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

It is a complicated piece of legislation we are dealing with. Senator Abetz thinks that the deal that the opposition and the government struck today was about this target. That escaped me. Yes, they have agreed on a 20 per cent target, but the amendments that were made today, I will let him know—I thought he may have been informed about it by his coalition spokesperson—are simply to facilitate a bigger handout to the polluters. That is at the expense of the renewable energy industry, which is far more labour intensive, far more small business oriented and far more regional Australia oriented and which puts its money back into this country—unlike those big polluters who put the majority of the money into the pockets of people elsewhere on the planet. We lose out in every direction. I am surprised that Senator Abetz has confused the Greens amendment with the big deal made between his party and the opposition on a range of polluter oriented amendments today.

Question put:

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