Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Well, that is the proposal that is out there at the moment. I have raised this issue a number of times and I actually wrote to the Premier because every time you raise it in here—and the same thing happened today—the Commonwealth blames the state government. I have an FOI request in to see what has happened to the paper trail on all of this, to see who is to blame. Someone is to blame; or they are both complicit if someone is hiding behind the FOI in relation to this. I made a suggestion to the parliamentary secretary and I got in touch with the Premier and said, ‘Let us get these people in the one room and work it out.’ In New South Wales they say it is the Commonwealth’s problem; in this place the Commonwealth says it is the state’s problem. We heard more of that rubbish today.

I got in touch with the Premier and asked whether he would be prepared to put his minister in a room with the parliamentary secretary, and others if required, to sort this issue out. If it is a matter of the wording of an offer document, let us change the words. We have the Prime Minister and the Premier saying that it should be treated as compensation. The parliamentary secretary tells me there is no need for a meeting. I would advise the parliamentary secretary, the Premier and the Prime Minister to settle this particular issue before Christmas. These people are sick and tired of being treated as pawns in a political game. I intend to pursue the FOI, and if it costs money it will be paid. This is an act of absolute vandalism and for anybody at a state or federal level to say that they are moving towards sustainability and encouraging sustainability of natural resources when this sort of nonsense is going on is reprehensible, to say the least.

Concerns have been raised today about our cities, and the new opposition leader was brought under attack about some dam near Brisbane. People in our metropolitan areas, our major cities, live near the water. The member for Wentworth should look out his front window one day—he will see the water. Climate change is about that water coming up. There is plenty of water for our cities. For the Business Council and others to start suggesting that they should be taking water from inland Australia to feed our cities is quite ridiculous. Just take the salt out of it and drink the stuff. There is plenty there. If we keep doing what we are doing with coal-fired power stations there could be more. You could be adding to the resource over time, so there should not be a problem with water for our cities.

Another issue I would like to raise is renewable fuels. Climate change is upon us. The road to Damascus was crossed about three weeks ago. Al Gore’s cartoon movie, as it was described at the time, has suddenly created a great rush of blood in the government. Climate change is here. So we should, in terms of policy, be encouraging the use of energy sources that are clean. What are we doing in terms of biofuels? In 2011 we are going to tax them—use them as a source of income for the coffers. We are not going to encourage them, but tax them. So that is one policy the government should look at very quickly. If we are going to use carbon credits, charges on water and other market mechanisms to send signals to people or, as the Business Council and the parliamentary secretary have suggested, use pricing policy to drive initiatives then why are we taxing some of these clean fuels? The message that is sending is quite ridiculous.

The third issue is the carbon issue. Climate change is upon us because of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The Prime Minister is putting in place a task force to look at establishing some form of carbon emissions trading—or whatever you would like to call it. Agriculture is not included. Soils of high organic matter and humus could be used as a natural sink for carbon, particularly in the short term—that 30- to 40-year period we are really concerned about. That is aided by improving soils through land use, better management, better agricultural techniques, no-till agriculture, green manure crops et cetera. The farm sector should be on that task force right from the word go; they should not be an additive later on after the business arrangements have been made by big business as to who gets the money in terms of the credits.

The other advantage to putting that system in place is that we are sending a positive message to the farm sector to put in place better farming techniques, no-till agriculture, better soil and more organic matter. You achieve better water infiltration of the soil, less erosion and better yields. You put in place a system that is double-barrelled; it takes care of some of the carbon problems but it also delivers some drought-proofing in terms of better land use management. And you use the pricing mechanism to send the message. So it is important that we start to initiate some policies in this place and that we stop blaming one another as to whose fault it is and living in the past. Obviously, we would not have a climate change problem if we had addressed some of these issues in the past. It is time to get on with it and put in place policies that actually work. (Time expired)

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