Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens will be supporting this. The minister's response, saying that the issues in this amendment are beyond the scope of the bill, goes to the very nub of the problem, which is that you can have a bill that gives up to $2 billion to fossil fuel companies—a subsidy to fossil fuel companies—without considering the broader scope of fuel security, without having a plan, obviously without having an electric vehicle strategy, without having any plan as to how you are going to reduce your need, the demand for those fuels. It is just incompetent governance. Then for the Labor Party to say that they are not supporting this amendment, because it is going to delay the passage of this bill, is just a complete cop out. As I said earlier, the government had the ability through regulation to give payments from the time of the budget, so we could have properly considered and debated this very far-reaching and very expensive legislation. We could and we should be considering very sensible amendments to this legislation. For Labor not to be supporting them, just because they are dancing to the government's tune, is completely appalling. What is the point of having an opposition?