Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make a few remarks about this. The Greens were very concerned to make sure that we had a negative list in relation to this piece of legislation so that there was some clarity in the community, and I am very pleased that the managed investment schemes went on to that negative list right at the start. The Greens wanted to make sure that we had the benefits of various projects for creating carbon credits and also biodiversity outcomes under the Biodiversity Fund of the climate bills whilst at the same time trying to deal with the perverse outcomes that potentially could be there.

Members of the Senate will recall that I spoke very strongly against the 100 per cent tax deduction for carbon sink forests because they led to a distortion in land prices and so on in rural and regional Australia, after our experience of the managed investment schemes. So we wanted to make sure, in the course of this legislation and looking at the Biodiversity Fund under the climate bills, that we maximised local participation and maximised benefits whilst taking into account the perverse outcomes that might occur. We also wanted to minimise political interference in the decisions and try to make them systemic and policy based.

We have a scenario now where the NRM groups will be funded to assist them to be brought up to a certain level of proficiency. The NRM plans will be put up in the same sort of context. Projects that are brought forward will be compared with NRM plans, so local communities will be involved through NRM groups and through local government in looking at projects that are being proposed. They will be looked at in terms of the negative list and they will not be disallowable instruments of the parliament. I particularly do not want them to be disallowable instruments of the parliament because I want to make sure that we get to policy based outcomes that are not engaged with individual ministerial interference or parliamentary interference with disallowable instruments in this particular case.

I think we have a pretty good balance here with a recognition that we can enhance carbon in the landscape and that we can create opportunities for people in rural and regional Australia to create projects which are good for carbon, good for biodiversity and good for communities, but there is the capacity for any perverse outcomes which start to become apparent in a systemic way to go onto the negative list and add to the negative list over time. From the Greens' perspective I think we have achieved that through the negotiations that have gone on, through the amendments and through the complementarity of the carbon package as it has been announced. I am satisfied that, providing we get the NRM groups up to the standard needed and get the NRM plans, the collaboration of this will lead to good outcomes.

I note that it has been the Greens and the government who have recognised the value of the negative list by saying, upfront, to rural and regional Australia that these particular things will not be considered, including managed investment schemes. We want to make sure that what we are rewarding is additionality, not just existing good practice, but additional carbon in the landscape. We also need to get some academic rigour into this because, ultimately, when we go to international trading it is going to be critical that Australian projects stand up and withstand scrutiny. You are not going to have a good reputation as a player in a global market unless the product you are selling is rigorous—that is, it is additional and permanent. I am satisfied that we are achieving that. By passing this amendment you would be playing governments into individual project decisions and parliaments into disallowing individual project decisions, as well as disempowering the very people you want to empower, the NRM groups and the NRM plans, which are based on proper, natural resource management. That is where we are coming from.

I note with interest that it is the coalition which wanted to abolish the negative list. This is extraordinary. They have been out in rural and regional Australia telling people about all the bad things that might happen and not admitting that it is the coalition that want to get rid of the negative list. It is the coalition that do not want to see managed investment schemes put on a negative list. No, they are happy for it to be 'all stations go', and that is completely unsatisfactory. The Greens will not stand for perverse outcomes in rural and regional Australia on land and water use. We want to maximise the capacity for agricultural production while enhancing carbon in the landscape, enhan­cing restoration of carbon in the landscape and enhancing and maintaining biodiversity in rural and regional Australia. I think we are on track to achieve that with the way that the legislation is designed and also in comple­mentarity with the carbon bills.