Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

My question is also to the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Wong. I draw her attention to the report in today’s Financial Review that the minister for resources, Senator Martin Ferguson, is hosting a meeting of some 60 vested interests in this place on Friday so that they can complain about and lobby for their exemptions from a carbon-trading scheme. I ask the minister: will she or the Prime Minister be present at that meeting? Will she release to the Senate the names of the corporate heavies who have been invited? And will she be establishing a meeting of 50 representative Australians, including those from small business, tourism, rural and regional Australia and the public sector so that the wider public interest and the long-term interests of this nation are not lost under the weight of this biggest-end-of-town lobbying arranged by the minister?