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Thursday, 13 October 2011
Page: 7296

Senator MILNE (Tasmania—Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens) (09:53): It would be very difficult for people listening to this debate to know what the question before the chair is. I would like to take people away from a torrent of personal abuse and back to the substantive matter under debate here, which concerns a number of emails that were pasted on the committee website. They were there the night before last, but the coalition apparently had not seen them, even though they have members on that committee, and did not recognise that there was anything substantive to do something about. They had to wait for the lead from the Australian before they realised there was a story here to pursue. So, a day and a half after the matter appeared on the committee website we now have the matter at hand. The real issue is that if you look at the emails—there were more than 150 emails there—the story with the overwhelming majority of them is the attempt by the government to influence the Ombudsman. Some of those emails from a minister's office were actively criticising the Ombudsman, saying that they were not happy with the way the Ombudsman was speaking out on several issues et cetera. That is the issue here: an attempt by a minister's office to influence and silence and call on the Ombudsman to reign in his remarks and actions in the public arena.

There is also the issue of whether the Ombudsman is well-enough funded to conduct the inquiries that the Ombudsman thinks is an appropriate thing to do. Surely, that is something the community needs to think about. The matters at hand are whether we do want to have a strong Ombudsman's role and whether we do want to have an Ombudsman who is not afraid to speak out and wants to have the money to fund the inquiries that he or she thinks are appropriate. As a house of parliament what we should be looking at is (a) the ministerial response to the Ombudsman and (b) the adequate funding or otherwise of the Ombudsman.

I can understand that the coalition is not coping with the fact that they are now so far on the back foot they are about to fall over backwards. They are about to fall over backwards about carbon pricing in Australia because we have a situation now where the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Tony Abbott, has backed himself so far into a corner with his totally over-the-top remarks about his 'blood oath'. One wonders whether he will next descend to a tattoo. That is about the level of engagement we have had from the Leader of the Opposition.

The issue is that the Leader of the Opposition will be out there saying that he will repeal the bills, but in fact that is the next great big lie of Australian politics. He will not repeal these bills, and he knows he is not going to be able to do so. It will be interesting to see how he is going to weasel out of his commitment over the next couple of years, or whether it is even tenable for the coalition to go into the next election with him as leader, if he cannot weasel himself out of the box he has put himself into. The reason for this is that business is going to back this in. I can tell you that now. Business is going to back in this carbon price. When that starts to happen, where is the coalition going to go for a constituency? Business is not going to want the investment they make in carbon permits rendered valueless after they have had to put millions into buying them. And that is not to mention reducing the tax-free threshold and the increased compensation. We are going to have a situation now, and we have all been watching with interest— (Time expired)