Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

For the purposes of actually accurately reflecting the pathway to where we're at, I wouldn't exactly call this orderly, transparent and straightforward. Part of it was fairly straightforward. It was what you'd expect from a government—round tables, discussion papers and consultation—but then it went into the big black box of the Labor-Green government, where we started doing dodgy deals and no-one was consulted and no-one was brought on the journey.

This Senate was treated with absolute contempt when the amendments were handed out as the committee stage began. I'm sorry, but that is not orderly. That is not thoughtful. That is not considered. That is not mature government. That is a rushed, dodgy deal. If you're telling me, Minister, that we're going to see more of this down the track—you go out, consult with industry, have round tables, do your discussion papers, have this orderly discussion and then say, 'We'll park all of that and get back inside our black box with our friends over here the Australian Greens'—then I don't think what you're saying will satisfy anyone or provide anyone with comfort. If it's going to be like what we've just seen, which is why we've had the extended debate this week on this bill, which will be voted on at one o'clock today, that is not a good outcome. Please don't be surprised at my wanting to understand this because, to the kids up there in the gallery who are watching this debate, this is not what good government is. This is dodgy deals to get something done so the Prime Minister at the end of this week can say, 'I won. I got a bill up.' The people who are going to be paying are the people of Australia—those businesses that are going to be penalised for this, the workers in those businesses who are potentially going to lose their jobs and those people out there who are going to pay more for power.

Again, I come back to the questions I was asking. If there has been no economic modelling done on growth under the hard cap and what might happen within that buffer, and putting aside your assurances of consultation, whatever that might look like—if it replicates what we've seen here, then we're in big trouble—how can you be certain or sure or whatever word you seek to use that you don't have to consider these amendments?