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Tuesday, 16 August 2011
Page: 4447

Senator BIRMINGHAM (South Australia) (13:29): As Senator Xenophon said, it is good to be back. My recollection of exactly where we were in this debate on this particular amendment is perhaps a tad hazy, I have to confess. I am not sure whether I made a contribution to this amendment previously and indicated that the opposition is inclined to support the amendment. As Senator Nash has been highlighting, we do have particular concerns about ensuring the integrity of this scheme in relation to its interaction with water resources and the availability and protection of key agricultural land and how it may or may not impact on those issues. We think that it is important that they are fully thrashed out.

I am attempting to digest the draft regulations that the minister has laid on the table. I see that they were finished at 11.43 this morning, so they are a new edition according to the printout on the bottom of them. I suspect the coalition will have some questions. I am pleased the draft regulations have been produced. We have been calling and arguing that, for the sake of complete­ness, given that so much of this bill hinges on the operation of the regulations, they all should have been presented in tandem in a final version so we could have a fully informed debate in this place. Having the draft regulations at least takes us a step closer to that. It does not give us the final version, but as quickly as we can we will seek comment from stakeholders and other interested parties to help inform us on how these regulations might work. I suspect we will have some questions about some of the decisions that have been made in the regulations as well as we go through this.

In relation to the amendment of Senator Xenophon, firstly, on a very minor matter, assuming my printout and copy of the amendment is the one that is in play, I suspect that there is a typo in (a) of the proposed clause 1A which currently reads

… was established as, or as part, of a managed investments scheme.

Is that meant to be 'as part of' or 'is part of', Senator Xenophon? It may be 'as part of'. Now that I have read it out loud it makes more sense than when I read it before.

Senator Xenophon: It is 'as part of'.

Senator BIRMINGHAM: 'As part of' does work so that is okay. I accept that. Minister Ludwig, one of your main or primary arguments against this has been that it creates project-by-project type assessment criteria. I am wondering if in relation to the operation of the bill, you could give us a little clarity as to how or when the Domestic Offsets Integrity Committee will assess individual projects. Will they purely be projects that are brought to its attention by the administrator or projects that require changes to the methodology? The metho­dology changes are outlined in some detail in the bill. But individual projects may in their individual nature impact on matters of biodiversity or water availability, regardless of the generic nature of how you might attempt to define them. Specific projects, especially in the biodiversity concept, are locality specific in what impact they may or may not have on biodiversity. At what point would you imagine that the administrator or someone would bring a project to the attention of the Domestic Offsets Integrity Committee who may then provide some advice to the minister if there was a concern about biodiversity, or would it purely be assessment exclusively against these regulations that have been laid on the table?