Senator Bob Brown told delegates that the Greens would lobby whichever party that wins the next election for a referendum to have Local Government recognised in the Australian Constitution.
He said this had been an Australian Labor Party policy promise from the 2007 election that is yet to be met.
“There’s been no action,” he said. “At the start of the next period of Government, the Greens will present a bill to the Senate for this referendum.”
Senator Brown then discussed the Greens’ support for the then proposed Mining Super Profit Tax.
“Australia is the wealthiest country per head from our natural resources,” he said. “And we should be returning some of this wealth to the people.”
He suggested some of the money could go into a Sovereign fund, similar to the system run in Norway, which can then be used as a store of capital for infrastructure. This capital could be used to build a high speed rail network, similar to one in China, which can run at up to 510kph, between Brisbane, Newcastle, Sydney and various other major cities, to allow business travellers the comfort and added benefits of travelling by land.
Senator Brown also discussed the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. He said the initial scheme, which was aimed at lowering emissions by five per cent by 2020, would have fallen short as there was no provision to change the legislation in this time and compensation would have had to have been paid to qualifying companies.
Further to this, taxpayers’ money would have been wasted as the $20 billion in compensation given to the 1000 biggest polluters would have been subsidised by the opportunities to buy overseas pollution offsets.
In contrast, the Greens would support a program that doesn’t allow for overseas offsets. Rather, a price of around $20 per tonne of carbon dioxide would be applied to contributing companies, thus helping trade exposed industries and not taking away from taxpayers’ money – rather lowering household bills and costs.
