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

I think we are in fact all in screaming agreement. What you are proposing concerns doing it project by project, which would create unnecessary work and would, I think, also slow the process down and create a logjam. We are proposing types of projects. The reason we use that is so that you can characterise them all within a group and in doing so allow those types to be proceeded with in the process of maintaining the integrity of the process—that is, the ability for methodolo­gies to come forward and be independently assessed and then put in place.

The real difference between us here is between projects and types of projects. The reason we use the ISO code is that it allows DOIC to have a way for everyone to understand that the way they do their assessment is in accordance with accepted practice—that is, ISO guidelines. This means that there is integrity in the system and that integrity is underpinned by the independence of the DOIC, as well. All of this means that projects that come forward will be assessed with methodologies under the type they fit within. So there is a broad ability for people interested in particular types of projects to know that they have got certainty. Using as an example the one we have just been talking about—the draft methodology for the capture and combustion of methane in landfill gas—the draft methodology is broader than an individual project. It is the type that fits within it, the type being the capture and combustion of methane in landfill gas. That is the breadth of it. It then provides the draft methodologies we would use and the issues that we have been talking about, including how it would apply. But it is not an individual project. It is not one company saying, 'Here is one landfill. This is the project we want.' This means that all of those firms that deal with the combustion of methane in landfill gas have certainty that once that methodology is independently assessed and approved by DOIC any similar project coming forward will fit within that framework. Therefore they have certainty. They also then have the ability to utilise the scheme and they do not have to come up, as individual projects, and go through the whole issue again, which would cause both unnecessary cost and delays.