Page 4999 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 26 October 2010

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those who are most vulnerable to the cost increases. But we have to be realistic about how we can do that—where it is best done and where is the best place in the legislation to put it. At this point, we will not be supporting this suggested amendment because we do not believe that this is the right part of the legislation to address this issue.

Question put:

That Mr Seselja’s amendment be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Ayes 5		Noes 9
Mr Doszpot	Mr Seselja	Mr Barr	Ms Hunter
Mrs Dunne	Mr Smyth	Ms Bresnan	Ms Le Couteur
Mr Hanson		Mr Corbell	Ms Porter
		Ms Gallagher	Mr Rattenbury
		Mr Hargreaves

Question so resolved in the negative.

Proposed new clause 11A agreed to.

Clause 12.

MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (11.24): I move amendment No 11 circulated in my name [see schedule 2 at page 5089].

This amendment adds some principles that we think the minister should have to take into account while undertaking his or her statutory functions. They cover a number of points as set out in the amendment. The first is the application of the intergenerational equity principle. In some ways, this may seem superfluous or even obvious in the context of this bill. After all, if we paid no regard to intergenerational equity then we would not be here today having this debate. But I think it is useful to insert this intent as it enshrines that principle into law so that there is, in fact, no doubt about the point.

“Have regard to how measures to address climate change may affect people who are socially and financially disadvantaged” is paragraph (b) of this amendment. It is important we state this up front, and the Greens have inserted this into the bill in two places. We propose to do so both here and in the composition of the climate change council, as we must be mindful that as we introduce policy measures there are some in our community who will bear a disproportionate burden of those policy measures. There are people in our community already who are suffering energy poverty and we must keep a close eye on them to ensure that they are not driven further into energy poverty and that they are the priority of policies to improve energy efficiency, because it is these people who are least able to make the adjustments as various policies start to have an impact.

The third point, paragraph (c) of my amendment, relates to “consultation and engagement with the community”. We believe that this must sit at the heart of this bill,

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