Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I formally second the amendments as proposed by the member for Lyne. I listened with interest to the member for Goldstein. I opposed the legislation on the grounds of the five per cent target it sets. That is the only fixed thing in this legislation. I know there are arrangements, given global changes, to move to 25 per cent, but the only ‘known’ in this legislation is a five per cent target.

My opposition to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009 is based on the fact that we are going to apply a market mechanism and virtually rearrange the whole Australian economy for a five per cent gain. I think that not only is against what the government stood for some time ago; it is against any common sense in relation to this particular issue. This is a very important issue. I agree with the parliamentary secretary when he said at the very start of today’s proceedings that the government accepts climate science. I am not a climate sceptic; I accept climate science. In fact I have had a private member’s bill before the parliament for some months now that has not been fully debated. To come into this place with a piece of legislation with a target of five per cent and use a market mechanism to achieve that target, in my view, is quite ridiculous. There are a whole range of other things outside the market mechanisms that could achieve that five per cent.

We have heard the parliamentary secretary talk about biochar and soil sequestration this morning. There are a whole range of domestic, personal and business related activities that can reduce emissions, whether they be carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide or methane. There are a whole range of available technologies out there now that can achieve that five per cent and more without going through this convoluted process—and a corrupted process, in my view, from what the original Garnaut report actually set out to achieve. We can achieve this without going through all those processes.

So, even though I am opposing the bill, I am doing so for different reasons to the opposition. I did support the deferral because I think, if five per cent is all this legislation is going for, it will achieve nothing. It probably will not—and neither should it—get through the Senate, so the extension of that logic is that it will be deferred one way or the other, and maybe we will revisit this issue with more common sense in terms of targets instead of this rather ridiculous five per cent. But I do formally second the member for Lyne’s amendments.

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