Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Hansard source

Of course the reason for going down this path is that Senator Milne is putting such store in the operations of this Climate Change Authority. Senator Milne is willing to oppose a legislative amendment that would encourage greater rates of emissions reductions because she has such faith and such confidence that this Climate Change Authority will clearly do her bidding for her, so will clearly deliver the outcome that the Greens wish to see. I would hope you can understand, Minister, the concern on this side. We are worried about this. If this is to be an independent authority then it should be truly independent. That means it should not be filled with people who come in with positions that the Greens have encouraged so those people share those with the Greens to start with and have predetermined outcomes in mind in any way, shape or form. If this is to be independent then it needs to have absolute integrity surrounding it. So there is genuine concern here that, because the Greens have put such stock in this, they are willing to throw out everything they used to stand for in terms of the types of amendments that they would vote for in this place. They are actually willing to vote against an amendment encouraging higher emissions reductions targets.