Page 5056 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 26 October 2010
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basis on which we are not able to support it today. If we were to pass it, we would want it to be a cost-benefit analysis, a point that I have made a number of times now. It should not just be an analysis of costs. I have earlier made comments about the fact that all of these amendments have been rather one-eyed in their agenda of examining only costs and not being open to the fact that there may be benefits and possibilities which would offset some of the costs that will be incurred.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (4.22): It is becoming quite a pattern here. The Labor Party and the Greens, for one reason or another—many of them manufactured reasons—are telling us that they cannot support amendments that go to costs because it does not suit what the government and the Greens are trying to prosecute. They like the headline that goes with it; they like the headline of 40 per cent. They like to be seen as leaders. But they are not prepared to outline how they are going to get there and how much it will cost. That is fundamental to this debate and why we are seeing the rejection of some of these amendments by the Labor Party and the Greens—they do not want to have this conversation with the community; they want to keep it only in the broad.
They want to say, “Because climate change is the greatest moral challenge of our time,” in the words of, I think, not just Kevin Rudd but Shane Rattenbury as well, “we therefore need to have the most aggressive target we can come up with.” But they do not want to talk about what that means, and that is where there is a significant disconnect in this debate. The Labor Party and the Greens do not want this conversation. They do not want the conversation about the facts; they do not want the conversation about what it means in practice; they do not want the conversation about how it might affect the community.
It is not surprising, though it is disappointing, that the Labor Party and the Greens will again be rejecting a sensible amendment which is simply about accountability and openness when it comes to the costs. It is about being open with the community about what this all means. Time and time again, as part of this debate, we have seen the Labor Party and the Greens choosing to run away from that debate and let the government off the hook by voting against these amendments. I again commend the amendments to the Assembly.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (4.24): I would like to support the passage of these amendments. They are important mechanisms whereby the people of the ACT have some connection with this legislation and some idea of the implications of this legislation.
It is fallacious to say, as the attorney did, that we never have this level of detail in legislation. That is not the case. Later today or later this week we are going to debate the liquor bill, which has a high level of detail about what is required. Mr Rattenbury says that it is not reasonable that we should cost this bill or cost the measures that grow from this bill because it is too hard to do so. Every bill that comes before this place is supposed to have a regulatory impact statement. And when there is new policy, that new policy is supposed to come with a price tag.
There will be a whole range of initiatives which Mr Corbell says will appear in subsequent budget cycles; they will have to have a price tag. And when those matters
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