Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Brandis. At the Paris climate conference, the Prime Minister paraded Australia's climate pollution reduction targets, woeful though they are. The report today by land carbon experts CO2 Australia shows that increased tree clearing right around the country will undermine Australia's ability to meet our obligations under the Paris agreement and, in fact, would wipe out the abatement achieved under the Emissions Reduction Fund. In Queensland alone, land clearing has doubled since then Premier Newman axed our tree clearing laws, and the delay in reintroducing those laws is leading to further panic clearing. You have given out $670 million of taxpayers' money, but you are letting the bulldozers run rampant at the same time. When will this government step in to avoid that destruction, or is the Prime Minister happy for Australia to fail to meet its Paris climate reduction targets?