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

Last night we were having considerable discussion about this and I asked the government to tell me where in the legislation, as it currently stands, it says that these forests cannot be cut down. It is a simple request. Where does it say that? That is the first thing. The second thing is that people have said to me today: ‘Oh well, doesn’t this mean that people could go out and plant forests on degraded land? Wouldn’t that be a good idea?’ You only have to look at managed investment schemes to see that the same thing was said about them in the first place. The fact of the matter is that, if you invest in an MIS or a carbon sink forest, the value of your investment depends on how rapidly those trees grow. If you want to cut them down for plantation fibre then the faster the growth and the quicker the rotation, the more money. If you do not want to cut them down and you want to have them as a carbon sink then, again, the faster they grow, the more carbon you have got to sell in the carbon market.

This is a double dip. For anyone who actually gets the tax deduction and then wants to go into a voluntary carbon market—in the absence of a legislated market—then, the faster your trees grow, the more carbon credits you have got to offer. So exactly the same thing will happen with this as has happened with the MISs—that is, the better the agricultural land, the better the trees and the more water, the better the trees grow. Therefore, it will not lead to trees growing on marginal land and, if you were genuine about marginal land, you would be supporting my amendments, particularly the first one, which states:

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

If you are genuine about marginal land then the best hope you have got of growing anything on marginal land is to grow what was there in the first place. That is not going to happen when the value of this investment depends on the volume of carbon credits you can sell in a market or, if you chose to cut them down, the amount you can get on the woodchip market. That is a nonsense.

Another statement is, ‘Oh, isn’t this about poor farmers wanting to reafforest?’ No, it is not. Let me give you an example. Virgin and Qantas are under the hammer because of their aviation emissions. They know they have to count their domestic emissions and their international emissions will be counted under future schemes. Already, people like the Greens senators, for example, are paying a business to offset our emissions from aviation. But the big companies will be wanting to do that as well.

We senators decided not to invest in any company that plants trees but rather that produces renewable energy because that is actually reducing emissions now, not cost-shifting it to the future where the trees may or may not grow, may or may not take up anything like the carbon that will be emitted from a flight over the time frame we have got. As I said last night, the issue is the time frame. Under this scheme, Qantas or Virgin could institute a system of passengers paying a levy for carbon offsets going to Qantas or Virgin bank accounts. They could use that money to purchase land and establish plantations and then come to the government with their hand out and say, ‘Now we’ll have a tax deduction.’ This is not just for coal companies; this is for any big business wanting to offset.

The world made this mistake with the Kyoto protocol when it allowed financial credit for afforestation and reforestation but no credit for protecting standing forests. That is where the world went wrong. Everybody acknowledges that now, and so, in the negotiations for post 2012, everybody is talking about the REDD scheme—reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation. We want to shift internationally the benefit to the people who are protecting standing carbon stores, not setting up rorts for other people.

Firstly, I would like to ask Senator Conroy to point out specifically where in the legislation it says these forests cannot be cut down, especially if you claim the tax deduction up-front but even if you do not over 14 years. Secondly, I would like him to explain how he is going to keep these forests, these plantations, off prime agricultural land and, therefore, how he is going to stop them buying up the water rights that farmers are currently competing for and how he is going to prevent the same perverse consequences that have happened with managed investment schemes for rural and regional Australia where farmers have been driven off their land and communities have collapsed. I would like a particular reference to those two matters.