17th Oct 2018, 3:49 PM – Senate Motions - Climate Change - Direct Environment and Communications Legislation Committee

The majority voted against a motion introduced by Greens Senator Richard Di Natale, which means it failed.

Motion text

That the Senate—

(a) notes that the Government is deploying a strategy of avoiding accountability, interrogation and scrutiny in relation to Australia's rising pollution levels, and owning up to its hostility towards any climate policy by:

(i) the Minister for the Environment refusing four media requests from 7.30, half a dozen requests for interviews from Sky News and multiple interviews from Fairfax Media and Channel 7,

(ii) the now frequent practice of holding back the quarterly updates of Australia's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory reports, merging quarterly reports and releasing them at times to minimise scrutiny and obscure public attention of their contents, and

(iii) most recently, by proposing an estimates schedule for the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee that has pushed back scrutiny of greenhouse reductions to 9pm in the evening; and

(b) directs the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, in relation to its supplementary estimates hearing on Monday, 22 October 2018, to call on program 2 of the Environment and Energy portfolio: Reducing Australia's Greenhouse Gas Emissions by not later than 2 pm.