THERE were no major incentives for the farm sector in Labor's climate change policy announced last week, despite high hopes there would be new measures or research dollars to encourage carbon abatement and sequestration in agriculture.
The Federal Government announced some of its revamped climate change policy, designed to reassure the community it is acting on climate change even though it is delaying the introduction of an emissions trading scheme until 2013.
One of the headline components of the policy is a commitment to establish a "citizen's assembly" if re-elected, which the Prime Minister wants to use to develop a community consensus for action on climate change.
There was a big $1 billion funding promise to connect more renewable energy projects to the national grid.
A pledge to pay "cash for clunkers" and give a $2000 rebate to people to trade in old, heavy polluting vehicles for newer, environmentally friendly cars, also attracted plenty of media attention.
But the big-ticket commitments the farm sector was looking for from Labor were not part of the announcement, even though Minister for Agriculture, Tony Burke, last week said the Government's climate change policy would be good for farmers.
Just days ahead of the Government's policy unveiling, Mr Burke told journalists while touring the marginal Central Queensland electorate of Flynn that the Government's climate change policy would be beneficial to farmers and he expected primary producers to be pleased with the plan.
He also said farmers should be reminded how much Labor was putting into research and development in agriculture to help it adapt to climate change.
"We're adapting and dealing with climate change while at the same time improving productivity and profit for farmers," Mr Burke said.
There were hopes the $50 million research package that had formed part of the Government's amended CPRS legislation, but was canned on defeat of the Bill in the Senate, might resurface in the revamped climate package.
The National Farmers Federation said it was waiting for further climate change announcements from the Government with specific reference to how it would treat agriculture.
NFF said if the Government was to have a community consensus assembly on the issue, it was crucial farmers were "centrally involved".
What they would have preferred to have seen in the announcement was a commitment to building international consensus to get proper recognition for agriculture in the flawed Kyoto Protocol, which does not properly recognise the contributions farmers can and are making in the area of climate change.
"The NFF’s primary concerns relate to the impact of the CPRS on farmers competitiveness on international markets, particularly from the impact on processing costs," NFF president David Crombie said.
"For this reason we have not supported the CPRS and have welcomed the decision to delay introducing the CPRS Bill – a decision reinforced in today’s speech by the Prime Minister.
"The NFF believes that any “citizens’ assembly” as described today by the Prime Minister must have a proportionate representation from the farm sector, particularly given the enormous contribution agriculture has already played in the reduction of our carbon emissions."
NFF said the $1 billion Connecting Renewables initiative, to bring more renewable energy onto the national grid earlier, was positive because many renewable energy sources were generated in regional communities.
They said the funding would broaden the scope for projects around biomass energy creation.
"The commitment to provide credit for abatement undertaken prior to the introduction of the CPRS unfortunately does not appear to apply to rewarding early abatement actions by sectors outside the CPRS cap – including agriculture. We need clarity on this," Mr Crombie said.
"We await further climate change policy announcements from Labor on the specifics of how they would treat agriculture," Mr Crombie said.
"We also await clear recognition of these challenges and opportunities in the Coalition’s and Greens’ election commitments."
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