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

I make the observation that, on the basis of the indications to the chamber, this amendment stands or falls on the vote of Senator Fielding, so the chamber might have to test that. I already indicated our attitude to this amendment, Senator Xenophon, in my earlier contribution, but I want to make a brief response in relation to the interchange you just had with Senator Milne. What gas needed was a price on carbon. If you talk to the gas industry, you find out that the passage of the CPRS was what the gas industry, in its different forms, really required. Whilst it is still a fossil fuel, as you make the point, it is a less greenhouse intensive fuel than others—coal, for example. The government’s preferred position was a price on carbon and a renewable energy target. That would have dealt with a number of the issues you have raised far better than tinkering at this point with the renewable energy target.

Question put:

That the amendment (Senator Xenophon’s) be agreed to.