Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

After those very unkind remarks by the Leader of the Government in the Senate, I feel like changing Labor's position on this suspension. However, I think for good reasons the Labor Party will not be supporting the suspension of standing orders today. I point out that it seems like at the beginning of every Tuesday of every sitting week we have a suspension motion by the Greens party on the issue of the day, to chew up time without much notice—probably 10 minutes notice to other parties that they are moving a suspension.

From Labor's point of view, it is premature to have a debate on a motion that condemns the government's latest energy announcement when that announcement hasn't actually been made. Don't get me wrong—we can debate for hours the failure of the Turnbull government on energy policy, and we would look forward to debating that. We would look forward to debating the dumping of the work of the Chief Scientist at the behest of the former Prime Minister. For four years this government has trashed energy policy and turned itself inside out, fighting amongst themselves on climate change and energy policy. It hasn't been able to govern in the national interest, putting the interests of Australians first. I think it is fair to say we will all suffer from that, not just those of us in this place but generations to come. Looking at the different positions the government has had on energy policy, I remember the time when the Prime Minister supported a price on carbon, an EIS and a CET, and now all of a sudden he is walking away from all of that because the former Prime Minister and his supporters in the coalition party room not only hold the government to ransom; they hold the whole country to ransom and they are still stuck in a vortex where they're discussing whether the science of climate change is actually settled yet.

We will need to see the detail of the next iteration of the government's energy policy prior to debating it in this place. As I said, the Prime Minister has had a number of positions. We don't hold much faith that this new policy will last any longer than those that have come before it. We want to see a responsible energy policy put in place. We want to reach agreement. We have offered to talk with the government on the clean energy target through our own preferred mechanism, through an EIS. We did that very early after the Finkel report came out. That was us prepared to compromise, but, unfortunately, the government have refused to talk with us because they haven't actually settled the issue between themselves. We want to see households given relief from the rising cost of bills. We want certainty in the policy so that the investment strike ends and, importantly, so that Australians can get their fair share of the jobs that are being developed in the rapidly expanding global renewable energy industry. All of that is for debate.

I note the Greens have all of Thursday morning as time for private senators' bills and business. We could spend the whole morning debating the policy once the actual policy has been released and we have the detail of that policy. We are not at all scared about debating the policy. We welcome debate on the policy. There are a range of mechanisms within the Senate through which we can pursue that this week—MPIs, urgency motions, questions, senators' statements, the adjournment debate and, indeed, all of the time on Thursday morning. There is more than enough time. However, our job here is also to progress legislation on the Notice Paper, whether we agree or disagree with that legislation. That is the job we have been asked to perform by the Australian people. This wastes that time. It wastes time for debate on other important bills. It is premature in terms of being able to debate seriously and honestly the policy that this government may or may not have finally resolved for themselves—for the time being, until it is nobbled by Tony Abbott again. But the form being used and the mechanism being used by the Greens to suspend the program today to have this debate, prior to a package being released, is not appropriate, and we won't be supporting it.