Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was really interested to hear the member for Canberra's very eloquent speech on the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Bill 2011 and related bills. I was particularly interested in her comments about having listened to schoolchildren in her electorate and her very eloquent words about farmers of this nation. She and all other members of this parliament should listen to schoolchildren because they are our future. Indeed, they are the leaders of tomorrow and they often have very important messages for us. I am sorry that the member for Canberra is not going to stay and listen, because I also speak to a lot of schoolchildren in my electorate and they tell me that one of the most important things for their parents and their futures is that they are able to continue to grow the food to feed the nation and to grow the fibre to help clothe the world. It is a fact that every Griffith farmer feeds 150 Australians and 450 foreigners each and every day. That is how much food they grow in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area—and there is the Coleambally Irrigation Area as well. That is the food basket of this nation and farmers need to be able to continue to grow that food and fibre to feed and clothe not only our nation but also neighbouring nations.

The member for Canberra spoke about farmers and she spoke about how farmers are the great stewards of this country, about how important land care was to them and about how farmers are so great at adapting to the circumstances of their environment. Sometimes they have to adapt to changes in their environment brought about by floods and droughts—as Dorothea Mackellar wrote about in her famous poem, My Country. It is certainly true that this country is a very diverse nation. It is a most hostile nation at those times when Mother Nature throws her worst at us. But we keep adapting, we keep changing and we keep growing the food to feed the nation.

Farmers, as the member for Canberra pointed out, do a great job. But farmers also need arable land and fertile land to continue to do the great job that they have done for more than 200 years. They cannot have their vast tracts of arable, good soil taken up by pine forests and other trees, which you cannot eat and which you cannot export. While certainly carbon farming has lots of merit, we need to tread very warily into some of the initiatives that are being proposed by this government. Just because this bill has the word 'farming' in the title does not necessarily mean that farmers and our nation are going to benefit.

This legislation is incomplete and it is misleading. The carbon tax and the emissions trading scheme proposed by this government may lead to distortions. Just prior to the last election on August 21, the Prime Minister said that there would be no carbon tax under a government she leads—which leads me to wonder whether she is, in fact, leading the government. Is some other force leading the government? Perhaps Senator Bob Brown and his dangerous Greens are. That word 'dangerous' is one the Treasurer so often says just before he uses the words 'climate change'. He talks about 'dangerous climate change'. I think the Treasurer is being hysterical and trying to convince the Australian public that a carbon tax is necessary. I would like to see the Prime Minister call an election to see if the public at large actually does think that a carbon tax is necessary to stop this 'dangerous climate change'.

The coalition, in particular the Nationals, are active supporters of reasonable carbon farming initiatives and the opportunities which can be given to agriculture. But this bill is not filling all the gaps and it is threatening an entire industry, which will lead to the loss of opportunities. Carbon farming was a key ingredient of the coalition's direct action plan and it still is. The potential for carbon farming was highlighted in the last election, as was a direct path to fund real action to make sure that the initiatives put in place by the coalition deliver broader results.

I am the son of a generational dryland farmer and I have a very close affinity with the soil, the land and the climate. So I come to this debate with knowledge of the land and the science of the soil and with a love of the industry which, as I said, has kept our nation well-clothed, well-fed and employed. Farmers have been saying for as long as anyone can remember that we need to protect our environment—we need to protect the land from which we draw our income and from which we derive our food and our jobs. Farmers, as the member for Canberra pointed out, are very adaptable, but they need to have certainty. This government is providing anything but certainty at the moment to farmers—or any other Australian, for that matter. One thing is for sure: farmers will talk about the Labor government in terms of that uncertainty and will ask, 'Is this government providing for regional and rural Australia as it so often purports to do?'

Because of the hung parliament situation, this government has required the vote of two key Independents to keep the minority government in power. Because of that, it says that it has a true and real focus on regional Australia. But so often its policies are showing quite the opposite. Farmers, along with many other Australians, strongly oppose Labor's carbon tax. The farmers say quite bluntly that they cannot see how a carbon tax or a trading scheme can change the temperature. Indeed, Tim Flannery, that respected scientist and global warming activist, said only recently:

"If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow, the average temperature of the planet's not going to drop for several hundred years, perhaps over 1000 years."

If taxes were to decrease the sea levels and the temperature, quite frankly, under this Labor government, we would all be living in the next ice age. A tax is not going to reduce the global temperature. Even Mr Flannery admits that.

As I said before, the Prime Minister promised just prior to the last election that there would be no carbon tax under a government she led. That breach of trust has led to people really questioning a lot of what this government are all about. The government have not told us what price carbon is going to be. They have not told us a lot of things. Take the independent youth allowance, for instance. We are still waiting to find out exactly what is going to happen with independent youth allowance. We are still waiting to find out exactly what is going to happen with the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. I was on the committee—as you were, Madam Deputy Speaker Livermore—which went around the four states and all the regions conducting meetings to engage with people as to what the Murray-Darling Basin required to secure its future, to secure that triple bottom-line approach that was missing. We have come up with a good plan which is at present being ignored by the government, which continues to buy water haphazardly and continues to provide irrigation farmers and family farmers with that great uncertainty that I also speak about for carbon-farming initiatives and the dreaded carbon tax.

I do acknowledge that the Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government recently said in the media that coal will play an important part in our nation's energy. But when you come to this place you find out that coal is almost a dirty word. We hear from this government about 'dirty' coal fired power stations. We hear from Senator Bob Brown that coalminers caused the Queensland floods which wreaked so much devastation earlier this year. I have not heard too many, if any, people from the government actually say that those claims were fanciful and ridiculous when we all know that they were. We know the role that coalminers have played in developing this great nation and the role that they have played in ensuring this nation's prosperity and providing the energy needs of this nation. But, unfortunately, their hard work, their efforts and their futures are being put at risk again by this Labor government.

We have been told farmers will be exempt from Labor's carbon tax. However, they will still have to pay higher prices for fuel, transport, fertilisers, chemicals, manufacturing and machinery, as well as for the processing of their products. Whilst carbon farming will potentially deliver a new income source for farmers and deliver broader environmental objectives, it has to be implemented correctly and logistically. This government, which at present has not produced anything that is correct or logistical, wants to sign up farmers for a hundred years, which is about three or four generations. Farmers will be locked into a scheme which a century from now could and most likely will be outdated and other varieties and techniques have been implemented. You have only to look at the past hundred years to see how much change in the industry there has been not just in farming but in every facet of life and every other industry that we have in this great nation.

This Labor-Greens government want us to vote on a carbon-farming scheme despite there being no in-depth detail. I say again, that lack of detail from this government, which seems to say that everything needs to be put off to the future—'We'll talk about it later; we'll put it to a review; we'll put it to a committee'—means that nothing ever really comes of anything until it is too late. These bills are dependent on regulations which are yet to be presented and will be done at Labor's pleasure and the whim of the Greens.

This Carbon Farming Initiative could be win-win if it is done properly. It could meet the expectations of those who want to address concerns about the man-made influences on weather patterns and it could help farmers to improve productivity, profitability and our environment—but, again, only if it is done properly. These bills are fundamentally flawed and cannot be supported at this time. They are quite lengthy bills, but most of the fundamental detail will be revealed only in the regulations.

How can this Labor government expect support for legislation which does not provide adequate detail and which will lead to perverse outcomes for farmers? Under the coalition's plan, farmers will be entitled to tender for additions in soil carbon. Significantly improving soil carbon also helps soil quality, farm productivity and water efficiency and should be a national goal, regardless of the CO2 abatement benefits.

Three different properties in my electorate of Riverina have taken it upon themselves to implement carbon farming and to trial its benefits under a scheme put forward by CO2 Australia. Colin and Jan Lucas from Avondale in Coolamon, Wayne Hamblin and his son Jake from Big Tree in Matong, and Murray and Julieanne Neilsen from Pinevale in Matong have had trees planted on their farms by this company, CO2 Australia. The trees have been placed to enable wind breaks to stop the wind from taking the top soil and to keep moisture in the ground as well as to encourage native bird life. It has led to increased production and a great ambience for these farms. But they have done it only along the corridors and the fence lines. They have not taken up their whole farmland with great tracts of pine trees. A minimal overall percentage of their farmland has been used for this initiative. It is sensible planning, has added value to the property and income to the farmer, and has importantly reduced CO2 emissions to the environment. Since coming to government, this Rudd-Gillard-Green alliance has done very little for agricultural industry because they do not care for the agricultural industry. It seems they would like to see Australia become the carbon tip of the world.

We cannot trust this government to get it right. We have seen that in so many different aspects. They have made so many mistakes in just 3½ short years. In fact, in just 2½ years they have racked up a bigger net bill than Bob Hawke and Paul Keating could run up in 14 years. So why should we, why should farmers, trust them now? It is so typical of this government, which worries more about political spin, media spin and the 24-hour media cycle than it does about good policy, particularly for farmers and for regional communities.

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