Page 4994 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 26 October 2010
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advertising bill, if I recall the drafting correctly, to simply provide the mechanism so that reports can be available to members outside sitting periods. I commend these essentially technical but important amendments to the Assembly.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Water, Minister for Energy and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (11.02): The government will be supporting these amendments. These amendments recognise that there are some time frames that the independent entity will need to have regard to—in particular, the release of national greenhouse gas emissions accounts and the time frames associated with those. So the government will support these amendments.
Amendments agreed to.
Clause 11, as amended, agreed to.
Proposed new clause 11A.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (11.03): I move amendment No 10 circulated in my name to insert new clause 11A [see schedule 2 at page 5088].
This amendment inserts a new provision that requires a statement to be made by the minister if the targets are not met. The intention of this amendment is to create a process by which the minister formally responds to the annual reporting figures on behalf of the government, including a statement of why the target was not met and what the government’s intention is in regard to taking action or changing policy direction to make up any shortfall in emissions savings.
In some ways this is a self-explanatory provision, but we believe that there is an important step here: if the targets are not being met, the minister does come into this place and make a statement as to why that is so—why the government believes it has struggled to meet the target, where it believes the shortcomings in current policy settings are and where it proposes to go in order to address those shortcomings.
This is particularly important when we are dealing with what are essentially long-term targets. To have an ability along the way for the minister to come in and address where we are up to is important in terms of the fact that this bill simply sets that policy direction. There are no punitive measures in this bill; there is no mechanism like an emissions trading scheme. This is about policy direction. There is value in having the minister come in and make that explanation of where the executive sees that we are up to in achieving the targets that the Assembly has set. I commend the amendment to the Assembly.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (11.04): I move an amendment to Mr Rattenbury’s proposed new clause 11A [see schedule 4 at page 5093].
The amendment that I am moving would simply add to Mr Rattenbury’s amendment to ensure that, where a minister does come back and give an account of what is
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