Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) | Hansard source

The sensitivities demonstrated by their behaviour in the chamber, Madam Acting Deputy President Smith! There was a $69 million equity investment by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation into the purchase of this property. On top of that, through the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry's Support Plantation Establishment program, there is an $8.8 million grant to buy the trees to plant on the property. This grant has to be expended by 30 June next year. Apart from the fact that that probably won't be possible because they missed the window for trees to be planted this year, there are a couple of requirements of this grant program that this government has not met and that it was impossible for them to meet.

One of the grant guidelines of the Support Plantation Establishment program requires the applicant to demonstrate that the applicant has long-term access to the land.

No. Actually, I'm reading from the grant application guidelines, Senator Brown, so you'll learn something here. The grant guidelines require the applicant to demonstrate the applicant's long-term access to the land. The grant application for this $8.8 million grant was submitted on 5 November last year. The grant was approved in May this year. The ownership of this property wasn't given approval by the Treasurer until June of this year, so it was impossible for the new owners of the property to demonstrate ownership and long-term control of the property, because they didn't have approval to own it. So this grant has been issued in breach of the guidelines.

Section 4.3 of the guidelines also declares that the following are not eligible to apply for a grant: a corporate Commonwealth entity, a non-corporate Commonwealth entity, a non-corporate statutory authority. The Clean Energy Finance Corporation is a Commonwealth corporate entity and is a 49 per cent owner. Therefore, under the guidelines, it is not eligible. And so on what basis has this grant been delivered? The government has effectively delivered to itself an $8.8 million grant in contravention of the guidelines. Of course, as I said before, the project must be completed by 30 June 2027, and they're not going to start planting trees until June next year. They're not planting all of those trees within that timeframe. It is simply not possible.

Of course, when we asked the government—when the Senate said to the government, 'You must provide all documentation in relation to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation investment into this property by Tuesday of the last sitting week'—what did the government do? Now, you would expect that, if they weren't going to comply, they'd write and say, 'We're not going to meet the deadline' or, 'We want some extra time.' The government's completely ignored it—not a single peep from this government. If this is not corrupt, it's verging on corruption, I have to say. This grant is verging on corruption, because the guidelines have not been met. The guidelines could not be met. It wasn't possible. The proponents did not own the land when the grant application was submitted and approved. They didn't receive approval to purchase the land until after both of those processes had been completed, so on what basis could the grant have met the guidelines? And of course, when you look at all the grants announced, the $8.8 million is more than double any other grant in the entire program. The next-largest was about $2.3 million. So the government is giving itself an $8.8 million grant.

We're supposed to be grateful. We're supposed to be grateful for a conversion of a farm that will be less productive under trees than it will be under agriculture.