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

We will sit all week if you want to put it through. Let me say on the matter of deferral that opposition senators have interjected about that the opposition went into an arrangement with the government to transfer an extra $7 billion or $8 billion to the polluters, $6 billion coming out of the household allocation under the government’s already poor legislation. It was an opposition suggestion that that be done, and then the opposition party room discussed that for eight hours. It seems a bit strange to say the least, and very poor process to be more direct about it, that the opposition now wants to defer legislation it put forward effectively and it made up its mind on in a long party room deliberation until some time next year.

How unedifying is it that every member of the opposition looked at that deal of taking money out of households and putting it into the polluters? That is basically what the new arrangement is. Every member went through that; every member spent hours debating it and now they say they want a committee. Now that the arrangement has fallen down, they say, ‘We want a committee.’ That is an insult to voting Australians because it means that the party process is now overtaking the deliberations about emissions trading and an outcome for the Australian people.

I have to say this: in the middle of all this, the Greens have been consistent about where we are going. We know what the outcome should be. It is what the global experts are telling us this nation should be doing—that is, a target of 25 to 40 per cent distributed in a way which would help households, small business and innovators in this country. There you go. It is in this corner of the chamber that the consistency resides and will reside in this issue. I would say—I am not revealing secrets here—that I wrote twice to the Prime Minister in September and October, suggesting in the first of those letters that we sit this week for this very deliberation, and I got no response at all. There was no reply, so disdainful was the Prime Minister of Senate process.

But here we are now on the run sitting this week. The Greens are bringing some order and some suggestions for probity in the way in which we proceed so that, whatever the outcome, at least people are doing it with a modicum of good humour and with neurones intact so that detail can be looked at with the care and concern that the people of Australia deserve from us. We are happy to include a lunchtime. That is a sensible suggestion. If this motion is limited until tomorrow night then there may have to be some further procedural change after that. We would prefer the motion as it stands and it does have a dinner hour built in, so let us proceed on that basis. The idea of sitting all night tonight and then through certain party room deliberations tomorrow is simply silly and it is time it was rejigged.