Senate debates
Thursday, 3 November 2011
Bills
Clean Energy Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Charges — Customs) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Charges — Excise) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Customs Tariff Amendment) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Excise Tariff Legislation Amendment) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Fuel Tax Legislation Amendment) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Household Assistance Amendments) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Income Tax Rates Amendments) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (International Unit Surrender Charge) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Tax Laws Amendments) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Unit Issue Charge — Auctions) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Unit Issue Charge — Fixed Charge) Bill 2011, Clean Energy (Unit Shortfall Charge — General) Bill 2011, Clean Energy Regulator Bill 2011, Climate Change Authority Bill 2011, Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas (Import Levy) Amendment Bill 2011, Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas (Manufacture Levy) Amendment Bill 2011; In Committee
7:29 pm
Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source
Senator, we are, because this is not a technology that is commercialised and therefore it is not at this point within the remit of the legislation. You are asking me: 'If this happened, what would then happen?' But as a matter of courtesy to the chamber, I am happy to give you the best advice that I can. The issue would be this: at some point there has to be liability for the additional CO2, because the algae—as I understand it from the advice that I have just been given; this is not an area in which I have a great deal of personal expertise—is not permanently sequestering CO2. So there is a question then of who bears the liability. Is it the initial emitter of the CO2? Is it the person who grows the algae? Or, if the algae becomes a source for something else, is it the person who uses it for that? Those would be issues that would have to be resolved. But I emphasise that the advice that I have—and I can only take advice on this—is that this has not yet been commercialised and therefore this issue has not yet been resolved.
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