Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, I would point out to the Senate that this government did reinstate funding for the national centre for climate adaptation and research that the previous government had actually axed. This government has been quite serious about supporting climate adaptation and we are quite serious about working with our friends and neighbours in the south Pacific to ensure that we assist them through these issues.

Equally, I will highlight to Senator Waters the success of the first Emissions Reduction Fund option. That first option is delivering some 47 million tonnes of abatement alone. That, of course, is making sure that Australia will deliver on the 2010 target; but it is doing so at a far lower cost than we saw from the carbon tax of the previous government, which was generating a tax churn of around $9 billion per annum. Instead, we have gone to the market, we have secured the lowest cost abatement and we are supporting that to meet the targets that we are determined to deliver.