Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that the Government is deploying a strategy of avoiding accountability, interrogation and scrutiny in relation to Australia's rising pollution levels, and owning up to its hostility towards any climate policy by:

  (i) the Minister for the Environment refusing four media requests from 7.30, half a dozen requests for interviews from Sky News and multiple interviews from Fairfax Media and Channel 7,

  (ii) the now frequent practice of holding back the quarterly updates of Australia's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory reports, merging quarterly reports and releasing them at times to minimise scrutiny and obscure public attention of their contents, and

  (iii) most recently, by proposing an estimates schedule for the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee that has pushed back scrutiny of greenhouse reductions to 9pm in the evening; and

(b) directs the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, in relation to its supplementary estimates hearing on Monday, 22 October 2018, to call on program 2 of the Environment and Energy portfolio: Reducing Australia's Greenhouse Gas Emissions by not later than 2 pm.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is granted for one minute.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The committee schedule has been set to factor in the national apology, together with the availability of the various agencies and their respective travel needs. Labor, the coalition and other crossbench senators were all able to agree on this timetable some time ago.

Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is granted for one minute.

Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor supports the first part of this motion, which condemns the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government's inaction on climate change. However, Labor will oppose this motion because we cannot support the matters relating to estimates programming. Labor submitted our Environment and Communications estimates request to the secretariat on 19 and 20 September. The Greens should share when they submitted their request, if indeed they did. This motion seeks to move only program 2.1 to an earlier time, not programs 2.2 and 2.3. The nature of estimates is that someone has to go last. The Senate has a robust procedure for spillover hearings if necessary. Labor will always hold the government to account on their poor performance when it comes to inaction on climate change.

Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is granted for one minute.

Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's very clear that this government is deeply ashamed of how fast pollution is rising on its watch. That's why they're undertaking an orchestrated strategy to hide information on pollution growth—to obscure it and drop it at a time of their choosing. An FOI from the ACF shows that they hid the last quarterly greenhouse accounts for almost two months after the department cleared it for release. Then they dumped it in the late afternoon before a long weekend of footy finals. What a disgrace! They're ashamed that this report shows that pollution's going up. It exposes that they've got no climate policy and energy policy. You can see it in the way the environment minister is avoiding all media interview requests. You can see it in the way that they've moved the estimates session on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from during the day to as late at night as possible. It's up to the Senate to stand up to these strategies to obscure what this government is doing when it comes to trashing our environment.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that motion No. 1143 be agreed to.