Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, the Greens certainly can give it, but they can't take it. Senator Waters was right; we've stopped farmers developing their own land. We've stripped them of their property rights and provided them no compensation. We've told them, 'That little part of your block over there that you bought, that you might have wanted to develop in the future and grow food on—you can't touch that anymore.' We've got this ridiculous situation where that is apparently a carbon credit and that lets us spruik to the world and say how good we are. If we have a surplus of these good intentions or good outcomes, why don't we give them back to farmers? Why are we giving them to the world? Why don't we give those 400 million tonnes back to our nation's farmers so that they can grow more food? That seems like a good idea. If we have locked up too much land—

(Quorum formed) As I was saying, we should put our country first and our farmers first. That's the simple proposition I have. If we have somehow got this surplus of credits, let's give our farmers a break. They've been doing it pretty tough over the last couple of decades with drought, in some cases suffering from floods and, on top of that, having their property rights stripped away from them. Let's give them some of those rights back so they can do something for our nation that we should all be proud of—that is, grow high-quality food that we all enjoy. Some of it will be exported, but we benefit from it too. Let's give our farmers a break, put our country first and reject this silly motion.