No need to go, Joe

Listening to the Senate debate on the Carbon Farming Initiative... the Minister for Agriculture who has carriage of the matter in that House had some trouble answering questions about how Common Practice will be assessed (a mixture of stakeholder consultation, surveys and 'common sense') during attempts by Opposition, Greens and Independent Nick Xenophon to have amendments accepted and left the Chamber during a break in proceedings, leaving it to a junior minister (Evans) who clearly had trouble and who called on another senator (Feeney) to explain why the amendments were unacceptable. No reflection on Senator Ludwig, of course. CFI is hard to understand and he has the cattle industry screaming for his blood because it was caught out running a sloppy supply chain operation and left itself exposed to a PR disaster and the industry blamed everyone but itself - especially the government for responding to the will of the people and shutting down the supply chain until the industry cleaned up its act. The board of the MLA should consider its position - it has had several previous incidents that should have indicated the type of crisis it is likely to encounter and it should have directed senior management to develop a Crisis Management Plan like any other business or industry. (Woops! We know where Joe was this afternoon, reintroducing cattle trade...-0)

Opportunities in the Carbon Farming Initiative will be revealed at the Carbon Farming Conference & Expo, 28-29 September, 2011