Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I table a ministerial statement on COAG business regulation agreement and small business initiatives and I seek leave to make a statement on carbon pollution.

Leave granted.

The Australian people made it clear at the last election that they want our government to take action on climate change. Australians want the government to deal with this issue so our children and grandchildren are not punished for our failure to take responsible action now. The government’s commitment to acting on climate change was evident with its first official act—ratifying the Kyoto protocol. And climate change has remained a top priority since, through the government’s comprehensive approach to reducing Australia’s emissions, adapting to the climate change we cannot avoid and helping to shape a global solution. This reflects Australia’s strong national interest in an effective global response to climate change as well as the government’s commitment to ensure Australia plays its full, fair and constructive part in building a global response.

As Professor Garnaut demonstrated through his review, Australia is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change—more so than any other developed country. As one of the hottest and driest continents on earth, Australia’s economy and environment will be one of the hardest and fastest hit by climate change if we do not act decisively.

It is true that the global financial crisis is having a substantial impact around the world and here at home, but this will not divert the government from the task of building a low-pollution economy for Australia’s future. There will never be an easy time to deal with climate change, but transitioning to a low-pollution economy is vital to Australia’s long-term economic prosperity. While we work around the clock to buffer our country against the full force of the global economic crisis, our government understands the importance of continuing to lay the groundwork for the future economy. The global financial crisis makes it more, not less, important that we tackle the big economic challenges.

In July this year, the Rudd government released the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme green paper, outlining the government’s preferred positions on emissions trading and the support proposed to help households and businesses adjust to this economic transformation. The green paper was informed by a comprehensive first phase of consultation with the community and business.

In October, the government launched Australia’s low pollution future: the economics of climate change mitigation. This comprehensive report contains Treasury’s detailed modelling of the costs and opportunities of acting decisively to meet the challenge of climate change. The report contains the most complex, comprehensive and rigorous analysis of its kind ever undertaken in Australia.

The Treasury’s modelling demonstrates that early global action is less expensive than later action, that a market based approach allows robust economic growth into the future even as emissions fall, and that many of Australia’s industries will maintain or improve their competitiveness as the world moves to reduce carbon pollution.

In the months since the release of the green paper, I, my office and the Department of Climate Change have been engaged in a second phase of extensive consultation with business and the community on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. The government has received over 1,000 submissions, all of which are being carefully considered in the formulation of the white paper. The government has held workshops on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme across Australia—in every capital city and in a number of regional locations. We are very conscious of the need to deliver an economically responsible Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, which is why we are going through such an extensive process.

Throughout this year, Australia has continued to play an active and constructive role in negotiations for a global agreement on climate change. The government has advocated global action on climate change in key multilateral and bilateral meetings, including the Major Economies Meeting Leaders’ Summit held at this year’s G8 meeting in Japan. We have used these meetings to emphasise the continued importance of forging a global solution to this global problem.

The Prime Minister signed the forest carbon partnerships with President Yudhoyono of Indonesia and Prime Minister Somare of Papua New Guinea to take forward our collaboration on reducing emissions from deforestation—a critical issue, given that emissions from deforestation and forest degradation account for around 20 per cent of emissions globally. In November, Australia hosted the Australia-Indonesia Ministerial Forum, where the two countries released the Roadmap for Access to International Carbon Markets, designed to assist Indonesia access international forest carbon markets. Australia and Indonesia also agreed to develop a second demonstration activity in Indonesia to help showcase in a practical way how emissions from deforestation and forest degradation can be reduced.

In November, I also hosted the inaugural Australia-China Ministerial Dialogue on Climate Change. This followed the April 2008 agreement between the governments of Australia and the People’s Republic of China to establish annual policy dialogues at a ministerial level. During the meeting, our two countries agreed to build on our cooperation on clean energy and clean technologies. China agreed to support efforts under Australia’s $100 million global carbon capture and storage institute and recognised that it was an important vehicle to accelerate global demonstration of CSS technology on a commercial scale. Australia has participated actively in negotiations throughout the year, including through making public submissions on priority topics. Most recently Australia submitted a substantial set of 13 submissions on key issues for the Poznan negotiations.

The government will release its CPRS white paper and medium-term target range for reducing carbon pollution on Monday, 15 December. We have been very clear throughout the year that we would release the white paper and medium-term target range in December. Our priority is to provide business and the Australian community with certainty on the design of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and target range in December—as we always said we would do. The 15 December release date allows me to represent Australia at the Poznan climate change negotiations, while also delivering on our commitment to release the white paper and medium-term target range by the end of the year.

We have an extensive internal decision-making process on the CPRS currently underway. We are also continuing with a comprehensive stakeholder consultation process. One key factor which has become clear during our consultations is that business certainty would be significantly improved if the design of the scheme was released concurrently with the medium-term target range. We are taking a measured and responsible approach to the CPRS and setting the path to reduce carbon pollution. This is a major economic reform and we must get it right.

Australia will continue to play an active and constructive role in negotiations at Poznan. As the UN has said, negotiators will use Poznan to take stock of the progress made so far and map out what needs to be done to give us the best chance possible of reaching an agreement at the end of 2009. Poznan is the midpoint in the international negotiations which started last year in Bali, building up to the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. The release of the white paper in December will position Australia well to continue to play our full part in efforts to secure that global solution in 2009. Australia will also encourage other advanced economies to release comparable targets as soon as possible.

In the interests of securing our future economic prosperity, the government will continue efforts to shape a global solution and take responsible action at home through the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Next year, legislation on the scheme will be debated in both houses of parliament. During this debate, it is hoped all members and senators will take a responsible approach to dealing with the great challenge of climate change.

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the statement.

I will respond to the minister’s statement on behalf of the opposition. I note that the Minister for Climate Change and Water has begun to follow the coalition’s approach of waiting to see where the rest of the world is going before deciding targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions. Why do the government continue on their rush and haste in their introduction of their own emissions trading scheme without waiting to see what is going to happen with respect to the outcome of the meeting of all countries in Copenhagen late next year and the detail of what US President Obama will do and what line he will follow?

The coalition has long warned that the government’s rushed 2010 deadline will lead to a flawed model that will damage Australian industry and, more importantly, damage employment. Likely to greatly influence the impact infrastructure can have in the years ahead is the design and timing of the government’s planned emissions trading scheme. Without doubt climate change is best tackled from a position of economic strength. I think that is a fundamental plank from where the opposition is coming on this subject. To this end, an effective emissions trading scheme must be designed to protect our export and import competing industries until the rest of the world has signed up to a course of action. As it stands today, the government’s preferred design for an emissions trading scheme would effectively impose billions of dollars of tax on those Australian export and import competing industries which are high users of energy, ahead of any commitment by our major trading competitors to sign up to such a scheme. This makes no sense.

The coalition believe that we need to give the planet the benefit of the doubt. We therefore support action on climate change. For that reason we have a policy of both protecting the planet and protecting Australia. We support in principle an emissions trading scheme as part of a three-pillars approach to climate change which also includes a clean energy revolution and unrelenting international pressure for reduced world emissions. The situation is that we consider that an emissions trading scheme should commence when it is ready, in an orderly, methodical and responsible manner which enjoys the broad support of Australian industry and protects vulnerable Australian households, not before 2011. The carbon price must be set at a level that reflects action by the rest of the world, and if no action is underway Australia must start an emissions trading scheme with a very low price and a slow trajectory. Australia must have an emissions trading scheme that will achieve carbon reductions without compromising Australia’s future economic sustainability. Last year’s Shergold report warned that excessive haste creates great risk.

We have seen some very interesting developments in recent times. The minister makes a statement in a very timely way given the shifting of the goalposts here. Notwithstanding the fact that she is going to Poznan and has said that she is going to tie down interim targets thereafter—I think her announcement is due on Monday, 15 December—I want to pause to say that this government in its design of this scheme has committed to a dreadfully flawed scheme. When you look at the amount of energy we are supplying to particularly East Asia, to not include liquid natural gas in a scheme such as this, when we are exporting a reduced emissions technology effectively through the gas, is utterly crazy. The best thing we can do for China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea is to give them an energy source that is emissions reduced. But, no, LNG has been left out of the scheme. LNG will be rendered marginally competitive under this scheme. It will be damaged.

I pause to say that there is a lot of concern in this chamber about the car industry. The car industry is going through a period of enormously stressful economic strain at this moment. On top of what it is going through, we are going to impose an emissions trading scheme upon that industry and the amount of energy it uses, particularly in the southern states, which rely on coal-fired generation. I might point to the Tasmanian refinery and the Port Pirie refinery. That is a microcosm of an example where the government appears not to be listening. Alcoa’s $3 billion expansion project has been put into mothballs while we wait to see some certainty. The minister talks about certainty; she has created uncertainty. She has over 1,000 submissions. We know what they are saying: they are saying that this policy is an anathema to economic stability and to economic certainty. When is the minister going to wake up to the fact that the global financial crisis has added to the problems of implementing this policy? It is a dangerous policy. If she were seeking bipartisan support, she should come into this chamber and say, ‘We are pausing to have a good look at what everybody else is going to do and to rework our original position and go forward low and slow.’

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

I rise to take note of the minister’s statement. I appreciate the minister making a statement on this, but really it is completely unacceptable that the government do not tell the Australian people what the 2020 target is before the minister leaves for Poznan for the global negotiations. Nobody, but nobody, is going to believe that the government have not already made up their mind and decided what the target is—as if anything is going to change in the next 10 days. So the only reason the government are not telling the people of Australia what the 2020 target is is that it is a very weak target and the government want the cover of Poznan to be able to say when they get back, ‘The reason we have gone for a weak target is that the rest of the world is not moving any faster,’ and therefore it covers them to make it look as if it was something of a response to global negotiations when clearly they have decided now what the target is going to be.

It is obvious from the directions on the Treasury modelling what the target was always going to be. If the government had been serious about looking at the range of what was possible, they would have asked the Treasury to model everything from a five per cent to a 40 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, and then you would be able to see where the threshold point is in terms of real costs. As it was, Treasury was told to model 450 and 550 parts per million, and with a five per cent, 10 per cent, 15 per cent and 25 per cent reduction by 2020 there was virtually no difference in the cost. So, if there was no difference between a five per cent cut and a 25 per cent cut, what was the difference to 40 per cent? That is the question that the government need to answer, but we cannot answer it because Treasury was not asked to model it. I asked the minister in question time last week whether she would ask Treasury now to rerun the model on a 40 per cent cut and 350 parts per million and also use other models, and she refused. The government made a political decision not to model anything above a 25 per cent cut, so we do not know what a deep cut would do in terms of costs, and that, as I said, was a political decision.

For the government to say that it is taking a comprehensive approach to reducing Australia’s emissions is wrong. Firstly, there is a lot of talk about a comprehensive approach but it is not happening. The government promised a 20 per cent MRET by 2020 but it has still not legislated for that one year on. There has been no move to actually do that. The renewable energy industry is getting very frustrated and angry, and a lot of the firms are going to go offshore because the government has not done what it said it would. Secondly, it is very clear that the government is not going to support a national gross feed-in tariff, yet everyone in the world—from the Spanish to the Californians to the Italians to the Germans—will tell you that what led to the deployment of renewable energy in those places was a gross feed-in tariff.

While the minister claims that Australia is taking some sort of leadership role and that the Chinese are talking to Australia about carbon capture and storage, of far greater significance is the fact that the Chinese Academy of Sciences has signed a memorandum of understanding with the United States energy agency for the US and China to accelerate investment in solar technologies. So while Australia will be trying to pump carbon dioxide down holes, China and the US will zoom straight past us on renewable energy technologies. Because it is very clear to me that that will be the case, I told members of the renewable energy industry at the Australian-New Zealand solar energy conference last week that it is time for fight or flight. I told them that they should either leave now for the US where the action is or stay here and fight to get the 20 per cent renewable energy target legislated and to get a national gross feed-in tariff. To lie down in the middle of the road is to guarantee to be run over. It is very clear to me that that was always going to be the case. After his election, Barack Obama promised a green new deal—a $150 billion investment in a green energy revolution. Americans will say that that is part of their energy security but that investment is also certainly part of their attempt to secure their manufacturing industry into the future. Australia is not doing that and our insistence on carbon capture and storage will see us going backwards in this regard.

On the issue of deforestation, it is disgusting that the government is running around talking to Indonesia and Papua New Guinea about deforestation while subsidising the logging of forests in Australia. What sort of hypocritical position is that? No doubt the National Association of Forest Industries will be there in Poznan with the minister supporting such a view, but anyone who knows anything about ecology and biodiversity will not be supporting the Australian government view that it is fine to stop deforestation in PNG and Indonesia but not to stop deforestation in Australia. We need a mechanism to include the protection of standing stores of forests and vegetation. We could then get credit for that, instead of supporting the maintenance of forests in PNG and Indonesia while knocking forests down in Australia. Yesterday I was at a book launch in Hobart, where again we see the massive and fantastic Tasmanian forests—the Styx and the Florentine—about to be logged with this government’s approval. Standing carbon stores are to be knocked down with this government’s approval. Obviously the rest of the world will be aware of what Australia and Canada are doing.

In Poznan Australia will be chairing the umbrella group. Let us get this very clear: whilst all of the world’s media reported that Australia was going to ratify Kyoto at the Bali conference, which was a very positive thing, what they did not report was that Minister Wong chaired the umbrella group, which consists of the world laggards—Canada, the United States, Japan, the Saudis, Australia and New Zealand, which opted out—and that it was the umbrella group that fought strongly against a 25 to 40 per cent cut being included in the negotiating range of emission cuts by 2020. They got that blocked, instead putting it there as a footnote. Minister Wong herself said this morning that Australia never supported a negotiating range of 25 to 40 per cent.

In Poznan we will again have Minister Wong chairing the umbrella group, chairing the recalcitrants, which will again do everything in their power to stop the rest of the world adopting the 25 to 40 per cent negotiating range. If they come back from Poznan without a 25 to 40 per cent negotiating range, it will be as much Australia’s fault as anybody else’s. Let us get that very clear: unless there is that 25 to 40 per cent negotiating range in the Bali roadmap—which was put in as a footnote because it was taken out of the roadmap at the insistence of the umbrella group and others—then let us sheet the blame home to where it deserves to be and let us give up any pretence of Australia being a leader. Leaders do not go to global meetings and refuse to reveal their position, only to come home and hide behind a position of inaction as justification for poor results. Leaders actually go there, as the European Union has done, and say, ‘We will go for 20 per cent by 2020, and if the rest of the world moves we will go for 30 per cent.’ The European Union is out there saying what they think is right for the climate and for the people of the world. That is what we should be doing, not hiding behind the skirts of the coal and logging industries, peeping out every now and then to see if anybody has noticed.

It will be interesting to see in some detail what the government has said about the 13 submissions on key issues for the Poznan negotiations. I notice that the minister has said that Australia will encourage other advanced economies to release comparable targets as soon as possible. Well, if our government is not prepared to release their targets before the negotiations, why would the rest of the world take any notice of us? Climate change is serious and it is urgent. It is a global catastrophe. The scientific information has got worse as the world seems to be backing off doing anything about it. In many ways we are in a worse position than we were 12 months ago—we certainly are in terms of the climate. Having the government using the rhetoric of action on climate change whilst doing nothing is worse than a government that does not pretend it is doing anything and says upfront that it is not doing anything and that it is not going to. At least then you know what is going on.

But the Australian people have been misled into thinking that ratification of Kyoto is enough and that the ETS is going to be a silver bullet. It is not going to be a silver bullet. In fact, it is going to do precious little, because it is going to have weak targets and a weak cap and so many free permits that it would seem they are going out of style. If this carbon sink forests initiative continues, there will be a way of cost-shifting the mitigation burden from the coal companies and the aviation companies to the taxpayer anyway through these tax breaks on forests. Things have never been worse in terms of where we are on climate change. There is a lot of talk; there is not much action. We will see on 15 December whether, in fact, I am right, but I suspect that we are going to hear five to 15 per cent dressed up as some kind of reaction from this government. We should never forget that last year the world said 25 to 40 per cent was the appropriate negotiating range. The Australian government did not instruct its Treasury to model 25 to 40 per cent. No, the Australian government instructed its Treasury to model five to 25 per cent. The highest that Australia is prepared to go to is the lowest that the rest of the world thought was appropriate.

I will finish by reminding us just how serious climate change is. It has become such a common source of conversation and discussion that people have become complacent. This is incredibly urgent. We are approaching thresholds from which there is no retreat. There are many scientists who are now privately saying that we are already too late—that there is so much heat locked into the global oceans that it is already too late for the world’s coral reefs and that we are managing them for decline. We have many scientists who are saying that the methane chimneys bubbling up in the arctic are just the beginning of what is to come and we are already at the point of the feedback loops in terms of methane, tundra thawing and massive methane emissions to atmosphere. I am one of those who think we have run out of time. I think that if we do not get global emissions to stabilise and come down by 2015 then we are in for catastrophic climate change. There is no point in people looking back and saying they could not have known in 2008. They could have known and did know in 2008. The question is: did they have the courage to do something about it or were they more concerned about what the business council might say and what the big end of town might donate for the next federal election to actually take the position that the globe requires?

Quite apart from the climate change impacts, Australia is going to be bypassed. We are going to become a backwater of manufacturing and our current account is going to be worse if the rest of the world get on the with green energy revolution that I believe they are going to get on with. We will see some of our best brains and our jobs go overseas. I pose the question: why is it that when 200 jobs are lost in a coal mine or in old-growth logging it is a national emergency and we have to have a rescue package, but when 200 jobs are lost from BP Solar—sophisticated manufacturing—in Sydney everyone goes, ‘Oh, what a shame’? Why is it that we are not keeping the sophisticated manufactures and bringing in the legislation that will give a boost to these sectors? Why are we just saying: ‘It’s a shame they are going offshore. The things we are good at are digging holes, cutting down trees, putting in roads and building resorts, but we do not have the brains or the gumption to rebuild our manufacturing sector and give ourselves energy security and sophisticated manufactures and exports’? That is where we should be going, and that is why Australia’s weak targets from both the climate and pure economic points of views are such poor positions to be taking to the world. It most certainly is not a leadership position.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a lot of different views to the previous speaker, Senator Milne, on this issue. But one thing I do agree with her on is that the approach of the current government has been hypocritical at best and dishonest at worst. It was all about winning votes last November in the election with the rhetoric on climate change—the ill-thought-through plans, the lack of real consideration of the impact on Australia and the lack of understanding of what the rest of the world was going to do. I am afraid that the Minister for Climate Change and Water continues to stumble from one problem to another as she attempts to try and match up the action to the rhetoric that has been spouted by the Labor Party for some time. I hear now from the government all these great programs about deforestation. I just want to remind the Senate that earlier this year the new government came in flush with success and knocked off two programs that the previous government had that dealt with deforestation in Indonesia and in the Solomons, as I recall. They cut those programs, which were actually doing something positive to stop deforestation in some of the most sensitive parts of the world, without even a murmur.

This whole global climate change debate has been fraught with inconsistencies. One thing about this government that concerns me very greatly goes back to the attitudes that prevailed in the Hawke-Keating times, when if you did not agree with everything that the government said on a subject then you were somehow a lesser person. You were somehow racist, sexist or any other pejorative that came around. Today in question time, I asked the minister a question. It was a very, very simple question, and I tried to get an answer from her at estimates as well. I accept that climate change is happening. I am no scientist, but I read the papers and I do accept it. I do acknowledge that there are as many qualified scientists who disagree as there are who agree. It is confusing for those of us without a scientific background, but, on balance, I accept that it is happening. I simply asked the minister to tell us what impact Australia’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme—given that we emit less than 1.4 per cent of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions—might have on the changing climate of the world. That is what it is all about. Forget about the rhetoric and forget about what scientists are saying. We accept that our climate is changing. If Australia does what the rhetoric says we are going to do, what impact will that have on the changing climate of the world?

Every time I have raised that with the minister I have got the finger-pointing and the accusations of being a sceptic and all other sorts of things. You simply ask a question and, because it does not happen to meet with the minister’s view on life and because the minister takes it as an affront that anyone should question anything she says on climate change, you suddenly get the shouting and the finger-pointing and you are made to feel that you have just spoken about motherhood. With respect to my colleagues sitting opposite, I say to ministers that just because people have a different view does not mean that they are any less Australian. My questions to the minister, on this particular subject at least, are always polite. Just tell me the answer! But I get the shouting, the accusations and the finger-pointing and never of course do I get an answer.

One day I would like her to answer it because I think a lot of Australians are interested in what impact anything we do in Australia will have if China, India, America and, increasingly, Poland and Italy and lots of other countries do nothing. I know it will destroy our industries. I know it will destroy our mining areas. But I want to know what impact it will have on the climate change that is happening to the world. That is the bottom line; that is what it is all about. So I ask the minister, who I note does not wait around to hear these debates—she scuttles off; obviously she is very busy—

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Faulkner interjecting—

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

She is very busy; I accept that, Senator Faulkner.

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am here to represent her.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Good. I am pleased that Senator Faulkner is here. I think he probably has a more rational understanding of the whole issue of climate change. He understands the politics very well and I know he was part of that. But he does, I think, have a more balanced view of the fact that other people can have a view without being continually accused of being sceptics. As my colleague Senator Brandis continually interjects to Senator Wong: ‘Is being a sceptic a crime nowadays under the new regime of the thought police of the Labor government?’ I would like to understand that whole issue.

I ask a question today about free permits and, again, the minister does not seem to have any idea. I have to say I do agree with Senator Milne on this issue: for all the rhetoric, all the handclapping, all the flashlights popping at Bali last year we now find that the Australian government are going to this major international conference without any indication of where they are heading. That has not been the rhetoric all the way through this year. You will notice a slight change of rhetoric as the Labor Party now understand the sense of the approach that was taken by the coalition in relation to climate change. Yes, we need to do something, but we do not need to do it in advance of others and we have to see what everyone else is doing.

I am also interested in discussing recent reports, only I dare not ask about them for fear of being accused of being a philistine. The other day I read—but I do not know if the article was accurate or not—something about some very serious ice scientists who were saying that the amount of ice is increasing both in the Arctic and the Antarctic. If that is true—I have no capacity to judge, but some fairly prominent scientists were quoted—how does that fit in with global warming? I do not know. I would like to ask the minister about that but I am sure that, if I do, for a start I will not get an answer and then I will be accused of all sorts of things. I am not a shrinking violet—I do not really care if she calls me names—but it would be nice every now and again to get the resources of the Australian government, who can give answers to these things, to actually answer a question. But it does not suit the minister’s rhetoric so we never get it.

How these assessments could have been done without taking any notice of the global financial circumstances I am not quite sure, but this government has done it. The Garnaut report seems to have been tossed aside already and we find some difficulty in having any idea of where we are going.

I do not want to take too much of the Senate’s time. The ministerial statement—although I have only had an opportunity to glance at it and listen while the minister was speaking—does not seem to take us any further except to say what she announced to the media last Friday, I think it was—that is, that they are not going to announce a target before the Poznan conference is all over and dead.

I cannot help myself so I will put on record my disagreement with Senator Milne. I note the impact that Australian forests and the forestry industry have as to their positive aspects for so much of Australia’s society and economy, including our addressing of climate issues. There are positives all the way through. Time will not permit me to go through them. I know that if time permitted Senator Colbeck, my colleague here on the front bench, would relish that, but I understand he is on strict orders not to delay the debate. But there are very positive aspects as to Australia’s forestry industry that help in so many ways. On that subject I am pleased to say that, at least in the last few years, the Labor Party and the Liberal Party are at one in our understanding of that.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are a few sceptics over there.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A few sceptics over there, are there? If there are sceptics, good luck to them. We do encourage different thoughts although some others do not. I will leave it there, Mr Acting Deputy President, but in case others might want to speak about this later, should I seek leave to continue my remarks?

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Macdonald, in regard to your request, the question is before the Senate and I now will put the question:

That the Senate take note of the statement.

Question agreed to.