Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for the Environment and Heritage (Senator Ian Campbell) to a question without notice asked by Senator Mason today relating to greenhouse gas emissions.

I refer to the minister’s response to the initiative taken by the states in releasing a discussion paper proposing a carbon tax and a carbon trading scheme, effectively, around Australia. It would certainly be my preference that the Australian government take on this initiative and establish a cap-and-trade system for Australia, but that has not been the case. The government absolutely stubbornly refuses to take this action in spite of the fact that Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions in the electricity and transport sectors are rocketing out of control. The only reason that Australia will come in on its Kyoto target is that there has been a one-off benefit achieved by changes to land use and land clearing in Australia. It has nothing to do with initiatives that have been taken to reduce our emissions in the energy and transport sectors.