Rhetorical repsonse to climate change question

Climate change had not been mentioned at Shepparton’s recent “Great Ag Debate” until it was raised from the floor.

And, even then it drew little more than a rhetorical response.

Labor’s Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Jacinta Allan, demonstrated some concern, but Victoria’s Agriculture Minister, Peter Walsh, who acknowledged human causation of climate change, proceeded to dispense the scientific reality with the wave of hand and confidence that it would be overcome by ingenuity and technology.

The pre-election debate, organized by the Victorian Farmers Federation, attracted about 200 people who heard from excited Minister Walsh of his plans to double Victoria’s agricultural production by 2030.

The question was:

Early in the evening Peter Walsh suggested we adhere to facts, but the fact that hasn’t been mentioned tonight is climate change. It will decimate agriculture in all of Victoria, including northern Victoria. How does that fit into your vision and what considerations do you have for climate change?

Jacinta Allan.

Jacinta Allan replied saying:

Climate change, I think one of the great frustrations with politics at the moment is that people are boxing themselves into positions that is really meaning that any capacity to have reasonable, rational, sensible debate based on facts, that’s based on science is unfortunately pushed to the sidelines, and so if you go out there at the moment and say I believe that climate change is real, I believe that it is a problem and I believe that government should do something about it, at the moment you have a political climate that has been devolved by Tony Abbott and his three-word slogans that means any reasonable debate is very difficult thing to have.
We know that climate change is real, we know it’s going to significantly affect farming practices, indeed a few years ago when I was the Minister for Regional Development I was in Goroke in the southern Wimmera and the farmers there was saying that over how a very short period of time, around 15 years, how differently their farming experiences were today compared to what they were a few years ago because of where they sat in comparison to the rest of the district. I think we have all come through, look at the rainfall so far this year, the Weekly Times has a really good story and graphic showing the low rainfall that has fallen so far this year.
We have to recognise that just a good couple of years of rainfall that we have had in the last couple of years – is it the aberration or are we going back to a long-term dry spell.
We have got to have a sensible debate and we have got to recognise governments have a leadership role to play in this and not automatically compartmentalize anyone who wants to raise this issue as being off centre in this debate and shouldn’t be listened to, it’s too important issue to push to one side and it is something we have to really address.

Unfortunately from a State point of view all the climate change actions that were appropriate that the former Labor Government put in place have been tossed out the window, the commitment to targets, the commitments to addressing issues across departments and across governments have all been tossed away because the current ideology of the government is because it is not in the favour and that only hurts farmers.

Peter Walsh.

Agriculture Minister Peter Walsh said in reply:

I suppose when it comes to slogans no political party has a mortgage on slogans –Julia Gillard had plenty of slogans around this and I think Kevin 07 (Kevin Rudd) had plenty of slogans around this around this particular issue.
I’m not chicken little, I don’t think the sky is going to fall in, man is having an impact on the climate, I don’t think there is any way you can deny that, it’s how we deal with the issue and I’m a great believer that human ingenuity and science will solve the issue.

You look back in history, around the climate, there has been periods in the past, I can remember my grandfather and father talking about the blackout dust storms of the late 30s and early 40s where they were sent home from school early because if they didn’t get home, they were walking, it go too dark to actually find their way home and grandma used to talk about how there would be an inch of dust all through the house because of those dust storms, we have had periods dry in the past as we have had periods of wet, but I am a great believer that human ingenuity, science and the will to solve these issues that are thrown up to us in the future.

I do agree with Jacinta that is has been a very polarized debate and not constructive as it should have been and I suppose that comes down to the responsibility of the likes of ourselves and the positions we hold to have a more mature debate.