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

I am going to follow up on what Senator Milne has so cogently put. Because we have had a change in the coalition leadership today, which is extremely important not just to this clause but to the whole bill that we are dealing with, the question I would also like the minister at this juncture to answer is: now that the opposition no longer agrees to the deal made with the government last week, is the government reverting to its original legislation or is it going to continue pursuing the huge windfall for the polluters that is involved in the coalition-amended legislation that we now have before us?

I would expect that later today we are going to get motions from the coalition, which has largely been missing from the chamber today, to try to move towards what Mr Abbott says is his course of action, which is, firstly, to move for a delay of these proceedings for a Senate committee to look at this legislation over summer. That means that the coalition party room, which spent eight hours coming to this deal with the government to give the polluters the windfall, including $6 billion transferred out of households across to the big polluters, is going to say: ‘Yes, we made that decision. Every one of us took part in the decision, including Senator Joyce of the National Party, but having made that decision we are now going to have a committee look at it to give us time to try to reassess where we go from here.’ This is the new leader of the coalition, who is reported to have said that ‘climate change is crap’, if you will excuse me, Temporary Chair.