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

Thank you, Mr Deputy President, but the point here is that we are being told that we are going to sit here tonight to pass a deal, and even the people who are involved in the deal do not know what it is, nor does anyone have an opportunity to look at it. It is $2½ billion worth of taxpayers' money that is going to be spent. There is going to be no scrutiny. That is why it is essential that this deal that has been done be referred to a Senate committee so that we can have a look at it, so that we can get the experts in to determine whether a baseline-and-credit scheme that has been proposed is going to be a carbon tax, for example. The Prime Minister said he did not want a carbon tax, but that is what baseline and credit is, so I think it would be worth looking at that.

I want to know many things about this scheme, but we are not going to know them because the Palmer United Party senators do not even know what their amendments are, and I have not even seen what the amendments are. I do not know if the Labor Party has or not. But the point is: we need to have seen them. We need to assess the impacts. That is why it is an abuse of the Senate—an absolute abuse. We have seen it twice this week. First of all, the Prime Minister engaged in sneaky behaviour to get around the fact that nobody in the Senate except the government supported their big motorway fund, and now again we see contempt of the Senate and all the Senate processes in order to ram through a deal and take $2½ billion out of taxpayers' pockets, having no idea what it is going to do. I do not believe it will go anywhere near reducing five per cent of emissions, let alone more, and more will be required.

As to the Climate Change Authority, as I understood it, Labor supported keeping it, the Greens supported keeping it and now, if the Palmer United Party supports keeping it, it will be kept regardless. So what we need here is real scrutiny of the deal, circulation of the amendments and the opportunity to look at them. Otherwise this is another contempt of the Senate, and that is why we will not support this being brought on and raced through tonight.