Mr LAURIE FERGUSON (10:31 AM) —Science has never been my strong hand so I will not develop at length, as the previous speaker did, the scientific nature of the problem. However, I find a distinction between greenhouse and ozone issues useful because it does highlight the degree to which Australia has in recent years fallen somewhat behind the game internationally in environmental matters.

In 1997, the United Nations Environment Program could grant this government a certificate for its efforts in relation to these matters, which included the total phase-out of CFCs, carbon tetrachloride, methyl chloroform and HBFCs by 1995. That was the kind of perspective that the world had of this country. As has been mentioned earlier, Australia was prominent in giving financial assistance to developing countries, which obviously are somewhat resentful, seeing themselves as not the main culprits in previous decades but being forced to adhere to these new requirements.

That distinction between greenhouse and ozone issues does highlight the degree to which we have somewhat lessened our performance. It is quite clear that there has been an orientation, an emphasis, by the current government, for populist political reasons and because of corporate power in this country, to say in recent years that Australia's dependence on raw materials and on trade should lead us to put more emphasis on industries' needs, supposedly protecting jobs. That has been the kind of rhetoric that has come from the government over greenhouse issues in the last few years. I do not think that it can be denied. The House has been regaled on many occasions by the comments of the Prime Minister that this government protects jobs, this government is not going to be told what to do by international bodies, this government is not going to be in the forefront at Kyoto or in other areas.

The issue of ozone depletion is clearly related to very fundamental health problems: the incidence of and morbidity from eye diseases, with the most often cited being cataracts, and non-melanoma skin cancers and infectious diseases. This is a crucial part of why we are all concerned about it, why international conferences have pushed nations to take action and have overcome resistance on many occasions by corporate financial interests.

In Australia, an example of the concern with the health issues was the Australian Cancer Society's special edition, volume 20, number 3, of 1996, which commented:

Measured total column ozone has fallen steadily from about 1970 to 1994. The minimum is expected to be reached around 2000 and recovery to 1970 levels should occur after the middle of the next century. UV irradiance increases at the surface of the earth due to ozone depletion should peak at about 15% in the mid-latitudes. There are, however, few data that testify directly to the existence and size of this trend in UV irradiance and no satisfactory data on current and long-term trends in sun-related behaviour and actual exposure of humans to solar UV radiation. The incidence of harmful health consequences of UV radiation can be expected to rise, eventually by up to about 40% . . .

Another aspect of this is that we do, of course, look at the industrial side of things: the need to phase out the import, manufacture and export of these products, et cetera. Amongst the many needs is the health aspect. The Cancer Society brochure further says:

Public health action is still necessary to reduce sun exposure and increase protection against the sun and to develop clear policies on the action that should be taken on early detection and treatment of skin cancers. From a health perspective, to monitor the adequacy of these responses, it will be essential to institute or continue monitoring of stratospheric ozone levels, spectral UV irradiance trends at the surfaces of the earth, personal exposure of humans to UV irradiation and trends in the major health consequences of UV radiation.

In the early 1970s when work first started to reach the public mind and government attention, there was a degree of reticence and doubt about this problem. Only in 1985, when the British Antarctic survey illustrated the devastation of the ozone over Halley Bay, did it really become of major interest to world leaders. Of course, the 1985 Vienna convention was the outcome of that.

I do note at this stage that there were people in this country that raised these issues before they became somewhat more mainstream. In looking at the debates on this matter in the House, it is worth noting the comments 12 years ago, in 1987, of the then member for Dunkley, Mr Chynoweth, who noted:

. . . the hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic was larger than ever and . . . a reading showed 15 per cent less ozone than the previously recorded minimum in 1985 . . . The scientific community has reached a very unpalatable finding, that this earth is about to be turned into an immense greenhouse, which will spawn higher temperatures, increased sea levels and, in terms of biological effect on humans, will mean an increase in the incidence of skin cancer, especially amongst fair-haired and fair-skinned people and those living above the 40 degrees latitude.

Whilst there were sceptics, there were cynics and there were doubters, members of parliament, such as the then member for Dunkley, were in the forefront of raising this issue.

I noticed a number of articles about the continued evidence of the problem, despite some confidence that action by the international community could possibly lead to a lessening of the problem in the mid part of the next century. An article in Nature really drives home the fact that we did have to act internationally and that we did have essentially to not allow the free market to dictate how this problem would be solved. In its 13 June 1996 edition is an article by Prather, Midgley, Sherwood Rowland and Stolarski—and I note that Sherwood Rowland was one of the first people back in the 1970s to raise the international threat. That article said:

The threat to the global ozone layer posed by CFCs and related halocarbons has been dispelled because since the early 1970s, the global community has followed a path of scientific understanding, public awareness, environmental activism and boycotts, national regulations, industry studies of CFC substitutes and finally, an international agreement—the 1987 Montreal Protocol . . .

The point they make in that article was that it did require action. It would have been a very unsavoury outcome if the sceptics, the doubters and the people who resisted the recognition of this threat had had their way. They commented on page 554:

If CFCs had followed a free market growth until 2002, the Antarctic ozone hole would be a permanent fixture throughout the twenty-first century, instead of disappearing by 2050 as predicted in the Copenhagen `92 scenario. Additionally, CFCs are important greenhouse gases and for the period of 1985-2000, their increases would have added more radiative forcing to the climate than that due to typical increases in carbon dioxide.

They further commented:

The good news is that we as a global community are committed to following the amended Montreal Protocol and the phase-out of CFCs. Effectively, we are now in the second phase of our grand experiment, that of reversing our atmosphere's CFC content. Ozone depletion is expected to reverse and recover measurably in the first decades of the next century—

as shown in a panel in that article—

This prediction is part of a causal chain, whose verification is an important part of the overall scientific assessment process: production and emission of CFCs have fallen greatly . . .

The dominant aspect of that article was the vital need for governments to keep on the game in this matter, and to not relent or be too confident that what we have accomplished so far from these protocols and these conferences is the end of the story.

It is worth noting a December 1998 CRC Southern Hemisphere meteorology assessment which stated:

In 1998, the area of the Antarctic ozone hole reached record levels . . . The 220DU area remained around 25 million km² throughout late September and early October. Previously 24 million km² had been attained only once, on 30 September 1994. High-resolution in situ measurements by ozonesondes show that depletion was a result of almost total destruction of the ozone—

in a particular area. The article further commented:

The prospects for the long-term recovery of Antarctic ozone are good. Non-essential consumption of the major ozone-depleting chemicals (CFCs and halons) in the developed world slowed during the early 1990s and ceased in 1996. Stratospheric chlorine levels will reach a maximum between now and the year 2000 and should return to pre-ozone hole levels by around 2050.

However the immediate prospects for the ozone hole are not so good. Total chlorine and bromine is not expected to show a significant reduction until after 2020. This is because, under the Montreal Protocol, consumption of CFCs and, in particular, halons in the developing world is continuing at significant levels. Under the Protocol, the consumption of CFCs and halons in developing countries will not cease until 2005.

We heard from the member for Scullin about the debate in the US Congress and the pressure of industry to ensure that the US, which is a major player in all these debates, relents from its previous commitments to 2001 to basically move to 2005.

In concluding this contribution, I think the main point, as outlined by previous speakers, is that Australia has had some tradition in the forefront of these matters. It has received international recognition of that. We have to be vigilant that we are active in helping the developed world—and are not part of a trade, which the member for Scullin outlined, of essentially off-loading on undeveloped countries which lack accurate scientific knowledge, effective bureaucracies and sufficient vigilance—to ensure that the standards that we want in the First World are not basically thrown out the back door, sometimes with the corporate greed that dictates the movement of refrigerators. Obviously, there is a big challenge because of the wide use of these chemicals—and refrigeration, foam and fumigants and quarantine issues. However, I congratulate the government on the overall legislation.