Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Hansard source

The reason I moved the amendment was that we should wait until after we know what the rest of the world is committing to. I have been through this in my speech on the second reading and I will not go through it again. That is the reason I am happy to have the discussion and debate in the committee stage. I suppose it will be a bit of a sham of a debate about the amendments, but we should be waiting until we see what the rest of the world is committing to. That is the substantive issue. That is why the third reading should not be put until February next year.

As I was walking into this chamber this morning, I happened to be listening to proceedings in the lower house. A statement was made—and I am happy to be corrected—by Mr Stephen Smith that the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme ‘regrettably’ was in the hands of the Senate. Regrettably! What does he mean by ‘regrettably’? This is the chamber that allows time to be spent on the issue. It is not a rubber stamp. You cannot extend it as a place of the lower house. This is the Senate and it deserves to make sure that legislation is properly questioned and properly scrutinised. To be absolutely real, the Australian public know that there has been less than a few short days to look at the changes that have been agreed to—we thought agreed to—with the coalition. I was listening to Senator Abetz last week and I have the Hansard here—