Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bendigo for his question. I know there are many members on this side of the House that are very interested in the carbon price mechanism. I go specifically to the area that I have responsibility in, the Carbon Farming Initiative. I know there are many members who are interested in what opportunities the government has provided to the land sector as part of the Clean Energy Future plan.

As the member would be aware, the federal Labor government's Clean Energy Future plan has four key elements. One of those elements is the carbon price; secondly, the renewable energy; thirdly, the energy efficiency; and, importantly, action on the land. The Carbon Farming Initiative is a key element of that plan to take action for our agriculture, forestry and landfill sectors.

The CFI as it is known is a voluntary scheme. It is there to encourage the agricultural, forestry and landfill sectors to take action to reduce their greenhouse emissions or to increase their carbon storage through changing their agricultural, forestry and landfill practices. This is referred to as abatement. Those activities in those sectors, if they are achieving additional abatement, are able to create additional Australian carbon credits. These credits then can be sold in the market. There is a lot of good work and opportunity there for the land sector.

The CFI is this government's central policy for helping Australia's agricultural, forestry and landfill sectors to play a very important part in the emerging clean economy and it is yielding benefits. We are now approaching 12 months since the Clean Energy Future plan commenced. In that time we have bedded down the CFI and busied ourselves with refining its detailed rules and methodologies. We have established rigorous expert review and integrity provisions that are ensuring that every tonne of carbon pollution offset by the CFI is a real tonne of carbon pollution. We have worked with farmers, landholders, and agricultural and forestry industries to establish projects and to support them to engage with Australia's carbon market.

The CFI is a very good policy that is having real impacts for regional Australia. Farmers, landholders and regional communities are benefiting from new income that has flowed from the scheme and from the new jobs that are flowing to the regions. I know Deputy Speaker, Livermore, you are from a regional electorate and would appreciate the importance of the Carbon Farming Initiative.

As already stated, the CFI provides farmers with the ability to create carbon credits and sell those into the market. But those credits will only fetch a decent price in the market if it has confidence that they represent real abatement. The integrity of the CFI is critical to the success of the scheme. That is why this government has established the Domestic Offsets Integrity Committee, known as the DOIC, to oversee the consideration of activities and methodologies, and to make recommendations to the government.

The DOIC ensures that any carbon abatement is in addition to normal practice. The DOIC consists of a panel of eminent scientists and land sector specialists whose role is to assess and stress test every methodology before it is allowed in. All activities that can generate credits under the CFI can only do so because the committee has assessed them as being robust.

The importance of this committee cannot be overstated. I certainly wish to thank the committee for their efforts over the past year. The committee really is a gatekeeper for the CFI, and it bears the important responsibility for ensuring the scheme is credible. In undertaking that task, the committee is assisted through the establishment of many partnerships with Australia's leading universities and research institutions to unlock the next generation of abatement opportunities on the land.

It is important to note that there is a lot happening in this space. The DOIC has been working hard to assess proposals that have been put forward since its commencement. I am pleased to report the CFI has grown in scope and coverage in the past year. The CFI relies on the existence of methodologies for each covered activity, and we now have 15 methodologies in place covering a range of abatement opportunities across the forestry sector, dairies, piggeries, landfill and grassland. Farmers can now own carbon credits by revegetating marginal lands on their properties; foresters can earn credits by reforesting cleared land; dairies and piggeries are able to earn credits by capturing methane from their facilities and burning those emissions before they escape into the atmosphere; and landfill operators can earn carbon credits by diverting organic waste and treating it safely. The member will be pleased to know that there is more on the way; in coming months, further methodologies will be finalised and new projects established. (Time expired)

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