Greens move for Intergenerational Report reality check

Greens Leader Christine Milne will this afternoon introduce the Greens' bill to require that Australia's Intergenerational Reports be conducted by the independent Parliamentary Budget Office and allow a rewrite of this year's politically laden report.

"The 2015 Intergenerational Report was a partisan disgrace. Australians deserve a realistic road map for the next 40 years that takes into account the physical and economic impacts of global warming, and one that reflects our ambition to close the gap for First Australians," said Senator Milne.

"The Greens bill will put Joe Hockey's Intergenerational Report through a reality check from the independent Parliamentary Budget Office.

"I want to make sure no future Intergenerational Report is similarly abused as a taxpayer funded, focus-group tested brochure for a struggling government.
"The Liberals are pretending that pollution and a warmer world won't affect our ability to grow food in Australia, our agricultural exports, our health, the natural wonders that distinguish us or the festivals and sports that help define us.

"Extreme weather fuelled by global warming is being ignored, even though it will cost lives.

"Everything from backyard cricket to putting food on the table will be severely impacted by global warming, but the Abbott government isn't planning for that at all," said Senator Milne.

"Their grand plan for the next 40 years is to double the damage: make life harder with cruel budget cuts, while protecting the big polluters who are polluting for free and making life harder by driving global warming.

"An independent Intergenerational Report, which Labor also says it wants, would make the most of this incredibly important opportunity to look forward 40 years and work out how to raise the money we need to support the sort of society that we want."