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

I will just note that the minister has said that he does not want to allow state governments to have their own renewable energy targets after the federal government has demonstrated that they want to smash renewable energy because of the regulatory burden. And the deal with the crossbench loads up regulation—unbelievable regulation. Talk about more regulation from a government that says it wants to get rid of it—except when it wants to kill an industry; then they are full of enthusiasm. This whole deal—two pages of attachments of new regulation for the wind industry—demonstrates what utter hypocrites the government are: this nonsense of saying you are against regulation. You are for regulation if you think you can tie up and destroy an industry in cahoots with the crossbench. That is precisely what you are doing on wind. I think we should be supporting state governments having more renewable energy, not less.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN: The question is that the amendment be agreed to.

Debate interrupted.

Progress reported.