Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move Greens amendment (1) on sheet 5489:

(1)    Page 23 (after line 21), at the end of the bill, add:

Schedule 7—Safeguards on the establishment of carbon sink forests

Income Tax Assessment Act 1997

1  After paragraph 40-1010(2)(c)

Insert:

           (ca)    the trees are a mixture of species that approximate the local native vegetation or, if not available, from an ecologically similar location;

2  After subsection 40-1010(3)

Insert:

     (3A)    The guidelines provided for in subsection (3) must ensure that:

             (a)    any property claiming a carbon sink forest expenditure has an environmental management system audited to conform to ISO14001 in place; and

             (b)    forests over 100 Ha require an ecosystem evaluation to develop recommendations for appropriate planting; and

             (c)    the owner is required to enter into an easement agreement with the Department of Climate Change preventing any development or modification of the property which would result in the property no longer meeting the conditions specified for a carbon sink forest; and

             (d)    an easement agreement entered into in accordance with paragraph (c) remains in force for a period of not less than 100 years, or until the Commonwealth determines that the forest no longer requires protection, whichever is the earlier.

3  After section 40-1015

Insert:

40-1016 Ecosystem evaluation

Ecosystem evaluation means an ecological assessment and report prepared by a suitably qualified person which includes, but is not limited to:

             (a)    an assessment of impact of the carbon sink forest on the hydrology of the catchments within which it is situated;

             (b)    an assessment of the local and regional linkage and connectivity values of the site, including potential links in relation to any other remnant vegetation areas;

             (c)    identification of constrained areas such as steep land and land adjacent to waterways which are likely to have particular management requirements;

             (d)    an assessment of fire risk within the site and in relation to adjacent premises including areas of native forest;

             (e)    identification of any other environmentally sensitive areas which may potentially be impacted by the proposed use;

              (f)    identification of any likely conflicts between the proposed carbon sink forest use and any adjacent or nearby premises or places;

             (g)    identification of a selection of suitably benign species for planting.

As I said in the second reading debate, there is no requirement that these so-called carbon sink forests are a mixture of species. You can put in a monoculture and call that a forest under this legislation. That is quite wrong, if the proposal is supposed to be sequestering carbon for a long period of time. Surely, if you were going to put in a carbon sink forest you would be putting in mixed species that approximate the local native vegetation or that from an ecologically similar location. And you would be doing that by having an ecosystem evaluation to look at issues such as the impact of the carbon sink forest on the hydrology of the catchment; an assessment of the local and regional linkage and connectivity values of the site; identification of constrained areas, such as steep land and land adjacent to waterways; an assessment of the fire risk; identification of other environmentally sensitive areas which may be impacted by the proposed use; identification of any likely conflicts between the proposed carbon sink forest or any adjacent or nearby premises or places; and identification of a selection of suitably benign species for planting.

If you were really serious about trying to put in a biodiverse forest that had benefits for habitat as well as sequestering carbon then you would have some of these specifications. You would also have a stipulation that it could not be cut down. Instead of that there is nothing. As I have said before, and as Senator Heffernan has now agreed, there is nothing at all in this particular legislation that requires these trees to be in the ground for any length of time. You can get a 100 per cent tax deduction up-front. Then they can be cut down, and you do not forfeit your tax deduction once you have achieved it. What is the point of that? Without a requirement that they stay in the ground for any length of time, you do not have a sequestered forest; you have another plantation. That is absolutely the point. And if you choose to tax-deduct it over 14 years, which is your other option, that happens to coincide with one rotation of a plantation. So you can tax-deduct it over 14 years and then you can cut it down at the end of that. If, however, you could tax-deduct it and have it there as a carbon sink and sell the credits from it, then I would need to know that there was some scheme in place that required you to make good. Presumably that will occur under some emissions trading scheme, but it is not there now. We are being asked to forgo $24 million worth of revenue to the Commonwealth: $24 million for the public hospital system, $24 million to implement public transport, $24 million for public schools—whatever you want to spend it on. We are forgoing $24 million, as yet another rort, to establish forests. As I said, it is like a managed investment scheme on steroids.

You can also drain a wetland and still get a tax deduction. It says there, ‘Oh no; you can’t’—but no; it does not. What it says is that you cannot tax-deduct the costs of draining the wetland. It does not say that after you have drained it you cannot get the tax deduction for planting whatever you like on it. So, depending on the costs associated with draining a low-lying-area wetland, you can just do that and then claim the tax deduction for the establishment of the plantation. And what about clearing savanna across Northern Australia, which does not meet the current definition of what can be on the land before? Why can’t you just clear that, lose all the carbon from it and put in a teak plantation, a mahogany plantation or something like that, not use the MIS but use this, then say, ‘I wanted it as a carbon sink,’ and then, in 14 years time, when you have deducted it, work out whether there is more value for you in flogging the carbon credits from it or in cutting it down for sawn timber or whatever other use you might have?

This is not about a carbon sink. I have some particular questions for the government that we should have answers to. How much carbon is stored in one-fifth of a hectare of native tall eucalypt forest in southern Tasmania? How much carbon is stored in that standing forest? And how long will a monoculture plantation take to store the same volume of carbon, once it has its 100 per cent tax deduction? The government is paying people to cut down one and lose all that carbon to atmosphere, lose all the soil carbon and burn the residue, and then at the same time paying people to put in these plantations that will never, ever—in 15 years, 20 years or even 50 years—sequester the same volume of carbon as is released. It will take hundreds of years for the take-up of carbon to get the equivalent of what you are cutting down now. If you were serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, you would give a tax rebate right now for purchasing standing native forests, standing stored carbon in vegetation, and pay people to protect it and covenant it. You would then have it permanently and you would not be taking agricultural land out of production. If you were serious, that is what you would do.

To actually pay people to cut down carbon stores and burn them, simply because Kyoto accounting does not count the emissions from doing that now—whereas you can get counted sequestering, or taking up, under the convention—is a complete distortion of reality. The atmosphere does not understand the niceties of clever little accounting system tricks. The atmosphere understands volumes of carbon going into atmosphere now and volumes of carbon being taken out of atmosphere now and the time frame is everything. If you had hundreds and hundreds of years for the plantations to catch up with what you are logging, then it would ultimately be in balance. But we do not have hundreds of years; we have less than till 2015. We have to get real on reducing carbon emissions to atmosphere, and all this is going to do is provide another nice little rort.

So the particular thing I would like to ask the minister is: where in the legislation does it say you cannot cut down or remove the vegetation that you are getting tax-deductibility to establish? Firstly, where does it say that? Secondly, where does it say the trees have to be in the ground for any length of time at all? Where does it refer to that at all? Thirdly, what are the volumes of carbon on a fifth of a hectare of Tasmanian old-growth forest compared with a fifth of a hectare of plantation established under this? What volumes of carbon are we talking about within a decade? My amendment seeks to do the things that government ought to have done to stop this being a rort. As it is, it is a rort. As I said, it is going to drive farmers off their land. I can see coal companies going in and buying the water rights from the whole of the Murray system or any other system. They have got the money to buy up the rights, take on the land, put in their offset whilst doing nothing at the power station to reduce their emissions but trying to say, ‘I have put in so many thousand hectares of plantations to offset the emissions,’ and we have driven people off the land and we have lost food security.

These are real issues that have to be dealt with here. I am more dedicated than just about anybody in this place to reducing emissions. If I seriously thought this was going to get anywhere in terms of reducing emissions, I would be supporting it. But, the way it stands, it is a rort. It is an absolute rort and will guarantee more carbon is lost to atmosphere than is sequestered because of the perverse reality that you pay people, you subsidise people to cut down and destroy carbon stores and you are now going to subsidise people to put in trees which are not guaranteed to be there for any length of time. So I am anxious to hear what the government has to say on that.