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

Thank you to the government for coming back with some information. I now have an answer to what I was asking—that is, is there any requirement for the trees to be left in the ground and can they be cut down? The minister has just said there is no requirement for the trees to be in the ground, so it is precisely as I said: under this tax law there is no requirement for trees to stay in the ground. The only guarantee that the senator has just made to me is that the Minister for Climate Change and Water will have to issue guidelines which will classify eligibility, and the guidelines are a disallowable instrument, as Senator Boswell has just indicated.

But the point I am making is that I want to know from the minister whether the Greenhouse Friendly forest sink abatement projects regulations are going to be the regulations that the climate change minister agrees to, in which case they will be completely useless. I am told to wait and see what the climate minister delivers in terms of guidelines, and rest assured I will—and rest assured it is a disallowable instrument, and when it comes before this chamber, if it is not good enough, we will deal with that. But it does not alter the fact that even if you can achieve some of the things we want to achieve—that the trees are in the ground, that the trees are mixed species and that there is a hydrological assessment—it does not alter the impact on agricultural communities, which is the point that we have been trying to make here time and time again.

So I would like an answer from the minister now. I asked another question in relation to where you got your cost estimates. The minister is going to tell me in a minute, but perhaps he could also tell me whether the Greenhouse Friendly forest sink abatement projects guidelines are the ones that are being referred to, before we actually put the amendments.