MARK DREYFUS MP

Wellington's Climate Change and Business Conference to outline Australia’s new policy directions to address climate change through reducing carbon emissions.

The argument for a market based mechanism is based on the simple fact that Australians at work and in their lives generally, are far better placed to deliver an efficient transformation in the economy than any minister or bureaucrat.

Under their plan, Australia will not reach that emissions reduction target or anything like it by 2020. If we proceed down the path that the coalition is proceeding on, it will commit Australia to purchasing international permits at a cost of billions and billions of dollars to the taxpayers of this country.

Take a Break program operates from our neighbourhood and community centres and provides respite for parents and carers of children up to the age of six, enabling them to participate in recreational and social activities or undertake volunteer or part-time work that would otherwise not be possible. It is disappointing that the new Liberal government has decided to cut the $1.9 million needed for the Take a Break program.

The Carbon Farming Initiative is a key part of the Gillard government's climate change agenda. Under this scheme for the first time the federal government will help facilitate the sale of carbon credits on domestic and international markets. The scheme will begin to unlock abatement opportunities in the land sector, a sector which currently accounts for around a quarter of Australia's emissions. It will contribute to improving farm productivity, creating jobs in the regions, providing new opportunities for Indigenous communities, enhancing our biodiversity and building resilience to the impacts of climate change.

It saddens me to be again calling for the release of Gilad Shalit.

This richness is reflected at Noble Park Primary School, where most students come from a non-English-speaking background, with up to 35 languages being spoken. Just as Miss Ernst made European fairy stories into Australian stories, students at Noble Park Primary School will make their cultural traditions part of the Australian story. The stories that start at Noble Park primary are the stories of Australia's futur

The carbon farming initiative fulfils an election commitment to give farmers, forest growers and landholders access to carbon markets. By doing so, the carbon farming initiative will create new real and lasting economic opportunities for regional communities in this country.

I hear constantly from parents at these schools and I hear from people who have worked on the construction programs at each of these schools just how beneficial those buildings built under the Building the Education Revolution program have been for the schools and how beneficial they have been for employment in our local community.

The journey of the Bright Moon Buddhist Society over the past 30 years has been truly remarkable.