Page 4574 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 19 October 2010
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When there are bills on the paper that cover similar issues, they can be dealt with cognately.
I raised this with the government. They were not so keen on it, but I do thank the Greens for their indication of support in this matter. There are two bills on the paper that relate closely, although they are not the same. I think that this is an appropriate way to deal with both matters. It allows members to speak to both bills at the same time. I thank the Assembly for consideration of this matter.
Question resolved in the affirmative, with the concurrence of an absolute majority.
Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas Reduction Bill 2010
[Cognate bill:
Climate Change (Greenhouse Gas Emissions Targets) Bill 2008 (No 2)]
Debate resumed from 26 August 2010, on motion by Mr Corbell:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (11.36): This bill is one of the central tenets of the Greens-Labor parliamentary agreement, and we warmly welcome the debate today. The Greens will be supporting this bill, one of the most transformative pieces of legislation we are likely to see in this term of the Assembly. I will direct my comments to the government’s bill in the first place and will address Mr Seselja’s bill later.
It will come as no surprise to anyone in this place to hear me say that debating the climate change targets bill in the Assembly is a source of great excitement for me, for the Greens and for all of those people in the ACT community who are concerned about climate change and passionate about changing direction to live more sustainably on this little blue planet.
The passing of this bill is also a source of hope—hope that we can transform the ACT with energy, creativity and boldness, and reduce our greenhouse emissions over the next 50 years, becoming a city that is genuinely a low carbon community.
I do not wish to spend too much time today revisiting the science—there are reams of evidence to suggest that the action being proposed in this bill is at least consistent with what the science is telling us we need to do—but let me touch briefly on it. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its fourth assessment report released in 2007, said:
Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level.
It went on to say:
Global GHG—
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