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

I am fired up now. I appreciate the minister's answer, but it is a negotiation. The minister says it is not a negotiation, it is not collective bargaining, it is not a plea bargain—but it is a negotiation about a structure to ensure that there is some fairness and equity in this. This is not a surprise to the government or to the department. This has been going on for month after month after month. LMS have been knocking on doors, trying to get an equitable outcome here, warning of the perverse outcomes. You had the Senate committee making very clear in their first recommendation that the government should consider options to ensure there are no perverse incentives. They have been saying that the incentives are perverse under the current bill. We have had this eleventh-hour approach—and thank goodness for Senator Milne's intervention in this to try and get a just outcome, an equitable outcome, an environmentally sound outcome—and yet we are still talking about something that should have been resolved months ago. How many months have to pass, how many doors do they have to knock on, to get this outcome? This is not acceptable.

This is something that the government was aware of and was warned about; the minister's office was aware of it. And yet we still have a situation where there is a lack of certainty; there is continued uncertainty in what is being proposed. So why will it take a month? My question to the minister is: why on earth will it take a month, when you have been on notice about this for many, many months? Why can't we get a formula in place that gives certainty to this sector, which has been an early adopter—in fact, the first adopters, I would dare to say—of greenhouse gas abatement?