Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I indicate that I will be not be supporting this amendment. I think in an interjection by Senator Feeney earlier about the whole idea of a royal commission he said that the IPCC has done that. I think he is right. There have been enough peer-reviewed articles to indicate that climate change is real. There are other scientists who disagree, but the overwhelming scientific evidence is that we must take action. The approach suggested by Senator Fielding, with respect to him, is not the way forward. In any event, from a procedural point of view, the fact is that we can call on the government to have a royal commission but we cannot force the government to have a royal commission. Similarly, we can call on the government to have a Productivity Commission inquiry but it is for the government, for the Assistant Treasurer, to actually order the commission to undertake such an inquiry—