Let’s have a minister for climate change: Like some other States and like Labor federally, McKim proposed having a minister for climate change. It was Federal Labor Party policy to have a minister for climate change. In South Australia the Premier was the minister for climate change and in Victoria Thwaites was the minister. "When you have a minister for climate change you get a coherent response to the greatest public policy challenge facing us today. When you have the Minister for Primary Industries and Water overseeing Tasmania’s climate change response you get the deficient and minimalist response to the challenge of climate change that we have seen from Labor in Tasmania," he said.
Strategy with good ideas, but vague: McKim wanted to go into a little more detail on the Greens’ suggestions for a coherent response to climate change based on their submission to the review of the Tasmanian Government’s draft climate change strategy. These suggestions were made in an attempt to be cooperative with the Government, he said. The Greens were glad that the Government chose to commission and publish a draft climate change strategy for Tasmania, but disappointed at its minimalist nature, although there were some good ideas in it. "We are not saying that we have managed to think of every response that the State should enact in relation to climate change, but we have had a good think about it and we have put together what I think is a pretty solid submission that took us some time and effort," McKim said.
Reference: Nicholas McKim – Tasmanian Greens, Member of the House of Assembly, TAS; David Llewellyn – Member for Lyons, Minister for Primary Industries & Water, TAS, 12 June 2007
Erisk Net, 12/6/2007