Page 3038 - Week 07 - Thursday, 30 June 2011
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MR CORBELL: I withdraw the word “hypocrite”.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ms Le Couteur): Thank you.
MR CORBELL: I withdraw.
Mr Smyth: It is not consistent with the standing orders or House of Representatives Practice to make statements knowing full well that you will withdraw them and get away with it.
MR CORBELL: I have withdrawn it.
Mr Smyth: I ask that you warn him not to do it again.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Smyth. Mr Corbell, you have the floor.
MR CORBELL: I withdraw it.
Flip-flopping is becoming an art on that side of the chamber. We saw it earlier this week in relation to the debacle that was the application for funding for volunteers from Volunteering ACT. We see it again today on this matter.
That is the situation the Liberals and the Greens are creating today, a rush, another rush of applications. This is not about a sustainable landing. This is about creating another rush which will end just as dramatically as the last period.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (4.48): Firstly the minister asserted that he did not say what he said, which was that his office was taking bets, was taking a book. He then in fact challenged me to a bet. This is how he approaches this issue.
But taking up the other issue that he addressed, which is that industry was warned, when industry asked in March what was happening, this is what the minister said. These are his own words on 15 March 2011, just weeks before the scheme was shut down:
Uptake in each category is tracked closely by the Government on a quarterly basis. Once the caps are about two-thirds taken up, this monitoring (and the publishing of the data to the public) will be undertaken on a monthly or more frequent basis and will be published on the department of Environment, Climate Change, Energy and Water website.
It is worth noting that the amended Act also provides for the transfer of caps between categories, should one or the other be over or under subscribed. This flexibility, along with public tracking of the update, will provide certainty to both industry and consumer participation and cushion the impact of the eventual winding up of the medium and micro elements of the scheme.
That is not a warning. That is an assurance that he was going to have a smooth transition, that it would not come to a sudden halt. They were not warned that it was
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