Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

We do not know how this is different from the others. There is a penalty included in the second revised version. I have not even had a chance to look at the revised third version.

We are now talking about something that is critical to the future of our country, to future generations and to the natural environment, and it has all been stitched up in back rooms between the government and the Palmer United Party, and the Senate is being treated with contempt here. How are we supposed to look at what this actually means in the few minutes that are available to us? That is why it is important that the minister does tell us whether the government has stitched this up. We need to know exactly what deals have been going on behind here. Is this the way the parliament is now going to be run—in back rooms between these parties, and then accusing each other of duplicitousness? And we do not even have the opportunity to see what this amendment actually does.

This is a day when Australia will know whether we are going backwards or forwards—whether we are going to embrace the future or whether we are going to be landed back in a fossil fuel past, when we know this is a disaster for the planet and for the country. I would like the government to answer these questions: is this going to be accepted by the government; will you tell us what the differences are? Will you tell us what this amendment does? On this day the whole country wants to know whether we are going forwards or backwards, whether we are going to go with the rest of the world and address global warming or whether we are just going to go back to the last century. We need to know exactly what you have stitched up.