Business Regulation Agreement and Small Business Initiatives

MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS

Senator IAN MACDONALD (Queensland) (4:26 PM) —I have a lot of different views to the previous speaker, Senator Milne, on this issue. But one thing I do agree with her on is that the approach of the current government has been hypocritical at best and dishonest at worst. It was all about winning votes last November in the election with the rhetoric on climate» «change»—the ill-thought-through plans, the lack of real consideration of the impact on Australia and the lack of understanding of what the rest of the world was going to do. I am afraid that the Minister for «Climate» «Change» and Water continues to stumble from one problem to another as she attempts to try and match up the action to the rhetoric that has been spouted by the Labor Party for some time. I hear now from the government all these great programs about deforestation. I just want to remind the Senate that earlier this year the new government came in flush with success and knocked off two programs that the previous government had that dealt with deforestation in Indonesia and in the Solomons, as I recall. They cut those programs, which were actually doing something positive to stop deforestation in some of the most sensitive parts of the world, without even a murmur.