Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Isaacs for his question. Last night in the House the government’s renewable energy legislation was passed, and that was an extremely important development. The opposition was endeavouring to take a more constructive approach to that legislation—which was welcome—and to appear more constructive on environment issues. Indeed, it was endeavouring to demonstrate that there is some concern on that side about the issue of climate change. However, a fundamental test in this matter is to see this legislation successfully passed through the Senate into law so that the government can pursue and implement the target of 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity supply coming from renewable sources by 2020. Interestingly, however, it appears that even this issue is not so simple on the coalition side of politics, because there are reports that there was vigorous debate about the approach of the coalition in the party room discussion today. We are happy to see the member for Flinders making it into the chamber safely this afternoon, as we understand that there was a fair bit of anger directed towards the shadow minister on this issue, the approach to be taken—

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