Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am concerned, Senator Wong, about a similar issue to the one raised by Senator Milne. I want to know how the government intends to prevent an encroachment, which we are already seeing now, where prime agricultural land is sold for, or taken over by, carbon sinks. Is there some method to stop this? We are already experiencing it now up in North Queensland. We are seeing land being purchased for forests and encroaching on sugarcane and banana land, which is prime agricultural land.

I know that the particular farmers up there who are trying to buy the adjoining property for their son or their son-in-law, or who are just trying to expand their own property, are not within a bull’s roar of being able to raise the purchase price. With a carbon price coming in with the CPRS, this is going to put the price of land beyond the reach of any farmer. This has implications. Already the sugar mill in Tully is suffering from a lack or a loss of land—I do not have the figures in front of me, but I think it is around 12,000 hectares of land—and now this is threatening the viability of the mill because it will not have the necessary throughput to keep open.

With a carbon price we are going to experience a huge amount of this—people taking over agricultural land for carbon sinks. This has not been discussed much in prior speeches, but I know that Senator Milne, although for a different reason, is as concerned as I am about this. Senator Nash, too, has raised this issue. Is there anything in the bill—because I cannot find it—and anything in the amendments—because I cannot see it in them—which would prevent a gross takeover of agricultural land for people putting in carbon sinks? The price of carbon will go up and the price of bananas will go down.

The other costs that affect bananas such as transport, fertiliser and electricity will take the price of bananas down, and the agricultural land will be taken over by carbon sinks as a tax dodge. Senator Milne, Senator Joyce and I are convinced that this is a tax break for land—though we do not want to get into that argument; we have been in that argument before. Senator Milne has advice from a solicitor that the land will able to be purchased through a tax break. But leaving that aside for the moment, the real problem we have now is how we are going to prevent this from happening. It is going to happen and it is happening as we speak. It is going to happen at an accelerated rate if this CPRS legislation comes in.