Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The question was about why you would not get Treasury to model it, especially when the modelling had shown that the cost of five, 10, 15 and 25 per cent reductions were virtually the same. Why would you not, if you were keen to reduce emissions, model further out from that to see if there were a point at which there was a step change in costs in which you might make a decision on it? If the modelling showed there was very little in costs between five and 25 per cent reductions, why would you not have gone out to 40 per cent?

Secondly, at the time that this discussion was happening, at the COP in Bali the road map had identified, albeit removed from the text and put in a footnote, 25 to 40 per cent, and the minister herself would be aware of that since she was chairing the umbrella group which supported removing 25 to 40 from the text. Since the Bali UNFCCC said that developed countries should reduce their emissions between 25 and 40 per cent, why would you not have modelled it in line with what the rest of the world was asking of developed countries?