John Forrest (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

It is refreshing to have this kind of discussion on climate change. From that point of view, I am grateful to the member for New England for bringing forward this matter of public importance. I am also grateful that the minister has allocated time to listen to the contributions. In trying to give leadership to my own constituency, which is agriculture and horticulture—75 per cent of the employment, and all of it through small mum and dad businesses, very nervous about this concept of an emissions-trading scheme and how the whole process will work—I note that there are two approaches to this which are significant. One is that it provides an enormous opportunity for agriculture across the board. I know that the discussion is related to what the rest of the world have done. Europe and New Zealand have included forestry, but Professor Garnaut has flagged that the inclusion of forestry in an emissions-trading scheme in Australia is subject to solving certain problems. The minister has made reference to the measuring difficulty and the monitoring. The member for New England has also made comment on the capacity for soil carbon sequestration.

My anxiety is that any scheme that it is resolved to implement should not be a one-size-fits-all scheme. It is fairly clear—the science says—that agriculture is the second-largest contributor behind the fixed electricity generators. But they are two entirely different sectors. Agriculture is made up of small, segregated, individual farm owned enterprises. I am pleased that the Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia made reference to that. I have thousands of those in my electorate. The energy sector is more corporatised and made up of larger entities. What that means is that if we get this wrong the potential to do economic harm to much smaller entities could be significant. It is so vital that we get this right and do not rush it and consult across the board.

There are going to be opportunities. Contributors have also mentioned some of those. I have focused a lot on the livestock sector, which is a major contributor—and the minister made reference to it—because it is mostly emitting methane. In my view, methane is probably more of a contributor than carbon dioxide. And livestock emit it from both ends. There is an enormous contribution. I have been relying on experience out of Europe and particularly out of Ireland where work has been a little bit more precise than work on problems that might confront broadacre agriculture. I will mention the scientific figures: with proper diet and improved feed utilisation, methane production per kilo of meat or beef is confirmed to be reduced by 10 per cent to 20 per cent.

This is where the win-win situation occurs and where the opportunity is, because in addition to that, if somehow or other we put things in place to encourage agriculture to adopt better diet and feed procedures for livestock—and this is from data collected in Ireland, Britain and France—there are average feed efficiency improvements of up to 20 per cent. So there are productivity gains as well as gains for the environment. That is the sort of balance that I would like to see achieved. I would plead the minister to fight to the death in cabinet to get those research funds allocated, because it is absolutely vital that we get this right. Agriculture in Australia has been through a sabbatical of the worst precipitation outcomes in our history. We cannot make a mistake and make it any worse. I plead with the minister to get this one right. I want to be part of the discussion. I am not a sceptic. I have a scientific background, and I am willing to lead my own constituency and at the same time provide an opportunity for them to improve their economic outcomes—and also make it rain!

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