Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Finance, Competition Policy and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

I listened very carefully to Senator Bob Brown’s reasons for moving this amendment and I must say I do understand—I think I understand—the genuine sentiments behind the amendment. It has been framed in such a way as to limit, hopefully, negative environmental impacts and to have some control over the guarantee being provided in circumstances where some assessment could be made that it would add to significant greenhouse gas emissions locally or internationally. I think that sooner or later we have to get our heads around infrastructure investment that is not going to have negative environmental impacts and get our heads around being mindful one way or another of what we do with greenhouse gas emissions. But I do not think that this amendment in this particular piece of legislation quite gets there. I agree with Senator Sherry’s comments that it would be extremely difficult to make this work. The kinds of assessments, procedures and barriers to timeliness that would be involved would, I think, be very significant. We do, of course, have to make sure that the sorts of infrastructure that will be beneficial to Australia and the economy more broadly will continue to be built. So, whilst I appreciate Senator Brown’s motivation in bringing forward this amendment, I agree that it imposes impractical requirements and compliance issues. In those circumstances the coalition will not support it.