Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Will the minister advise the House of the government’s climate change action plan for agriculture and advise why the government has rejected other approaches?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Ballarat for the question. There has been a lot of talk in the last 24 hours about what can and cannot be done for farmers in terms of soil carbon. I think it is important to note that, under the legislation that was put to this House and to the Senate last year and was voted against by the coalition in the Senate, the government was establishing an offsets scheme for abatement for areas that were not covered by the CPRS but did count towards our international obligations. We were also establishing the national carbon offsets standard for an abatement program which did not count towards international targets. That was being established under that legislation, which at the end of last year the coalition voted against.

In the scheme that was announced yesterday there are two key problems. Firstly, it is bad for farmers and, secondly, it does not deliver the reductions in carbon pollution that the Leader of the Opposition committed to on about his second day in the job. The way it is bad for farmers and the difference between what the government put to the Senate and what was announced yesterday is best described in an interview this morning on the Fran Kelly program when Peter Cosier from the Wentworth Group said: ‘Well, the emissions trading scheme according to the Treasury modelling would pay farmers two, three or four times more than what the coalition policy is providing. So, if I was a farmer, I would not necessarily be that excited by what was being put forward yesterday.’

The other issue that needs to be dealt with is that this does not deliver the reductions in carbon pollution under the international rules that the Leader of the Opposition committed to. It was about day 2 or 3 in the job when, in a courtyard, he stood beside the deputy and recommitted the coalition to the bipartisan approach of the five per cent reduction in emissions under the international rules. The problem they have is that under the current international rules soil carbon does not get counted. The maths are relatively simple here. By 2020, if you assume business as usual, their presumptions are the same as ours in that emissions would be at 121 per cent of 2000 levels. To reduce carbon pollution by five per cent in the year 2020 you need to find a reduction of 140 megatonnes. Eighty-five megatonnes of the 140 that they have found cannot be counted under international rules.

It took two days in the job before the Leader of the Opposition committed to replicate the commitment that had been made by his predecessor, that there would be a bipartisan approach of a five per cent reduction under international rules. Instead they get a 55-megatonne reduction at best which means that, when the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme offers a five per cent reduction by 2020, the Leader of the Opposition offers a 10 per cent increase in emissions by 2020. The Leader of the Opposition is the only person in the world who is arguing that the response to climate change should be to increase carbon pollution. Under international rules the difference between each side of the House is simple. We reduce carbon pollution by five per cent; they increase it by at least 10.