Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

I refer the minister to the government’s announcement in January 2006 of the $100 million commitment over five years as a contribution to the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, AP6. Labor endorsed this initiative when it was launched, noting that it was positive but very limited and quite modest in scale. Now, some 18 months later, we are yet to see the results of this modest initiative. This time last year, as the minister would be aware, the United States congress knocked back the US’s proposed $52 million AP6 funding. Republican Senator John McCain remarked that the AP6 was nothing more than a nice little public relations ploy. This year an AP6 meeting was scheduled for March 2007 but was indefinitely postponed and we are yet to hear whether any other country has made any other commitment other than to attend meetings. Foreign Minister Downer said in May this year the AP6 is making terrific progress. Since its foundering here last January, we are left to wonder exactly what this means. My question to the minister is: so far, how much money have China, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the United States contributed to AP6? At the launch the Australian government said $25 million was exclusively earmarked for renewable energy technology. Can the minister confirm that this money has been fully spent or allocated?

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

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