Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to update the house on how this government is investing in the future of farmers, whilst at the same time protecting our environment. Through our world-leading initiatives to reduce Australia's carbon footprint, the government will injects millions of dollars into our agricultural industry. In particular, I'd like to note the significant contribution to my home state of Western Australia through new contracts awarded for carbon abatement. I'm very pleased to say that a number of these projects will be based in my electorate, and I know my constituents will welcome the investment in their local economy.

Last week the Clean Energy Regulator awarded 32 contracts, worth a combined $90 million, to secure new carbon abatement projects. These projects will deliver some 6.7 million tonnes of abatement, which sets the average cost per tonne at roughly $13. This funding allows these successful farmers to use their often degraded land for other commercial purposes. This is a responsible and extremely low cost form of reducing emissions, and it also creates jobs. It is for this reason that I welcome this major investment in regional Western Australia through the latest ERF auction. Of the 32 projects I mentioned, 15 will be based in Western Australia. Those projects are worth a combined $47.5 million, more than half of the total funding allocated in the most recent auction.

I'd like to briefly touch on some of those initiatives we're funding because, aside from the obvious benefit to the environment, they're actually going to be real game changers for parts of regional Western Australia. In the Shire of Sandstone, the Atley Station Regeneration Project will establish permanent native forests on land that was previously cleared of vegetation. We're backing more than a dozen projects that will deliver similar outcomes in rural WA, including the Goldfields and other parts of the mid-west. In Boddington, which is in the southern region of WA, the government will invest in a project that sequesters carbon by establishing and maintaining a new plantation forest. This plantation will continue to boost the state's economy in years to come through the commercial harvesting of wood.

This outlines the Turnbull government's pragmatic approach to managing our environmental footprint. As I've said, we're offsetting a significant amount of carbon through these latest projects, and in situations where often there is no valuable use for the land. So it's a very good story. But, more importantly, we're investing in communities; we're stimulating those parts of the economy where, let's face it, not a lot is happening on that degraded land; and we're also creating jobs. As the Assistant Minister for the Environment I very much look forward to seeing the success of these projects in the future.