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

Treasury have done modelling and that has been released. I am sure those opposite are aware of that. Agri­cultural industries are beneficiaries under the carbon price. They will be excluded from the carbon price. They will also be able, when the legislation is allowed to pass, to participate in many opportunities to abate carbon. This is an agricultural industry which will be able to partake in co-benefits. Those co-benefits are in reducing salinity and improving the environment while also looking for ways to sequester carbon, to reduce their carbon footprint and also to manage and develop the environment, as they have been doing for many years, and to find an income stream from it.

The benefits, of course, do not stop there. The benefits do not stay within the agricultural portfolio but go to fisheries and forestry. Within the agricultural portfolio the on-farm use of fuels will have a tax credit, and that applies in both fisheries and forestry. This will allow these industries to develop to ensure that they remain competi­tive in a global sense. In terms of their input prices, which is an issue which always gets raised, if you look at the price setting of fertilisers it is an internationally set price. The farming community understand that—