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

I would like to return to the carbon sink forest issue that my colleague Senator Boswell raised. I note with some irony, Minister, that last time we had an exchange on carbon sink forests I was sitting somewhere rather different in the chamber. You mentioned the entitlements that would be attached to the establishment of a carbon sink forest. Can you clarify for the Senate that you mean that the landholder would have to have a water licence to put those carbon sink forests in? I imagine that would only apply to areas where there is not enough rainfall to sustain them anyway. There are two parts to the question. If my understanding of what you said earlier is correct, where do you see those entitlements actually being required if a carbon sink were to go in? And, if the carbon sink forests are going to be encouraged for the purposes of reducing the greenhouse gases, what work has the government done in terms of interception, particularly across the Murray-Darling Basin, to determine what impact the establishment of those carbon sink forests is going to have?