Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to follow up on Senator Macdonald’s question. On the methodology principles, the minister referred to proposed section 259K(1)(a) to (f). While I do appreciate the minister pointing us in that direction, it is still not all that clear. This is one of the things that certainly farmers are very keen to know, given that some of these offsets have been attributed to counteracting, if you like, some of the inputs that still exist within the ETS that they are going to have to face—things like fuel, transport, electricity, fertiliser and chemicals. It would be quite useful if perhaps, given the vague nature of proposed section 259K, the minister were to outline for the chamber exactly what types of activities are going to be undertaken. From reading through all of this, there is nothing that I can see that is all that specific to be able to take back to farmers. It seems to be a more general sort of view of how it will all work. So perhaps the minister, if she is able, could advise the Senate of some of the more specific components of that.

Could she also, perhaps, give a bit more specific detail around the Domestic Offsets Integrity Committee, which is going to be constituted to assess offset methodologies. Again, that is quite vague. I would be very interested to know how that integrity committee is actually going to determine what those offset methodologies are going to be and the criteria that that is going to use. Perhaps the minister could respond to the Senate around those two issues, bearing in mind the very important issue for farmers of having to bear the embedded costs that still exist within the ETS. Even though, of course, agriculture in terms of the animal emissions is excluded, all of those input costs are still going to land right in the lap of the farmers. We have been told that these offsets will be available to counteract some of that. Perhaps the minister could just give us a bit more detail around those issues.