Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I have asked twice; I will ask for a third time and then I will assume that the minister is not going to answer and therefore the answer is that there is every likelihood the aid budget will be rolled into this. I just wanted the minister to give an undertaking that this money will be over and above the existing aid budget and existing commitments under the Millennium Development Goals and will not be money that is substituted for those amounts. That is the commitment I want from the government. It is not about the quantum that Australia is prepared to pledge; it is whether the money will be over and above the existing amounts. I also put it clearly on the record that the decision to give billions of dollars to the coal-fired sector when it is completely unjustified in this scheme is no excuse for future budgets not to allocate what is Australia’s fair share, because it is a choice of the government and the coalition not to provide an income stream under the CPRS for the social justice commitment that Australia should rightly be making.