Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

There are a number of questions asked by senators, and I thought it best perhaps to let people get their questions out before taking up any more of the Senate's time. I'll start with the questions that Senator Rice asked me. Her primary interest was in understanding more about the government's response to the recommendation made by the Senate committee when they were reviewing the bill, and in particular the recommendation that goes to the eligibility requirements for native forest wood waste in the Renewable Energy Target. We accept this recommendation, and I made a few remarks about this last night, but I will put it on the record again. The concerns raised—and I understand the committee heard a good deal about this—relate to a decision by the Abbott government in 2015 to change regulations and put native forest wood waste back into the scheme. That was a decision that we opposed at the time. As the minister said in the House of Representatives, and recently in the media, we are happy to consider the concerns raised. The government will consult on changes to the relevant regulations. The issue raised is a technical issue with eligibility requirements under the Renewable Energy Target. Our response to that recommendation shouldn't be understood as a reflection on the government's general support for sustainable native forest industries and the workers that depend on those industries.

I understand that the industry is generally looking for higher-value uses for native forest products and electricity generation, and we note the evidence from the Clean Energy Regulator to the Senate inquiry that the use of this particular fuel source is not economic, with only one small project currently registered. Nonetheless, we do agree that consultation on this issue is important, we want to make sure that any changes are understood by stakeholders, and we want to make sure that issues for the existing project could be considered. We would aim for any necessary changes to the regulations as a consequence of that consultative process to be made before the end of the year.

Senator Rice also, I think, noted the recommendation from the committee report which asked the government to undertake further consultation on possible legislative amendments and appropriate policy responses. The government has already committed to this. We intend to look at additional amendments to legislation or subordinate instruments over the next year to further embed the targets and the Paris Agreement into relevant schemes. We're happy to do so, and we look forward to consulting with interested stakeholders during this process.

Finally, I note Senator Rice's advocacy for the significance of native forests as an opportunity for sequestration. The government is of course interested in opportunities to maximise sequestration. The land use sector is a core part of our response to climate change. It offers very significant opportunities, and I note that there are many in the agriculture sector who are looking to take advantage of those opportunities under schemes that have been in place for quite some time now.

The questions from the opposition are a little different in character, because, again, we have had contributions that essentially dispute the value of perusing a net zero objective, despite the fact that this appears to be an opposition policy, but that is of no concern to Senator Canavan. And then there was a series of objections from Senator Rennick, which are a little harder to get one's head around, shall we say, in this environment. The curious thing is that on these questions the coalition seem to be increasingly isolated from the stakeholders that they claim to represent.

What did the National Farmers' Federation say to the Senate inquiry about the matter before us? The National Farmers' Federation said that they recognise that this is framework legislation that embeds a national 2030 and 2050 target in legislation and makes consequential amendments to related acts and this provides a level of business certainty that is otherwise absent.