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

The opposition will be supporting this amendment. This amendment is effectively the same as the amendment that we moved last week in this place. It removes the native wood waste element from the bill. We made our arguments very clear at that time, that our amendment removed the provision in this bill that seeks to reinsert native wood waste into the renewable energy scheme. As well, it amended the act to prevent any future regulation by the government to reinsert native wood waste into the scheme. Obviously, I was disappointed that that amendment did not pass in this place. Having said that, I note that the Greens amendment is pretty much in line with our amendment, and therefore we will be supporting it.

I do want to highlight, though, that when we were in this place last week and we came back to debating this particular legislation, deliberate filibustering took place on the side of the government. This is their legislation and we have waited for it for some 12 months through a very long process of their creating a lot of uncertainty in the renewable energy industry. There has been so much uncertainty that there has been a massive reduction in investment in this country—investment that we have lost to other parts of the world. In good faith, Labor has tried to bring certainty back to the industry, hence our providing that certainty through support of this legislation that is before us now with, of course, removal of the caveat that was inserted at the 11th hour as a red herring, which was the insertion of native wood waste into the renewable energy scheme.

Last week, at the time this legislation was being debated—and in fact we were then debating Labor's amendment—there was continual filibustering. You would think that on finally reaching a bipartisan agreement after 12 months—an agreement that had been in place since 2001, but had then been lost directly after the last election when the Prime Minister reneged on that bipartisan agreement that had been in place since the Howard years—the government would do the right thing, that it would act in good faith and progress this legislation through the Senate. But now we know what was going on at that time. I think even Senator Birmingham did not know what was going on that time. We knew that a meeting was going on, Senator Birmingham. While you and I were in this place debating this legislation, a meeting with the minister, Greg Hunt, with Senator Leyonhjelm, with Senator Xenophon and with the crossbench, to appease their request for the creation of a whole new amount of red tape around the creation of a wind farm commissioner.

We have debated that in this place this week. We have seen the draft letter—it has been all over the media and all over social media. It is basically a letter. It may be lacking a signature, but it is pretty much done and dusted as far as being on letterhead. It has got Greg Hunt's name all over it. It just needs a—