Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you to the senator for his question. I would invite the senator to consider the context of Mr de Boer’s comments, where he also made clear these were domestic issues. I would also invite him to consider subsequent comments by Mr de Boer which the senator may not be aware of. He was asked, for example, on 4 August 2009 about this issue and the relevance of the passage of this legislation to Australia’s credibility at Copenhagen. He answered: ‘I think it helps Australia’s credibility to say, “This is the target Australia is willing to commit to and this is how we are going to achieve it.” That will be good for the country’s credibility, yes.’ I think it is quite clear, consistent with what the government has been saying, that if Australia want to go to Copenhagan with a target the responsible thing to do is to ensure that we have the means to meet it. What we have made clear is that we believe it is in Australia’s interest to ensure that when we agree to targets the Australian people know how it is we are going to meet them, because you do not meet your target by talking about them.

The second reason, of course, for the passage of legislation is business certainty. Greg Gailey, the President of the BCA, talked about climate change being a multidecade investment challenge and about uncertainty being the enemy of those investment decisions. We on this side of the chamber understand that this is an economic reform and we need to give business the certainty which drives the investment of the future. I would also say to the good senator that, if you look at what the G8 said, it is clear this is the direction other countries are going. (Time expired)