Page 3569 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 18 September 2019
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The longevity of manufactured goods is a debate that is well underway and a large amount of work is needed. Everyone in this place has a mobile phone which took huge amounts of energy to produce, used rare and non-renewable resources to create and which will need replacing in one to three years. The manufacturing process also required them to be shipped across the world, often multiple times, as components. Whilst the savings in labour costs might make it cheap to do it that way, and sometimes involve shameful worker exploitation, it also comes at an inexcusable cost to the environment.
Reducing carbon emissions and environmental impact has enormous policy challenges. It demands action at the local, national and international level. Just trying to give consumers a nudge here or there can help, but large structural issues need large structural answers.
I am not so ambitious that I would attempt to address all of those issues in one private member’s motion. I know I am pretty good, but Mr Coe would probably start calling me arrogant if I tried, and having Mr Coe being right about something really would upset the vibe of this place. So today I have limited my contribution on this important debate to one very small corner of the climate change debate: wood.
Wood is great stuff. In the history of humanity it has been central to so much innovation, invention and development. Whilst it can be pretty it is also strong and durable. Whilst it grows it takes carbon dioxide out of the air. That is a pretty neat trick.
Of course, as our cities have grown, and technology has developed, wood has also been displaced by other products. So much of our furniture and so many of our tools are now made of oil-based plastics. Our buildings are so often made of concrete and steel. The next great challenge for developing climate change policy is how we can reduce our use of concrete, steel and plastics in construction
One important consideration is increasing the quality of construction. Better buildings last longer and therefore use less energy and create less emissions in construction. Mr Ramsay’s comprehensive agenda on building quality is tackling that issue. The difficulties of manoeuvring that agenda through national building rules, dodgy developers and free trade agreements are hard work, but he is proving that it can and will be done.
I do not need to repeat the problems being caused by imported products of dubious quality. We know some of Australia’s trading partners are sending us second-rate materials, some dangerous, some sourced from unsustainable forestry and manufacturing processes and others produced through the most horrendous labour exploitation. Getting control of the issues is just the first task; we need to keep working to develop comprehensive answers to the challenge.
If we are to reduce the use of concrete, steel and plastics in construction, what will we move to? Whilst my research for this motion included seeing an awful lot of arguments about how much embedded carbon is or is not included in concrete, steel
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