Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

On the earlier questions, the CSIRO research has been relied upon to provide the information. These regulations are out for comment. Quite frankly, I know those opposite do not believe in the science. I am sure they would not believe in the science even if we could table the CSIRO's science report today. They are opposed to this legislation and they continue to oppose it. They do not believe in the Carbon Farming Initiative, which will provide benefits to the environment and reduce salinity, as well as provide specific benefits for the farming community.

Pass the legislation. Stop filibustering. We will get an outcome that farmers can participate in. We know that the farming community is excluded from the carbon price. We have advocated for that and it has been agreed to. The farming community can certainly now use the CFI as an opportunity. This goes to the second question that was asked. You do not have to use the CFI if you do not want to. If you want to participate in it and if you want to develop a methodology that uses one of the available opportunities, you can do so. If you do not want to then you can continue. This is really responding to the Chicken Little arguments that were raised earlier about how the sky will fall down and everything else will happen. That is completely false. If you do not want to use the table do not use the CFI and do not use the opportunities that it presents to you. It is a perfectly logical answer for some who might not see an opportunity, but many will. So pass the legislation and let those farming communities benefit from sequestering carbon.

In response to Senator Macdonald, the banana industry, as you can appreciate, had an opportunity post Cyclone Yasi to receive significant support and assistance to get them through pretty difficult times. We provided a farm clean-up and a significant opportunity to get them through that difficult period. Because there were no bananas in the marketplace there were calls for alternative opportunities. What we have had though is a responsive banana industry able to deal with a particularly difficult event and get back up on its feet. In the foreseeable future bananas will re-enter the market, which will bring down the prices.

Not only the banana industry but all of the agricultural industries—I will not pick any out individually—can benefit from the CFI if they want to participate in it and develop the opportunities. They can use it as a way of reducing salinity in the soil, providing environmental benefits. I know that many in the farming community already do significant work on this. They can use that to their advantage by having their organisations join in this process of identifying the positive outcomes of sequestering carbon. This will ensure that they can reduce their carbon emissions, and that there are not only long-term benefits for their own environment but also income streams from it. All of that is available to them. It is not available while the coalition oppose the legislation and continue to filibuster.

We have been dealing with an amendment that everybody agrees with. No matter how many times the opposition have tried to characterise it otherwise, it is a sensible amendment. It provides what the opposition asked for and what the government sees as necessary. It does it by amending the criteria that are taken into account by the minister when making decisions around the legislation. We are now four or five hours in. We have had a couple of hours on one amendment that we all agree to. The coalition can argue that they are not filibustering, but they are. We really ought to get on with this legislation.

I think the coalition are now going from the ridiculous to the sublime. They are demonstrating just how opposed they are not only to the Carbon Farming Initiative but also to the opportunities that the Carbon Farming Initiative will present to farming communities. That disappoints me the most. I philosophically understand why the opposition oppose this. I do not agree with you. I completely think you have the wrong end of the stick. I see that it is your position and you are going to stick to it, but I do not understand why you want to deny farming communities the benefits of reducing salinity and soil erosion while also providing income streams. I do not understand that at all, quite frankly.

It is probably wedded to the fact that I mentioned earlier: in this debate, the coalition philosophically have a huge problem. They do not agree with the science. They do not agree with our position. They reflect that in many ways, such as saving money by not having a department. They have no legislation. They have no rigour. They have no model. They only have a direct action model, and I would not even call it that. It is just a tissue-paper-thin document which looks like a policy but is not. It is a clayton's policy, quite frankly. It will not work and it will not do what the CFI will do, which will provide all of those benefits and ensure, as we have done in this, that land use is a criterion that is taken into account. The opposition's direct action policy can have perverse outcomes. They do not want to talk about those perverse outcomes here, and I can understand why they would not want to, but if you look at the coalition's comments on those perverse outcomes the Liberals demonstrate that they are divided on this issue, as they are on the science of climate change.

The legislation we have will strike the right balance between rewarding environ­mental planning and protecting prime agricultural land; however, the Liberals do not want farmers to benefit from the carbon markets. They are spruiking the idea of tree planting as a panacea for climate change, but you could have the perverse outcomes that Senator Colbeck mentioned. It could create areas where you have insensible policy which encourages tree planting but without any rigour, model or safeguards and without any department or legislation. But they have provoked me into responding in a more broad way. I do this to highlight how the coalition are even opposed to benefiting farmers. That troubles me more each day as I sit in this chamber and listen to the Liberals spruik about the Carbon Farming Initiative. They ask questions but in truth they are filibustering; they are opposing the legisla­tion. Do that at the end—get on with it.