Page 3756 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 24 August 2010
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As well as thanking committee members, I also express my thanks to Margie Morrison and Hanna Jaireth, who did a wonderful job in preparing the documents.
As I said earlier, there are some points of agreement—in fact, on most of this, there are points of agreement. Looking at issues around the kind of framework that the ICRC put to us for cost-benefit of climate mitigation programs, I think there is some really useful work. I think that the government should look very seriously at that recommendation. In the end, we chose not to be overly prescriptive for the government. The ICRC has put forward a model. I am not an expert on these things but it seems to be a reasonable model. The government may wish to modify that model somewhat. But I think what is important is that they adopt a robust model, that they are up-front and transparent about what that model is and that they then report against that. I think that is really important because it is all well and good to have targets, it is all well and good to say that you are committed to action, but that action needs to be measurable and you need to report against those measures.
I think that the committee has made it very clear, in a tripartisan way, that what we expect from the government is that they will put forward a robust methodology. It may be what the ICRC has suggested; it may be a variation of that. But they will report against that, and I think that is really important.
In summary, I think there are a lot of points of agreement. I think all members of the committee agree that we need some strong targets, we need some strong action and there is a lot more to do. Also, there are some points of difference, which I have highlighted. We look forward to the government’s response to this. We look forward to the government taking these recommendations very seriously. Again, I thank all those who have been involved in putting together what has been quite a significant body of work.
MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella) (10.13): I would like to join with Ms Hunter and Mr Seselja in thanking the committee office for the work that they did—particularly Margie Morrison and Lydia Chung for actually putting it together. Margie did an enormous amount of research which assisted the committee. Without the professional band of committee secretaries that we enjoy here, we would probably struggle, because we are a small parliament.
I would like to make a comment on the way in which the committee operated in this particular instance. I thank my fellow members for their forbearance, because they were here during the compilation of the first report. Coming in, as I did, halfway through the system, and not having the benefit of the research and the discussion around the compilation of the first report, I was a bit on the back foot. I thank my fellow members for their patience.
I also wanted to express my appreciation for the way in which this inquiry, the consideration of this report, played out. If ever there was an opportunity to play politics, this was it. I congratulate Mr Seselja and Ms Hunter on putting the issue of climate change—and what we, a small jurisdiction, can actually do about it—ahead of any particular partisan gain that we might be able to extract from it.
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