Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown will today move in the Senate to censure the Government for its gross and systematic failure in the delivery of climate change programs.

The motion will also call for the establishment of a unified Ministry and Department of Climate Change and Energy.

The motion will be moved at approximately 3pm, following Question Time.

No censure motion has been moved or passed in the Senate in this term of office, and no censure motion has been passed in either House of Parliament since 2005.

Australian Greens Senator for WA Scott Ludlam will join protestors at Collie, in WA’s southwest, this weekend (19-20 Dec) to call for action by State and Federal governments on climate change and oppose the expansion of the local coal industry.

“This camp has been organised by young people dedicated to making the future a better place – and I wholeheartedly support their efforts,” Senator Ludlam said.

Claims by Kevin Rudd that the Gorgon gas project must go ahead on an A-class reserve at Barrow Island so that the project’s emissions can be sequestered in reservoirs beneath the island are undermined by the proponents’ own figures, Greens Senator for WA Rachel Siewert says.

“Out of the nearly nine million tonnes-a-year of CO2 emissions that the Gorgon project will create, the proponents quite clearly state that they planning to geo-sequester less than half,” Senator Siewert said.

Hypocrisy on renewable energy oozes off the seats in both sides of this parliament. I have heard a lot about a comprehensive strategy on climate change but there is not one in this parliament from this government; nor was there one when the Howard government was in power. What we actually have is a strategy to destroy solar and renewable energy. That is a more appropriate description of what has gone on in relation to renewable energy since the Rudd government was elected.

I rise this evening to speak on the government's proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, introduced in the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009 and related bills. As members in the chamber would be aware, the Greens have been campaigning on climate change for more than 20 years. In fact, I was appointed to Australia's first greenhouse council in Victoria in 1990, when I was in the Tasmanian parliament. I have been working on that issue ever since in the state parliament, in the federal parliament and globally through the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The Australian Greens say infrastructure funding in the coming Federal Budget must be used to reduce Australia's greenhouse emissions and create jobs in climate protection.

"Let's get over this obsession with sheltering the big polluters of the fossil fuel industry," Greens Sustainable Cities Spokesperson, Senator Scott Ludlam said.

"Let's instead use future infrastructure spending to help workers and the country adapt to the challenges we are facing in terms of the economy and the climate.

Christine Milne talks to Stephen Lacey of highly-regarded global podcast, Renewable Energy World, about the climate for renewable energy in Australia.

Suggestions Australia should build Cold War-era nuclear energy infrastructure including enrichment plants, power stations and a high-level radioactive waste dump should be set aside in favour of a 21st century renewable energy grid, which would employ vastly more people.

"Nuclear waste advocates insist on remote waste dumps for a very simple reason. They know that no form of engineered storage can safely hold high level radioactive waste over the time required," Greens Spokesperson on Nuclear Industry Scott Ludlam said.

Renewable Energy Amendment (Increased Mandatory Renewable Energy Target) Bill 2008
Second Reading Speech
Senator Christine Milne

In October 2007, the then Labor Opposition announced a key element of their election policy platform on climate change - lifting the Howard Government's Mandatory Renewable Energy Target from its pitifully and unpopularly low 2% up to 20%. The Greens, many environment groups and many people in the community welcomed this move as a significant improvement, although not as much as is both achievable and necessary.

RENEWABLE ENERGY AMENDMENT (FEED-IN-TARIFF FOR ELECTRICITY) BILL 2008 - Second Reading

Senator MILNE (Tasmania) (3:41 PM) -I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to table the explanatory memorandum and to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows-

RENEWABLE ENERGY AMENDMENT (FEED-IN-TARIFF FOR ELECTRICITY) BILL 2008