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

I am sure, Madam Deputy Speaker, that you would be fully aware that the legislative arrangements in here talk about research and development and the investment in it and the activities of land and water et cetera. Research and development is a very important issue, and it is most appropriate that it embraces the day in which science meets parliament. I noted that the member for Gwydir has met with some people. I met with some scientists this morning and found them very interesting to talk to. I was talking to them about an issue in relation to renewable energy which embraced some of the research that is happening and that maybe should have happened and some of the research we have lost in recent years in a global sense from Australia, particularly in solar and wind energy.

In the electorate of New England, I have seven cooperative research centres that have done enormous work at the University of New England: the cotton catchments, the community CRC, the poultry CRC, the beef genetics technology CRC—which is probably the best known and a world leader in research—the sheep CRC, the wheat management CRC, the irrigation futures CRC and the spatial information CRC. It is a worthy program, and I congratulate the government and the former government on this particular arrangement, where there is a mix of private sector funding, commercial funding—I hope the member for Barker can follow this—and government funding that has some degree of commercial activity at the end of it.

I thought the member for Gwydir made an important point when he said that we have to be careful not to fully commercialise all of our research and to have it all based on the need to show a return within a short period of time—that we need to have research for research’s sake. That is not to say that we should just throw money at any researchers who are wandering past. But, particularly in the renewable energy area—for instance, the lignocellulosic area, which the member for Gwydir mentioned—there is a need to have raw research on what can be done into the future. Even though I am a great fan of the CRC movement, I think the way in which the cycle renews itself in terms of their applications for renewal may be slightly too biased towards asking: ‘What have you done in recent years in terms of commercial activity in the economy?’

Particularly in some of these climate change issue areas, we need to make sure that there is some research being conducted right at the cutting edge and not necessarily at the commercial edge. As I mentioned a moment ago, we have this extraordinary policy mix in this place in which we are encouraging research and development and then hoping that some of the issues will be picked up commercially, particularly in the renewable energy area. Then we intend to use them as a cash cow at the end by taxing those who move into those areas, rather than providing incentives.

One of the areas of research that I believe we should look closely at in terms of the future—and the member for Barker may be able to comprehend some of what I am about to say, because it relates to wheat breeding—in relation to renewable energy and biofuels is the plant breeding mix that is currently carried out in Australia. What we tend to do in Australia in the wheat industry, for instance, is to breed wheat that is relatively high in protein levels. In doing that, we tend to provide relatively high levels of nitrogen, particularly in the better soils, to achieve both yield and protein in the grain, with protein being the marketable product, particularly overseas where there are premiums paid for protein.

When I went to the United States I also went to Canada and looked at a very large ethanol plant that was going through its commissioning stages. It was located in a fairly poor agricultural part of Canada in terms of weather damage. I questioned the people—and I think the member for Barker will be interested in this—as to the location of the plant and asked why they had not located the plant in a more favourable area for wheat production. The answer was that in that particular area the wheat crop experienced weather damage from time to time. The member for Barker would know that weather damage causes the protein level in the grain to drop. Even though there is a by-product of distiller’s grain from the ethanol plant, because they were producing ethanol from grain and not food, they were only after the starch.

So weather-damaged grain, which is low in protein but reasonably high in starch, was something that they believed they would be able to access at a cheaper price. That had some logic in it, but when you apply that to research in Australia, because we have been growing grain for food, you find the concentration of research activity has been on protein. I am suggesting that our research bodies should look closely at research into starch production in our grain crops, because if we do move from exporting protein based grains to consuming fuel based grains domestically, there could quite dramatic increases in yield if we are growing grain for starch rather than protein. I raise that as an issue that the research people may look at.

The other part of this legislation is about energy and the impact on agriculture. There has been a lot of talk in recent months since the Prime Minister’s conversion last October on global warming and climate change. There has been a great debate taking place about carbon dioxide and the pros and cons of activity—the clean coal debate, for instance, and the research that is going into that. I actually met with some scientists this morning on that very issue: the geosequestration arguments that are out there at the moment. It is good activity. The government has put money into that worthy research that is going on, and I congratulate it for that. But one thing that the Prime Minister did not do when he put his carbon task force together was to involve the agricultural sector.

There is research going on, and I compliment a scientist in my own electorate at the University of New England. Dr Christine Jones has been doing work for some years on soil carbon sequestration and the way in which that could potentially be a short- to medium-term carbon sink. I am not so sure that the National Farmers Federation are doing terribly much about this. But agriculture should be included in that debate and should be there encouraging research into climate change. This legislation is about land and water, issues to which the government’s rules apply to—that is, through Land and Water Australia.

Surely, if there is the potential through improving the organic matter and humus status of our soils and, in doing so, assisting in the carbon debate with a natural sink of carbon in our soils through changes in land management and farming techniques, they are the sorts of issues that the government should be showing a lead in. I was very disappointed that the farm sector was not even included in the broader debate when the task force was put in place. There are in fact some carbon trades taking place on agricultural soils in the United States at the moment. I ask that the Prime Minister revisit that, because within Australia’s better agricultural soils there may be solutions to some of the problems.

The other issue that I would like to mention briefly is cloud seeding, which was the subject of a motion moved by the member for Mallee on Monday. If we are talking about climate change and the impact of industrial pollution on the way clouds form, I think we really do have to extend our research and knowledge in relation to how we can artificially seed clouds and overcome some of the negative effects of industrialised living in relation to the formation of rainfall.

With all of those issues there is an enormous amount of work that needs to be done. As a number of speakers have said today, the new horizon that could embrace agriculture and agricultural research in this century, particularly in regional Australia—by way of the solar and wind energy debates as well—could be the very thing that rejuvenates our regional communities. That could include carbon geosequestration and the development of starch based grains and various grass plants, such as the member for Gwydir spoke about in Northern Australia in relation to increasing biofuel production. There is a whole range of opportunities out there, and I would encourage the government to look very closely at putting in place a policy that will work into the future.

In the minute I have left to me, I would also suggest that the government renew the call that was made some years ago for a renewable energy authority, an independent body, to look at the various research capacities and opportunities that are out there, particularly with renewable energy. I think it has been left out on a limb with a policy mix that really does not send the correct messages in terms of incentives to the research areas and the investment sector, and that is something that we as a parliament really do need to address.

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