Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

We did not get an answer to that question; perhaps we will get an answer to this one. I refer the minister to his statement in the parliament on 26 March that through the Greenhouse Challenge Plus program over 750 members, all Australian businesses, are projected to achieve 15 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emission reductions by 2010—that is a reduction of about three per cent of our total greenhouse gas emissions. I also refer to Senate estimates of 22 May this year, which showed that, while there are over 750 members of Greenhouse Challenge Plus, only 85 greenhouse reduction plans have been independently verified and that, since January 2006, 86 members of the program have not renewed their membership. In other words, in the last 18 months more members have quit the program than the number of members whose emissions can be verified.

Those figures for emissions reductions are extrapolated for the whole scheme from the small number of agreements that are actually subject to an independent verification process. As the department stated:

We do not hold them to account to deliver on the program in the same way as a regulatory framework would.

So, in this entirely voluntary program lacking in accountability, with a higher drop-out rate than verification rate, which is, in the department’s words, ‘one of the key measures designed specifically to bring about greenhouse gas reductions’, can the minister verify the 15 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by 2010 which he claims from the Greenhouse Challenge Plus, when more members have dropped out than have independently verified their agreements?

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