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

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. The minister says in his press release that his concern is to get the balance right between environmental costs and economic activity, and I ask him: is one of the environmentalists Mr John Gay, the Managing Director of Gunns Limited, who is on the record as saying that there are too many protected species and he thinks that more ring-tailed possums and wombats, for example, should die to facilitate his business? How much will members of the strategy group be paid by the government? If they are not being paid, how much is it expected that the costs of their facilitation to arrange this lobby to government to get taxpayer funding will be? What is the expected cost that the minister has assessed here?