Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

Okay. If you turn to amendment (3) and look at 30LA(3), it will be clear from that that the minister has the capacity, after taking into account independent advice, to look to various changes to deal with a situation where the small-scale technology certificates created in 2015 would exceed or be expected to exceed six million megawatt hours. As I said, we believe that this deals with one of the issues raised in the Senate committee report—and, while I am on my feet, I will thank Senator McEwen and other senators for their prompt and sensible consideration of this legislation. These amendments deal with one of the issues that were raised in the context of that report, about whether or not the growth in the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme would be substantially more than that anticipated. This provision enables what we think is a sensible and robust decision-making framework to address those issues should they arise.