Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

With due respect, I'm not assuming that they're mutually exclusive, but they've been done on the basis that evaluation of carbon is an adjunct to an existing agricultural enterprise. This risks taking that equation and completely wiping it out on the back of companies wishing to survive having to achieve certain obligations, not being able to do it within the timeframes required through technological means, and therefore being left with no option, if there is no technological solution, the only meaningful, viable, realistic option for them is to buy up agricultural land and lock it up. That has flow-on impact on communities right across regional Australia. It has flow-on impact on agricultural industries as agricultural industries are made smaller and their economies of scale decline and the chance of those industries folding altogether becomes much, much more realistic. This is not a hypothetical. This is happening in regional WA at the moment, where large entities are buying up agricultural land effectively to lock it up.