Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

On the amendments before the chamber that Senator Xenophon has spoken to, the government does not support these amendments. The government does stand by its 2020 target range of five to 15 or 25 per cent below 2000 levels by 2020 on the terms that we have previously indicated. The senator would be aware from earlier discussions that the architecture in this legislation does differ from the CPRS in a number of important respects. The first is in relation to the fixed-price period, which is obviously a three-year period. The second is that these bills create the Climate Change Authority and task it with providing independent advice on pollution caps and carbon budgets that must be considered by the minister administering the legislation when setting the initial and subsequent pollution caps by regulation, which of course are disallowable instruments. I think we have discussed that issue earlier. So, for those reasons, the government will not be supporting Senator Xenophon's amendments.