Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

The answer to the second question, I think, is yes. I had a rather long discussion with Senator Milne about the first question, and we do say we are prepared to include avoided deforestation. Senator Milne and I—you may not have been in the chamber, Senator Brown—had a discussion about the fact that we would require robust methodology for that. I acknowledge that is a complex issue, but we are saying it could be included subject to that methodology being created.

I will take one step back and talk about your concerns regarding regrowth forest on deforested land, and this is an issue I have had positive comments about from some NGOs. It depends where one starts from. If you start from the proposition, ‘This clearing was bad so we should just make sure that no-one who now owns land that was cleared can do anything about it,’ then your proposition flows. The government does not think that is a sensible way forward. Regardless of what one thinks about the reasons for past clearing, surely there is environmental and policy merit in giving landholders an incentive to sequester carbon through regrowth forests. Whether or not they should have been cleared is a separate policy argument, and obviously one’s answer to that will depend on the factual circumstances because they would not be the same on every occasion. But, if this land is already cleared and we can give landholders an incentive to contribute to the solution on climate change, may I suggest that is a pretty sensible approach?