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

We have a great deal of sympathy for what Senator Xenophon is doing here, because it is raising the minimum target to at least 20 per cent from the prescription for failure of five per cent, which is in the legislation that the Rudd government has before us. However, we set our targets at a minimum of 25 per cent; we expect it ought to have been 40 per cent. After an exhaustive look at it, to go below that is really to drift away from where the global scientific nous is—the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—and the dire need for us to act on climate change immediately to achieve a target of between 25 and 40 per cent. Senator Xenophon—through you, Madam Chair—we really appreciate this motion and the consequent one. While we will not be supporting them, they are a vast improvement on what the government has brought before us tonight.

We are seeing here tonight a historic debate in terms of national politics. Never before in Australian history has there been such tumult and such division in any major political entity over the issue of the environment, and we are seeing it playing out in this parliament as this Senate debate takes place. We are seeing a schism in the coalition which is going to echo down the years. We have not seen such division—