"You get CASH!" Minister Burke"You get cash!" Burke pledges soil carbon credits

The Minister Tony Burke spoke plain English at the ABARE Conference this week - admitting his Government had failed in telling farmers about the change in policy in November 2009. "If you’re able to improve the amount of carbon in the soil through sequestration, you get cash." Don't punish yourself, Tony. More than half the population out here has stopped listening to politicians and scientists with degrees in anything approximating climate studies.


"How does all of this come back to the farmer? ...what it actually means for someone on their own property. Inputs – fertiliser price, chemical price, unchanged. Fuel price goes up, fully offset by a relay. Electricity prices do go up. And there’s a direct line of money to help people with the cash to be able to move to lower energy use for their electricity with a particular focus on meat process, dairy and malt.... For emissions Agriculture [is one of] the only sections of the Australian economy where we ignore the emissions, ignore them completely. Even if they go up, we ignore them. The only section of the Australian economy where it did that.

"But if you’re able to reduce your emissions through abatement, you get cash.

"If you’re able to improve the amount of carbon in the soil through sequestration, you get cash.

"Now people can do their own sums as to what sort of deal that would end up being for farmers. But simply inputs roughly the same, cost of emissions completely ignored, opportunities for new lines of income created. That is the legislation in its final form."