Carbon Pollution Bill’s Day in Senate Sun to be Eclipsed

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CANBERRA—Labor’s plans to have its carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS) approved by parliament are certain to be dashed in the final sitting week before the winter break.

Debate on the 11 bills introducing an emissions trading scheme in mid-2011, due to begin on Monday, was to have been the main focus before the six-week break.

The Senate will consider a total of 34 bills, making it more than likely there will be a few very late night sittings and possibly even a rare Friday sitting for both houses to clear the legislation.

But the opposition is expected to direct its focus on using question time in both the Senate and the House of Representatives to drill the government on the OzCar scandal and whether preferential treatment was given to a Brisbane car dealer friend of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

If it cannot get satisfaction with question time it could turn its attention to an attempt at a censure of Mr Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan.

The Senate is due to debate the Car Dealership Financing Guarantee Appropriation Bill on Tuesday, which introduces the $2 billion OzCar scheme aimed at giving dealers access to finance for customers.

Another contentious issue to get an airing this week is the ejection from the Senate last Thursday of the two-year-old daughter of Australian Greens senator, Sarah Hanson-Young.

Greens leader Senator Bob Brown plans to move a motion on Monday seeking a change to the rules barring non-members - or strangers - from the Senate chamber.

Senator Hanson-Young was ordered by Senate President John Hogg to hand her daughter, Kora (Kora), to a staffer after she entered the Senate with the child for a division.

Senator Brown will seek a debate on a motion allowing senators to bring young children into the chamber, rather than the current situation which allows members only to have a babe in arms in a chamber.

But the key bills are the CPRS legislation, which the opposition will seek to defer until the resumption of parliament in mid-August.

The Greens have said they will not support the government’s CPRS, saying it does not go far enough with its proposed greenhouse gas emission reduction targets of 15 per cent to 25 per cent.

They want a minimum reduction target of 40 per cent lower emission levels by 2020.

The opposition believes the government should wait until the US passes its own legislation later this year and for the next United Nations climate summit to be held in Copenhagen in December.

Either way, it is highly unlikely the CPRS will become law this week.

On Thursday, the Senate will debate a reintroduced government bill aimed at cutting from $10,000 to $1,000 the amount that can be donated to a political party without public disclosure.

The Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Political Donations and Other Measures) Bill was defeated in the Senate in March after Family First Senator Steve Fielding voted with the coalition.

Other bills to be debated include the creation of a Commonwealth Coordinator-General to oversee the provision of services in remote indigenous communities, a bill to abolish a requirement that immigration detainees pay for the cost of their detention, and a bill to establish an agency to coordinate training of the health workforce.