Senator MARGETTS(6.21 p.m.) —The Customs and Excise Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1996 (No. 2) deals with the diesel rebate for mining. It should be noted that there are effectively three diesel rebate schemes: the rebate for mining, that for farmers and pastoralists—in fact, all non-primary producers, including fishing and forestry—and the one for residential power use in remote areas, including some remote communities. This bill only relates to the mining rebate. I would like to make it clear that the Greens (WA) have quite different attitudes towards the various types of rebate. The amendments here really relate to what kinds of mining attract a rebate and which do not.

In the inevitable lobbying whenever we deal with the diesel rebate scheme, various interests have pushed for extensions of the mining rebate. While the Greens support the agri-pastoral rebates, we do not support the rebate for mining. We will be putting forward amendments to phase that out. In line with that attitude, the Greens (WA) generally resisted extensions of the mining rebate.

Our approach has been to adjudge what is just and fair. For example, we opposed a retrospective extinction of the rebate a few years ago, although we were quite happy to support a prospective extinction of them and told the mining lobby so. In this debate, however, some miners have complained of injustice on the basis of various principles of what mining is. In our opinion, there are no real principles in operation about what is included and excluded in this bill. It is based on arbitrary decisions, regardless of what people indicate in speeches or statements.

A certain amount of effort is being put in to try to define mineral as based on the need for extraction of something called a mineral from something else, which might be called an ore. Whilst this has a certain logic, it is not what this act says. `Mining for minerals' as a phrase does not imply this any more than `prospecting for minerals' or `exploration for minerals' does. The phrase `mining for minerals' occurs precisely where it is meant that mining, exploration and prospecting are all included in the definition of a mining activity.

It is the definition of mineral that is critical, but not usefully provided. The definition that does appear simply says that it could be a mineral as solid, liquid or gas and then excludes sand, water, clay, soil, gravel and other elements, which implies that they would have been included without this exclusion. By example, we have been approached on the basis that mining involves extraction of a mineral and that extraction of a mineral is, or should be, therefore, mining; that where such an extraction occurs it is not just to exclude an extractive industry.

But this is not the principle in law. Coal is not extracted from an ore. It is just dug up and used in that form. It is quarried under the stated principle. It is not a mineral in the sense that it is not constant or homogeneous. It varies with the pattern of vegetative decay in its formation, yet it is covered. Salt is not extracted from an ore. It is covered, although obviously we have some issues there. Limestone quarrying is not covered. Yet it is covered, but only where the limestone goes to farmers. This is not a principled system. It is an arbitrary one. Things are specified as either in or out.

In this regard, we do not feel that we are obliged to extend the rebate to cement producers. We do not feel obliged to extend the rebate to tenders for offshore rigs. The government and the Senate can or not as they like. There are no principles under which groups are being treated unjustly. They are simply excluded. Others are simply included. We might argue about whether we wish to include or exclude them, but no-one is in by right. The principle here seems to be that these are generally extractive industries involved in extracting non-renewable resources.

Why should we subsidise depletion of non-renewable resources? What is so special about them that we want to pay to have resources taken away? In many cases—bauxite, mineral sands, iron ore, gold—we have large portions of the world's economically recoverable deposits. Why do we need to provide special assistance for others to use it? Surely it is madness to build our economy on extraction of non-renewable resources? Surely it is counterproductive to fail to maximise our return for something the world wants, which is present in limited quantities. I say this without raising the question of what these limited resources are used for and what planetary impacts occur as a result of subsidising consumption and waste of our physical resource heritage.

If we decide to use subsidies to promote the economy and jobs, why subsidise this industry? What goals is the government seeking to achieve? If it is employment, this is certainly a low employment industry per unit of investment. How is government or taxpayer largess distributed and on what basis? Manufacturers do not get a diesel subsidy for transporting their goods or running a generator or whatever. Why is that? What is the justice of that? Which employers are subsidised and why?

There seems to be little rationale and little justice here. It is simply a decision that the previous government made and the coalition went along with it—or sort of. Where is the debate and the rationale about what kinds of industries we want and what industries are best able to meet communities' wants and needs? These are social and economic decisions, the kinds of decisions many people still expect a responsible government to consider. They are political decisions, and ones that look beyond how governments can assist big corporations to maximise profits. This kind of debate has largely disappeared in Australia.

We should be sharing in a community vision of a more socially and ecologically sustainable future. But, instead, we have a great policy abyss, which is the result of a blind belief by government of the international free market ideology. The Greens (WA) disagree with the emphasis that puts international competitiveness above all other values. There are other choices, such as increased regional self-reliance, less dependence on low-value exports, more import replacement, more industries involved in value adding—all within a context of sustaining the ecology, finding solutions to global problems, improving social amenity, more efficient use of energy and resources and, particularly, more reliance on renewable energy, reduced use of non-renewable resources and reduced use of renewable resources, especially where they are being used close to, or beyond, their rate of renewal.

The human impact on this planet is increasing logarithmically. For most of human history, natural forces dwarfed or overrode human activity. But from the point where we learned to use tools and precipitated Pleistocene overkill, a large number of the large species present at that time were wiped out. Human agricultural and logging activity in other areas resulted in significant desertification in northern Africa, the Tigris-Euphrates, and the south-western deserts of the United States—all occurring over 2,000 years ago. Scientific literature has pointed out that only in the recent past can human activity really be considered equivalent to a geological force in terms of its shifting of material, mainly minerals, and its impact on global atmosphere and aquatic systems.

In 1800, that is less than 200 years ago, the global human population is estimated to have been under one billion. It has been only about 100 years since the internal combustion engine, the use of petroleum, the car, and the electric generator became significant. It has been 100 years since the use of radio, telephones and the first sound recording devices. In 1890, the population of the planet was about 1½ billion. For most people in the world—the peoples of Africa, Asia, South and Central America—these technological innovations and their associated products were not widely in use until the last few decades. For well over half the world's population, they are still not being used.

It has been in only the last 50 years that we have seen really wide scale and effective exploitation of the fish populations of the oceans. It has been in the last 25 years that we have seen a dramatic collapse of several pelagic fish species. It has been about 50 years since the first major transnational corporations began to shift mineral resources for processing in a truly global way.

It has been only about 50 years since the wide scale use of chemicals in agriculture, pharmaceuticals, food, and production has become common. It has been only 50 years since they entered the ecosystem, our food chains, our atmosphere and our oceans to any large extent. We have seen dramatic change in climate, change in incident solar radiation, changes affecting the formation of birds' eggs, and changes in the growth of plants, the survival of fish and aquatic plants, and the respiration of algae. We have seen DDT, PCBs, and CFCs, photochemical smog, cyclodienes, acid rain and global warming. All these are extremely recent on the scale of human existence or ecological time in terms of global impacts.

Humans have seen increases in cancers; we have seen growing problems with chemical sensitivities, immune system faults and major increases in technology-related diseases. In 1950, there were still only about 2¼ billion people on the planet; around four-fifths of these people remained users of pre-industrial technologies. The impact of modern technology was the impact experienced from its use by about 300,000 people.

It has been about 50 years since television began to be common anywhere and there have been 50 years of radar and 40 years of UHF broadcasting. It has been about 25 years since the advent of personal computers and photocopy machines, and under 10 years since the advent of mobile and cordless phones. In the last 50 years, we have been in a period of wildly accelerated environmental exposure to chemicals and electromagnetic fields.

The population of the planet is now nearly six billion. An increasing number of people are not only using modern technology but are dependent upon it. Worldwatch Institute believes that soon it will be impossible to feed the population without general, almost universal, use of modern chemical or mechanical agriculture. It warns that this is not sustainable nor is future population growth sustainable for long in terms of available food. Our food resources—a renewable resource—are being used faster than is sustainable.

We are mining our soil; it is dependent on petroleum-fuelled agriculture. Major global petroleum experts estimate that global oil production is peaking and will soon decline and become markedly more expensive. This is a major threat to providing the food to sustain a population where millions of people each year already die from a lack of food. In part, this translates to the lack of ability to afford food and the lack of resources to produce their own food in sufficient quantities. We already see famine creating a class of environmental refugees and interacting with conflict within and between nations.

It has been about 35 years since Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, Von Forster published his population article and, generally, environmental issues attained prominence. Green thinking has really developed from that point. It is 25 years since the Tasmanian Greens became the world's first green party. Since then, we have seen green parties with the same core values arise in many nations around the world and at all levels of political activity.

Contrary to those who claim that the greens want people to starve in the cold and dark, it is clear to anyone examining green thought that most greens are not Luddites or misanthropes. The basic premise of green thinking is that we must look open-eyed at the future and adapt ourselves, create limits for ourselves and develop technological and social structures that will allow all people—and their children, grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren—to live in relative harmony with each other and nature; to have what they need to form rich lives; and to foster a peaceful, tolerant and more equitable society, one in which all members of the community take an active part in determining the social frameworks for our future. This is the meaning of the four pillars of green politics; that is, ecological sustainability, social equity, peace and participatory democracy.

For decades now green thinkers have proposed solutions and pointed to the technologies that would enable us to retain a developed way of life without destroying the life systems, biodiversity and beauty of the world around us. Often these were ways that would require a major re-orientation and commitment—including capital commitment—but which would result in transformations that would see us better off, with more options and lower ultimate maintenance costs. It is difficult to re-orient the direction of sociotechnical development. The greens have been cognisant of that and have stressed the need to act early, phase in and make the transition as easy as possible. We have stressed the need for urgent action, in part to reduce the costs of transition. We have said again and again that if we wait until we are forced by events to address these problems, the costs will be horrendous.

We now see the outcome in relation to greenhouse emissions. After years and years of Australian governments ignoring the calls to create a viable policy, after years of pursuing policies to attract energy intensive industries without addressing the need to come up with cleaner energy sources, the current government is now trying to undermine the global response to greenhouse and, in case that fails, it is trying to claim exemption on the basis that we should be pitied because we use too much energy, and it would cost us money to do our part, so we shouldn't need to.

In this regard, we will put an amendment to end the subsidy of energy use to fuel the cheap use of non-renewable resources. We have options in this country other than digging it up, cutting it down or killing it and shipping it all away and seeing the profits shipped away with it by the transnationals that own these mainly low-labour, low-employment industries.

If we want to provide public subsidies to industry, I would like to see us move towards creating a sustainable energy industry here. We could vastly improve our impacts on the planet in the process. But, guess what? In the budget a substantial chunk was cut from the Energy Research and Development Corporation funding, and the national energy efficiency program is being wound up—tiny amounts compared with the massive handouts to some of our largest energy consumers.

There is a future for sustainable energy, for devices that make use of sun, wind, tide and co-generation. There is a major global market for this, particularly if the international community manages to put hard targets on greenhouse emissions. We used to be world leaders in these areas.

There is another entire market for making goods that allow energy to be conserved and used efficiently. These industries are in manufacturing, design, contracting and areas with high value-added components and potentially high levels of employment. If we went so far as to challenge the road- freight and private car structure, we could reduce the ultimate imports of oil we will soon have to have. We would have another system with associated manufacturing technologies to sell in places like Bangkok, Bombay and Beijing.

There are implicit agendas; there may be principles we make decisions on, whether or not we recognise them. In this place, we are actively creating the future, particularly where we support one industry or activity over another. The Greens have opposed spending roughly a billion dollars a year subsidising energy use and digging up our resources to sell them cheaply. We do not believe that the Australian community is helped by promoting extractive industries over manufacturing and we do not believe that taxpayers are getting any fair return on the billion dollars they are giving to the mining industry.