Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Parry agrees with me; he may disagree with the next thing I am going to say. It is this: there are two parallel inquiries—in fact, some would say three parallel inquiries because of the Senate Select Committee on Fuel and Energy, ably chaired by Senator Cormann. I am a member of the Senate Standing Committee on Economics and the Senate Select Committee on Climate Policy. The climate policy committee made a decision to report on the changes announced recently by the government by 15 June. I supported that and, as I understand it, the coalition did not object to that. On that basis, I thought it was quite reasonable for the economics committee to have a similar reporting date, because we have already looked at the architecture of this particular scheme and we have already looked at alternative schemes in relation to the scheme design and alternative approaches to tackle the, I believe, very serious problem of carbon pollution. The government is not putting up a totally new architecture of a scheme; it is putting up different targets and a different compensation package. So in a sense it has not gone back to square one; it has changed targets and changed compensation mechanisms in respect of its amended scheme. I would have thought it is not unreasonable for the economics committee to deal with that by 15 June. That is why, in terms of process, I believe it is not unreasonable to tackle it in the next month.

In the context of the merits of the bill, that is another matter. They can be debated when these bills come to the Senate to be debated and where amendments can be considered and we can look at the merits or otherwise of the substantive bill and any amendments. The whole issue of Copenhagen is something that can be dealt with, I believe, at that time. But, in terms of the process that is already in place with respect to the economics committee and the climate policy committee, these are not amendments that go to the architecture of the scheme. We know what the architecture is because we have had a debate about that and there have been inquiries by the two committees, and I believe we ought to get on with it and then we can have a substantive debate about the merits or otherwise of this amended scheme and any amendments in the context of the debate when the bills are introduced. Therefore I support the minister’s motion.

Question put:

That the amendment (Senator Parry’s) be agreed to.