has been made since Labor took power?
Speaker 1: Look, a lot of progress has been made. We were
Speaker 1: virtually global parias under the Morrison government. Back then. There
Speaker 1: was hardly any evs on the road. Today ten percent
Speaker 1: of castles or evs roughly where now at about forty
Speaker 1: percent of the energy that's produced in Eastern Australia is
Speaker 1: coming from clean sources you know, wind, solar and hydro
Speaker 1: and that's a record high. It's fantastic. So we've made
Speaker 1: a lot of progress, but we've got a long way
Speaker 1: to go.
Speaker 2: Okay. So with that in mind, then what are Labor
Speaker 2: offering by way of climate policy should they win this election.
Speaker 1: Labor is offering a continuation of their twenty thirty target,
Speaker 1: which is eighty two percent of electricity from clean sources
Speaker 1: by twenty thirty, so you know, by twenty twenty eight
Speaker 1: we should be at least at seventy percent according to
Speaker 1: that policy.
Speaker 3: The problem at the moment is the upfront cost of
Speaker 3: a battery is too high for too many people. We're
Speaker 3: going to fix that.
Speaker 1: They've also got a just announced a new policy on
Speaker 1: batteries in communities.
Speaker 3: Where the battery families can store the free energy generated
Speaker 3: on a sunny day when no one time, and use
Speaker 3: it when they need it and every house.
Speaker 1: Which will again help us accelerate that transition from gigantic
Speaker 1: and polluting fossil fuel plants through to win in solar
Speaker 1: and batteries. So you know, they are the positive things
Speaker 1: that I'm seeing coming out of the Labor Party.
Speaker 2: And the Albanezy government is still approving new coal mines
Speaker 2: and oil and gas projects. So how can that possibly
Speaker 2: square with a commitment to tackle the climate crisis.
Speaker 1: Well, it doesn't, is the answer. I'm no fan of
Speaker 1: some of the compromises that have been made with the
Speaker 1: fossil fuel industry over the years by various political parties,
Speaker 1: but the fact is that the politics is the art
Speaker 1: of compromise. That's what it's about. Otherwise it's warfare. So
Speaker 1: we have to live in a real world with that.
Speaker 1: Let's move as fast as we can. Let's take heed
Speaker 1: of the visionaries among us who think we can move
Speaker 1: faster and do that, but compromise is always going to
Speaker 1: be part of the political process. What we need to
Speaker 1: do globally is to just phase out all of the
Speaker 1: fossil fuels. I guess the Australian government argument is that,
Speaker 1: you know, if we stop producing then people just buy
Speaker 1: it from somewhere else and we lose all influence. That
Speaker 1: may be true, but what Australia really needs to do
Speaker 1: is engage globally with all of the producers in a
Speaker 1: way that lets us cut that production of fossil fuels.
Speaker 1: And that means looking at our own legislation and regulation
Speaker 1: to make sure that we are not approving new fields
Speaker 1: and new resources that will simply add to the problem.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, let's talk about the coalitions policies going into
Speaker 2: this election. The major one being nuclear, so building seven
Speaker 2: nuclear reactors across Australia.
Speaker 4: Our policy is to make sure that we can underpin
Speaker 4: our economy with a stable energy market for the next
Speaker 4: one hundred years.
Speaker 2: So the et tell me what you think of the plan.
Speaker 1: Well, I've got some problems with it. One is the
Speaker 1: water use that the nuclear power entails, so it's about
Speaker 1: a quarter more than a standard coualified power plant. And
Speaker 1: we've already seen the problems that we have on the
Speaker 1: western slopes where some of these reactors are going to
Speaker 1: be placed with drought and if we can't keep them cool,
Speaker 1: they melt down. So you know, you've got to have
Speaker 1: the water resources number one. Number two. You know, the
Speaker 1: du opposition has talked about scaling down the public service. Well,
Speaker 1: the fact is, if you're going to have nuclear power,
Speaker 1: you need a massive public service to look into the
Speaker 1: regulation of that and the safety of that industry. You know,
Speaker 1: after all, in the US the EPA, over eighty percent
Speaker 1: of their employees are dealing with the nuclear industry, one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people. So we've got big problems there in
Speaker 1: terms of cost and contradiction in policy. I mean, thirdly,
Speaker 1: and most importantly, if we wait till twenty forty for
Speaker 1: nuclear power with this uncertain technology, we'll be adding about
Speaker 1: two billion tons of CO two to the atmosphere and
Speaker 1: that is totally unacceptable.
Speaker 2: So what do you think the real motivation is behind
Speaker 2: the nuclear plan?
Speaker 1: Look, I think that this is a delaying tactic. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: people just want to make another year's profit from their
Speaker 1: old coal plants or their gas plants, and regardless of
Speaker 1: the concert sequences, and that idea we'd have a nuclear
Speaker 1: plant B twenty forty is almost the best case scenario.
Speaker 1: I mean, we don't have a nuclear workforce anymore. We
Speaker 1: used to in the seventies and eighties, but they're all
Speaker 1: retired or dead now, so we've got to recruit new people.
Speaker 1: We're dealing with an unproven technology. There's not a single
Speaker 1: small scale reactor operating on a power grid anywhere that
Speaker 1: I'm aware of in the world. Let's pie in the
Speaker 1: sky rubbish. To stake Australia's energy future, which is really
Speaker 1: the future of the economy on some untested idea like
Speaker 1: that is appalling. In the same breath, I can say
Speaker 1: Labour is not doing enough, But I really do think
Speaker 1: that if we continue to accelerate with the wind and
Speaker 1: solar deployment and battery deployment that we've been doing for
Speaker 1: the last three years, this will be the last climate election.
Speaker 2: You really think that this could be the last climate election.
Speaker 1: Look, I think Ruby this is the critical election in
Speaker 1: many ways. If Dunton wins this election, we'll see one
Speaker 1: climate election after the other after the other, and we'll
Speaker 1: see the lies continue to be propagated way out to
Speaker 1: twenty forty and probably beyond. If we see a continuation
Speaker 1: of current policy or even an increase in ambition, this
Speaker 1: will be the last climate election because by twenty twenty
Speaker 1: eight will be seventy percent reliant on clean energy rather
Speaker 1: than fossil fuels on the main grid, electric cars will
Speaker 1: be more common, industry will have transitioned, at least in
Speaker 1: part across Australia, and I think at that point there's
Speaker 1: no turning back.
Speaker 2: After the break the final frontier of climate denial.
Speaker 4: Hi, I'm Daniel James. Seven AM tells stories that need
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Speaker 4: the election, will bring you an extra episode to break
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Speaker 2: So Tim, can we just take a step back into
Speaker 2: the past for a moment. For a long time in
Speaker 2: Australia we were stuck in the so called climate wars,
Speaker 2: and you were in the midst of them. You were
Speaker 2: heading the Climate Commission. Can you tell me a bit
Speaker 2: about what it was like when your job became politicized.
Speaker 1: Well, look, as Climate Commissioner, my job was to report
Speaker 1: to the government, but reach out into the Australian community
Speaker 1: and just talk to people about the issue of climate change.
Speaker 1: So I must have met I know twenty thousand Australians
Speaker 1: face to face over that time with other Climate commissioners,
Speaker 1: from the coal fields of Queensland through to the inner
Speaker 1: city town halls of Melbourne and Sydney, and it was
Speaker 1: a great experience. I really really enjoyed doing it. I
Speaker 1: came away with my faith, really reaffirmed that Australians are
Speaker 1: generous people. They're willing to listen, their reasonable people. Are
Speaker 1: there people who believe in a fair go. But at
Speaker 1: the end of that process, you know, we were sacked
Speaker 1: by the Abbott government.
Speaker 5: Tony Abbott has sacked a former Australian of the Year
Speaker 5: from his government posting, and the Coalition has made it
Speaker 5: clear that more public service jobs will go. I'm just
Speaker 5: not going to get into the whys and wherefors of
Speaker 5: individual decisions. We respect the integrity of senior members of
Speaker 5: the public service.
Speaker 6: Rupert Murdoch took to Twitter to express his delight at
Speaker 6: the sackings. Great first day by PM Abbot firing top bureaucrats,
Speaker 6: merging departments, and killing carbon tax.
Speaker 1: He said, I was very fortunate to be working with
Speaker 1: a young lady called Amanda Mackenzie who was working as
Speaker 1: our publicist, and when we heard we were going to
Speaker 1: be sacked, she said, well, why should you accept that?
Speaker 1: She said, this thing called crowdfunding. You know again, I
Speaker 1: didn't know about ground funding, so why don't we give
Speaker 1: it a go, see if we can crowdfund ourselves back
Speaker 1: into existence?
Speaker 2: And we did and that led to the start of
Speaker 2: the Climate Council.
Speaker 5: Was that right?
Speaker 1: Indeed? That's right? So you know what I learned from
Speaker 1: that is never say die, you know, never accept things
Speaker 1: which are unreasonable or unjust find a way to fight back.
Speaker 1: And today I think we probably hire ten times as
Speaker 1: many people as were hired by the Commission, and we're
Speaker 1: doing a very effective job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had a decade or so of public debate
Speaker 2: that really questioned the science of climate change. Can you
Speaker 2: talk to me about how climate denial has changed over
Speaker 2: the years and what it looks like now in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five.
Speaker 1: Sure, look, I think you know. Back when I was
Speaker 1: Climate Commissioner, Tony Abbott and others announced that the carbon
Speaker 1: tax was going to be horrific, that a leg of
Speaker 1: land was going to cost one hundred dollars.
Speaker 5: Everyone's prices are going to go up and up and up,
Speaker 5: because that's the name nature of a carbon tax.
Speaker 1: It will hear people have to look back and see
Speaker 1: those lies for what they are.
Speaker 6: But do you accept some of the coalition's claims have
Speaker 6: been exaggerations. Roasts aren't going to cost one hundred dollars,
Speaker 6: are they?
Speaker 5: But they are going to be significantly more expensive. And
Speaker 5: that's the point. Everything will be more expensive.
Speaker 1: But it was very difficult because people were willing to
Speaker 1: lie so profligately and there seem to be no way
Speaker 1: to be heard really, so it was extremely frustrating. It
Speaker 1: was not unusual to meet people who would just flat
Speaker 1: out deny that climate change is happening, and you don't
Speaker 1: see much of that anymore. Even in regional Australia. People
Speaker 1: acknowledge that the climate is changing. They still some of
Speaker 1: them debate about why, and some say, oh, there's other
Speaker 1: factors involved. It's not climate change, but even they are decreasing.
Speaker 1: The number of voices that you hear that from is decreasing.
Speaker 1: There's a few who'll say, oh, it's too expensive, and
Speaker 1: that's the lie that we hear at the moment, that
Speaker 1: it's going to be too expensive and therefore we better
Speaker 1: fall back on good old gas and coal or nuclear,
Speaker 1: so that they're the last set of lies that we're
Speaker 1: dealing with now. There's nowhere else for the climate skeptics
Speaker 1: to retreat to after that point. So my view is
Speaker 1: we just keep pushing on proving them wrong. We've tested
Speaker 1: some of those ideas, we've found them to be lies,
Speaker 1: and we can see clearly the way forward now, which
Speaker 1: is just more wind and solar and batteries.
Speaker 2: Tim, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Also in the news today, first home buyers of newly
Speaker 2: built homes would be able to claim mortgage payments as
Speaker 2: a tax deduction under a coalition government. Peter Dutton announced
Speaker 2: the plan at a campaign launch in Western Sydney yesterday.
Speaker 2: The scheme would be means tested at incomes of one
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy five thousand for singles and two hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty thousand for couples. It would be limited to
Speaker 2: five years and the first six hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars of mortgage. The Coalition estimates that a family on
Speaker 2: an average income would be about eleven thousand dollars a
Speaker 2: year better off. And Prime Minister Anthony Alberizi has unveiled
Speaker 2: a plan to allow people buying their first home to
Speaker 2: do so with a deposit of five percent. The federal
Speaker 2: government would also put ten billion towards building one hundred
Speaker 2: thousand homes exclusively for first home buyers. Housing Minister Clara
Speaker 2: O'Neills said the measure would stop property investors from competing
Speaker 2: against young people trying to buy their first home. I'm
Speaker 2: Ruby Jones. This is seven am. Thanks for listening.