Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

I do have a question in relation to ARENA, but I will first address some of the issues that the minister has just raised. He says the government is very confident in reaching its target of a five per cent reduction by 2020 on this dud policy called direct action and that it is fully funded. You make those statements, as you say, based on no modelling and with no reserve fund. How can you make that statement? On what basis do you make that statement. There is no scientist and no economist that has given credence to your remarks on making that statement. You are either misleading this chamber by saying that Australia will reach its target of five per cent of reductions by 2020, based on direct action's policy of spending $2.55 billion of taxpayers' money, or you are misleading this parliament. It simply does not add up.

You also say that Australia has had a good track record of emissions reductions, but that has not been under your government. I made it very clear in my second reading contribution that according to the 2014 Global Green Economy Index, since the change of government, our performance now lags behind developing nations—not developed nations, but developing nations—such as Kenya, Zambia, Ethiopian and Rwanda. We are behind those developing nations. We have fallen sharply this year, coming last out of 60 countries for performance on political leadership and climate change and 37th overall, when in 2012 Australia came second out of 27 countries for political leadership and 10th overall for its green economic performance.

You are either misleading this parliament or you need to provide this chamber with where you are sourcing your data from when you say that you as a government are very confident of meeting this target, because no-one that I am aware of is backing you on your statement on that. It would be good to get an answer on that, but I would also just like to ask you for clarification in relation to your deal with the member for Fairfax and the Palmer United Party. Did you give a guarantee that ARENA will be saved and not abolished as part of that deal?