Mr. John McCarthy:

In terms of the format of the process, I suppose I would not want to be seen to be imposing any format requirements on the committee because in sending both the NESC report and the heads of the Bill to the committee, the Minister was anxious for the committee to have as much freedom and space as it requires to put in place whatever arrangements for consultation and engagement it considers appropriate. However, I would say - it was a comment that ran through a number of the opening statements - what we are talking about here is a fairly significant societal shift if we are to get to where we need to be in 2020 and 2050. It requires fairly extensive engagement in order to ensure that both the product of the committee and the policy product that the Minister and Government ultimately approve has as broad a base of support as can possibly be achieved. A balance must be struck between engagement and a capacity to do one's work efficiently, but I would emphasise that what we are talking about here is a societal shift of a fairly significant order of magnitude.

In terms of the Attorney General's advice, I am not a lawyer but my understanding is that the Attorney General's advice is generally not published. I am not sure that such advice can be made available.