Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The question before this House is whether this package of bills, the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Bill 2011 and cognate bills, should be supported or not. This legislative scheme can be summarised as a good concept but with bad execution. Unfortunately, that is a problem all too frequently with the measures this government is proposing and putting forward for consideration by this House.

We have a government that has a dismal track record of actually delivering outcomes. The home insulation scheme, with some good intentions, but terribly executed, resulted in four deaths, over 150 house fires, a lot of shoddy workmanship, a lot of money wasted and absolute chaos being created in the insulation industry. We had the Building the Education Revolution program, where a series of scandalously expensive buildings were put up around the country, often costing twice as much, or more, per square metre than the going market rate, and quite often not meeting the genuine needs and requirements of schools. The program went over its original budget due to an unfortunate misunderstanding between the department of the then Deputy Prime Minister and the department of finance. Or indeed, there was the Digital Education Revolution, which we have just learnt has now—

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