We're meeting here today on Nyoongar country.

I would like to acknowledge the fact that Aboriginal sovereignty over the land was never ceded, acknowledge the history that was never taught, and celebrate the culture that survives to this day.

We're meeting today in defiance of a Government that has given up.

Yesterday the government released its' climate change while paper.

You have already worked out that it is not worth the white paper it's printed on.

The Australian Greens understand that the switch-over from analog to digital television is quite a significant transition with quite a long history behind it.

Both the population and the broadcasters will require education, preparation and, in some cases, support in order to make the transition successfully. The deadline will provide a useful incentive to prompt both the broadcasters and the population to get ready. But, as we know, a number of quite ambitious deadlines have already been set in the past for Australians to switch over, and yet we still find ourselves in this situation today. In its initial 1997 report, ACMA thought that Australia could be digital by the year 2000 and the Howard government projected 2001 for digital broadcasting in metropolitan areas and in all areas by 2004.

Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (9.48 am)-
I move:

That the following matter be referred to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee for inquiry and report by 18 June 2009:

The investment of Commonwealth and State funds in public passenger transport infrastructure and services, with reference to the August 2005 report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Heritage, Sustainable Cities, and the February 2007 report of the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport committee, Australia's future oil supply and alternative transport fuels, including:

Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (12.26 pm)-

I would like to follow on with some comments, in the same vein as those of Senator Milne, about the importance of seeing these funds as essentially a once in- a-generation opportunity to contribute to the transition to a low-carbon economy that Australia so desperately needs. I would like to preface my remarks by saying that there was an unreasonably short time frame given for the Nation-building Funds Bill 2008, the nation- building Funds (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2008 and the COAG Reform Fund Bill 2008 to be reviewed.

http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/economics_ctte/wa_gas_08/index.ht...

Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (5.19pm)- I rise to add some brief comments on this report.

I believe the senators who came before me canvassed the issues that the committee covered fairly well. I want to comment mainly on chapter 5, which dealt with solutions, essentially: energy security, and diversifying sources of energy in Western Australia. Senator Cameron foreshadowed some of the evidence that we took from the renewable energy sector that probably provides some lessons for the whole country, even though the case studies that we were talking about were in Western Australia.

I concur with many of the concerns that were raised by Senator Payne around the way the scheme will actually function once it has been operating for a couple of years. We recognise that, as the government has put it, it is quite an adaptive policy and that it is intended to be changed according to the uptake-the rate at which the community sector or the private sector eventually decide to take on the scheme.

We will also be following this with a great deal of interest, as the successive rounds under the NRAS roll out, to assess whether it is actually meeting the demand. The demand has obviously reached appalling proportions.

The Greens welcome the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Laws Bill 2008 [No. 2].

It is a necessary and long-overdue mechanism and should have been introduced when the antiterrorism legislation was enacted, starting in 2001. There are longstanding democratic and legal principles, including the right of judicial oversight, which are undermined by the antiterrorism laws as they stand. This bill proposes to provide a significant safeguard mechanism to laws that currently lack rigorous review and balance.

Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (3.32 pm) - I move: That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (Senator Conroy) to a question without notice asked by Senator Ludlam today relating to Internet filtering.

I want to briefly comment on the response by the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy to my question earlier about mandatory internet filtering. The reason I put the question to the minister in the form that I did was to clarify whether the government's intention is to provide an opt-in internet filtering system in Australia for concerned parents or other people who might want to provide a filtered internet system for their families or for themselves, or whether the minister intends to go down the track of a mandatory feed. With some regret, I must admit that the minister's comments have caused a great deal of concern. He has probably inadvertently muddied the waters quite substantially about the system that the government is proposing.

I would like to make some brief comments on Australia’s placement of sanctions on Iran based on concerns around Iran’s nuclear program. I would like to say at the outset that the Australian Greens do not support a nuclear armed Iran under any circumstances whatsoever. The situation with Iran and the concerns that have been rightly raised about its nuclear program highlight the inextricable link between the possession of nuclear reactors and enrichment technology and the capacity to create nuclear weapons. It also highlights many of the key problems that have blocked the political process to eliminating nuclear weapons threats.

We heard very wide support for the introduction of an independent reviewer into the terror laws into the up to 40 pieces of legislation that were passed and amended in response to the terror attacks in 2001 and events subsequent to that. Almost unanimously the people who appeared before the committee indicated very strong support for an independent reviewer. I suppose this should not be too surprising. It follows the recommendations that were made by the Sheller review into the operation of the laws in 2006 and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security in 2006, who recommended that the terror laws that had been passed and were continuing to be passed, the legislative response to terror, had omitted a vital precaution: some kind of review to assess whether the laws were operating as they should and whether our response as a nation had been proportional and appropriate.