Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Pocock, can I answer this in two ways? The first is that clearly carbon capture and storage is an option for parties that have obligations under the safeguard mechanism, and the second point I would make out is that all emissions of safeguard facilities are measured under detailed requirements under the NGER Act and any emission that is above the baseline that's been set for that facility must be offset. So I think you understand the operation of the safeguard mechanism. But, as I say to you, there is no proposal before the government for a specific project and, as I've tried to indicate in many contributions, all of these things are commercial questions. The safeguard mechanism is designed to incentivise investments in arrangements for emissions reduction. I'm not aware of a project of the kind you've asked me to speculate about. If such a project came before the government, it would be subject to the same assessments and arrangements that I've laid out over the course of the last couple of days of debate.