Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I am very keen to get on with this debate after a one-and-a-quarter-hour delay on some procedural motions that should have taken five minutes. Because the government chose to filibuster with their speeches we have been denied one hour and 15 minutes to deal with this legislation that we have been told time and time again is superurgent and has to be dealt with. We had the spectacle of the Leader of the Government in the Senate wasting 15 minutes of our time in one instance and others from his side wasting more time. We have now lost one and a quarter hours which we could have used to proceed with the issues before us and which are of vital interest to the people of Australia.

I refer the Minister for Climate Change and Water to the domestic offsets program, which is the amendments currently before the chair. I ask that the minister correct me if my understanding is not correct, but I understand that we have to develop offset methodologies for the domestic offsets program. My question to the minister is: what internationally accepted principles will the government use to develop those offset methodologies? I particularly emphasise that I am interested in internationally accepted principles. The minister might indicate to me in what way these principles are ‘internationally accepted’. I would appreciate the minister addressing that query.