Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Hansard source

A very reasonable point, Mr President. I ask, Mr President, is it the case that the opposition supports Senator Abetz when he attacks the AiG and Heather Ridout for supporting this budget? The AiG said:

By more than offsetting new spending with savings and by running a large surplus, the Government has adopted a responsible approach, which should be helpful in addressing inflation.

Senator Abetz responded to that endorsement by saying that Heather Ridout and the AiG would have a lot of explaining to do to its members. Is that the official position of the opposition?

The government clearly are in the business of reordering priorities. We have initiated new, multibillion dollar commitments to climate change programs. We are using three-quarters of the savings from the Commercial Ready program in the period 2008-09, which will go into clean business programs—which of course is fulfilling an election commitment. These programs, which include Climate Ready, support innovation in water recycling, waste recovery, small-scale renewable energy, green building materials and efficient energy use in appliances. Our Climate Ready grants will match company spending on research and development on proof-of-concept and commercialisation activities, and they will do that on a dollar for dollar basis. Funding for that program will begin in July. (Time expired)