Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Can the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts confirm that the water management policies and programs contained in the budget for the Murray-Darling Basin will be specific to the serious issues in that region and not practically applied, in the level of detail and the depth of that detail, to the water situations existing in Western Australia, Northern Australia, including parts of Queensland, and Tasmania? As in the budget, where is the water purchased for the environment being delivered? In what quantities and from which regulated sources or dam is it being delivered? When and how will it be delivered? Can the minister provide a breakdown of the areas and volumes of water being purchased? Is it mainly from New South Wales irrigation cooperatives or Victoria? Has any economic analysis been done, on a region-by-region basis, on tree farms as part of this? Does the budget contain funding for research that may have been done or will be done on the impact of tree farms on run-off to rivers in drought affected areas? Is it accurate that current economic analysis shows that cheaper carbon credits from the Third World will make Australia uncompetitive?

The Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts has released the tender for the carbon register. Applicants have only six weeks to respond and must have an international carbon register partner. This will severely limit responses to the tender due to an unrealistic time frame and the international partner provision. What is the reason for the time frame? Is it accurate to fund an increase in the buyback from $1.5 billion to $3 billion? There will be a corresponding decrease of $1.5 billion for on-farm efficiencies. Therefore, will farmers be paying for their own water buybacks?

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