Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

I am happy to give an answer. I gave the answer last night. I gave the answer just a short while ago to your colleague Senator Joyce. It is the same question that the National Party has been asking over and over again. It has been asked and answered on a number of occasions in this chamber. As I explained to you and Senator Joyce last night, the actual percentage of reductions that this scheme will achieve will depend on where we set our targets—that will determine how much of a reduction Australia will achieve in the 10 years and then beyond. We put our targets on the table a long time ago. Five to 15 per cent was put on the table in December and then, in May of this year, we added to that and said that, if the world was prepared to make an ambitious global agreement, we would be prepared to go to a 25 per cent reduction on 2000 levels. So that has been asked and answered and before the dinner break I gave Senator Joyce figures on the number of millions of tonnes of carbon that would not go into the atmosphere if this legislation was passed. I can read them to you again, if you wish.

You continue, if I may say, Senator, to come in here and assert an untruth. You keep asserting that no-one else is acting and that is untrue. I took you through that last night and again today and I do not understand, other than for the reason of trying to delay, why it is that you keep putting that proposition. It is not a reasonable proposition. It is a reasonable proposition to say that other people are not doing as much as you want. That is a legitimate position to put. It is not legitimate, nor is it true, to say no-one else is acting. I do not know why it is that you and Senator Joyce continue to come in here and put something on the record in this chamber which you have been clearly advised, and I presume you know, is not correct.