Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I refer to the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Bill 2011 and the Senate amendments. We made our position very clear in both houses that we support the general thrust of the bill. It comes from work we have done over a period of years. It was initially rejected by the government in terms of abatement incentives. We are pleased that that has been put in the form of legislation. But, ultimately, given our experience with the Home Insulation Program, the Green Loans Program, the warnings we gave in relation to the cash-for-clunkers program and many other elements, we are not willing to take programs on face value if they appear to be inadequate and unfinished. The Senate has improved the legislation, and we will accept the amendments as were agreed upon in the Senate through cooperative action between the different parties. We will, however, maintain our position of the House and the Senate that the bill, whilst desirable in its intent and whilst desirable in its general construction, remains inadequate, with the failure to complete many of the processes with respect to the regulations—in particular the failure to assume what we regard as a reasonable definition of permanence which will not be destructive, damaging and a hindrance to the fair and proper functioning of this bill and of the general carbon farming area. Having said that, our position remains this: we support the intention, we support the goals, we support the amendments; we do not, however, believe that the bill is ready, given the history with other such programs. It is suffering from inadequacies and incompleteness, and we believe that it is therefore not yet ready for passage. Nevertheless, if elected we will seek to improve this bill along the lines which we have outlined in both houses. The amendments, however, which are the specific subject of this debate at this moment are ones with which we concurred in the Senate.