Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

Well, Senator Abetz, I was there and I can tell you there were significantly more amendments in volume and certainly in scope than the government has moved now. These are primarily technical amendments. We are very happy to take the Senate through them.

Regarding the comments Senator Abetz makes about time lines, I would suggest to him that there might be just a touch of overreach in his contribution to the chamber at the moment. To suggest that we have delayed the legislation when this was the first bill introduced into this parliament by the new Rudd Labor government is really going a bridge too far. As I said, we are very happy to go through the technical amendments we have introduced, and I am sure senators would rightly request that of the government if they were unclear as to the scope of the amendments.