Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

It is, as I understand it, very clearly the financial value of the harvested material. I have been trying to follow your example in relation to woodchips here, Senator Rice. But you seem to be saying that, as the price of woodchips gets cheaper, the price of woodchips becomes irrelevant if you are talking about whether it is substituted. It would not be allowable for income from wood waste, were the income generated from that as a result of it being used for energy generation, to exceed the income from the primary purpose. That would not be allowable, because then it would be failing in terms of the high-value test. So the high-value test is about ensuring that you do have a primary purpose that drives the decision for harvesting in accordance with all of the other safeguards around the regional forest agreements and otherwise. That is the primary purpose up front for a given area of forestry activity, and that energy must be a secondary income source that is very clearly secondary to that higher value outcome.