Bazz, while I agree in principle, to me it seems he’s making a dog’s breakfast of doing his job, it’s a question of ability.
While his question might seem reasonable, in this instance it’s being asked while the emperor’s in the shower, if you get my drift. I’m all for he and others asking questions, but it might prove more useful if he asked the right ones, of the right people.
Ruddy Kev might be a squirmy little bureaucratic weasel, but at least he’s “getting with the program”, however ineffectually. We as a nation are hardly “charging into “ anything, lol, and his plans won’t advance us too far either. I see little point asking him to explain the facts of the matter, “facts” is far too flexible a word for politicians.
Fields would do far better if he started focusing his political edge on achieving things for his electorate, and the nation, THAT is what he’s being paid for too.
In his shoes, I would’ve immediately reviewed the most successful Independents careers and tactics, just as a guide, he obviously didn’t. He may represent a “Party”, but he’s effectively an Indy, and should play the game accordingly.
JMHO

To make out Senator Fielding is in denial without any true science is hypocrisy. Fielding like millions of other fair minded Aussies have woken up to the false doctrine of man made climate change tightly adhered to by the Greens, Ms Wong and Peter Garrett. Even Mr Rudd now knows deep down that his electioneering was based upon crawling to the UN and 'popular' opinion. Man made climate change has millions of skeptics because it has been proven a fallacy. Why something so false needs to be proven shows the power of the left media. You would think with so many failed prophecies the likes of Mr Flannery and Mr Gore would hide their heads. No along comes the next lot of doom and gloom lies. THank God we have men like Senator Barnaby and Fielding who are willing to exercise their brain rather than rhetoric.

Just to prove I am not a one issue bod, I think its time to share some thoughts on green. Green like in the grass comes about when a plant gets a balanced diet. If a plant is starved of an essential element like Carbon Dioxide, it will not grow at all, so we don’t have to worry about that right now. The general consensus is we have plenty. However there are about thirty other minerals and elements essential to healthy plants and animals, and they all come out of the soil in various proportions to their presence there.

It is a fact of life that when a plant is denied a basic food, it starves. The Australian Gum Tree, a eucalypt, growing on an old and leached continent, where rains have washed the elements out into the sea over millennia, never lets a leaf drop naturally, with any minerals still in it. It take a great big bushfire before the minerals in gum leaves, can be recycled into the grass, for the kangaroos to eat. They have to be burned off, in a bushfire before the grass below can become nutritious. Without enough nitrogen, phosphate, potassium, sodium, iron, zinc , copper or boron a plant will go yellow and jaundiced looking. Without enough calcium it will simply not grow.

The thing is that food from starving plants, will not grow healthy humans. Children deprived of basic food elements in their first three years of life, will never develop their potential intellect. The UK, as cold and fertile islands, with a balanced food supply, produced a world conquering Empire. English cattle do not thrive on an unbalanced diet. Indian cattle, adapted to India, which like Australia is old and leached, were adapted to northern Australia.

Lets get back to Fielding. He is an engineer and an MBA. Despite his fifteen siblings, he got a balanced diet, and developed his intellect, enough to want to put a balanced view on climate change. Give him his due, he is doing his due diligence. Maybe he is an essential element in good government.

Runner, P’ the B’, and others…
I just don’t get it, with all the gross geological evidence staring you in the face, the shrinking poles, the retreating snowlines, coral bleaching, the disappearing glaciers, the wilder and more frequent “weather events”, you still think global warming is a MYTH?
What will it take to convince you?
Feilding is NOT “doing due diligence”, he’s shutting his eyes and mind, sticking his head in the sand, but the reality won’t go away. Man-made or otherwise, it’s happening NOW, and we’ll pay the price for his recalcitrance.
Mal’ T rather gave himself away today too, he claimed Ruddy Kev was doing it different than America, and then telling proclaimed..”Rudd isn’t keeping up with the rest of the world”. Given the yanks appalling record and corrupted system, it’s interesting that Turnbull ignores everything else on the planet, and wants us to go down their road! As usual.
The one consistency among the scientists now would appear to be them all saying it’s going far faster than any predictions, and accelerating, so we’ll all be in the muck sooner than you think, how clever are Fielding, Turnbull et. al. if we’re not prepared for it?
Far better we prepare for a disaster, whatever the severity, than we demand proof and do nothing, and pay the resulting price!

Max and others
I couldn't agree more. This has been my mantra for years.
Fielding is playing to 'his (ownership implied) believed' constituency i.e. Family First supporters. The nuance of our electoral system that he's a way down choice has missed his reasoning.
IMHO It is this way down choice that should signal to him that he is there by default and as such has a higher responsibility to remember the wishes for the "elected" policy (not necessarily the party his or in point of case Labor).In short the vote clearly indicated a responsibility to "keep the B*stards honest" as is the principle with all 3rd force candidates.

This also reflects the problem with the 'First past the post, or 'we won mentality' = an absolute mandate. Logically 55% isn't an absolute more a qualified 'you're marginally better that the other lot'.
The tragedy is egos being what they are logic and common sense doesn't transport well (car/ plane sick?)

How else does one explain how ordinary people are suddenly imbued with absolutism that ignores such a large portion of the populace?

Therefore how else does one explain 30 yrs of Dems? Fielding is simply looking for a justification for his antediluvian attitudes by doing the US skeptic thing. to confirm this one could look closer at his party's policies, his and their origins.

What gets up my nose is the abuse and accusations of stupidity and
even accusations of corruption that are heaped upon anyone who
questions the co2 theory.

I am sure that all the symptoms that Maxmillion & other quote have
happened at various times in the past. But that is not the point.
The real question is not whether the world is heating up but whether
it is caused by CO2.

What I have never seen is a convincing argument about the
logarithmic impact of CO2 on the greenhouse effect.
If the amount of CO2 was doubled there would only be a tiny effect on
the greenhouse effect.
That is because the curve has already rolled over a long way.
The effect has saturated.

I don't pretend to be a climate expert but when climate experts
disagree then where do you go.

I do know that I am very suspicious of long term computer climate
models. They seem like a modern day alchemist's lab.

It is a reasonable proposal to play it safe and go ahead as though all
questions on CO2 are agreed, but perhaps it might be cheaper to spend
the money on mitigation of the effects of global warming.
Then we would not have spent a lot of money on CO2 reduction if it
was not the cause anyway.

Especially as it seems very likely we cannot do anything to stop it anyway.