Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I've certainly touched a nerve today. The Greens don't put Australia first, because they never criticise other countries. If we are going to have to give up our Kyoto credits, why shouldn't other countries be allocated Kyoto debits? Why shouldn't other countries get Kyoto debits for all the underachievement they have presided over during last 10 or 15 years? That seems pretty logical to me. So, if we are to give up these Kyoto credits, we should make other countries do more in the next period to catch up—New Zealand, Canada, Japan and many other countries around the world.

The final point I want to make is that I don't think we should give these things up. I agree with one part of what Senator Waters said. She rightly said that the reason that we have these Kyoto credits and that we have got around 400 million tonnes of credits—it's all a bit 'funny money'—and that we reduced our emissions by 400 million tonnes more on the carbon accounting than we budgeted for or we promised to under Kyoto is that we stopped farmers being able to develop their own land. Over the last 30 years—