Senate debates
Monday, 30 November 2009
Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009 [No. 2]; Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2009 [No. 2]; Australian Climate Change Regulatory Authority Bill 2009 [No. 2]; Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Charges — Customs) Bill 2009 [No. 2]; Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Charges — Excise) Bill 2009 [No. 2]; Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Charges — General) Bill 2009 [No. 2]; Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS Fuel Credits) Bill 2009 [No. 2]; Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS Fuel Credits) (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2009 [No. 2]; Excise Tariff Amendment (Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme) Bill 2009 [No. 2]; Customs Tariff Amendment (Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme) Bill 2009 [No. 2]; Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Amendment (Household Assistance) Bill 2009 [No. 2]
In Committee
11:38 am
Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source
I would like to go back if I can in relation to the whole issue of offsets. In the government’s original legislation, there was no provision for domestic offsets other than for reforestation projects. Now we have provision for a program of domestic offsets in addition to those reforestation offsets. When the government argued this case originally it said, as I understand it, that the reason that a decision could not be made about agriculture and these kinds of offset projects until 2013—and then if a decision was made to proceed with the inclusion it would not happen until 2015—is that we do not have the accounting methodologies worked out sufficiently to be able to guarantee that we had the carbon outcomes that were being claimed as a result of the projects. Can the minister confirm that that was in fact why the government was delaying until 2013 to make a decision in relation to this matter?
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