Heather du Plessis-Allan: Scrapping agriculture from the ETS is the right correction

Here’s some good news for farmers on the eve of Fieldays - they will not have to pay for their emissions.

The Government's announced it’s taking agriculture back out of the ETS, which is where it’s always been until the last Labour Government put it in there.

And outside is where it should always be, because the idea of putting a climate tax on farmers who provide the food we need to survive is crazy.

The idea is so crazy that, as far as I can tell, no other country in the world has done it.

Now, Labour’s threat to farmers was - you’re in the ETS unless you find another way to pay for your emissions. So there will likely be an expectation that farmers will still have to find that other way.

And frankly, I hope they don’t have to. I hope we just give up on this, because making farmers pay to grow the food we need to survive is absolutely nuts.

I'm not having an argument about whether climate change is real or not, because of course it's real. And I'm also not having an argument about whether we should make an effort to reduce emissions. If we can, of course we should, within reason.

But I am prepared to argue about how far you take that idea. I think that idea was taken too far.

When Labour put farmers in the ETS, it had gone too far - because the natural end point of that was that it would add another cost to farming that would cause our farmers to farm fewer animals.

That would therefore produce less meat and milk, therefore feeding fewer humans and making our country poorer by selling less to the world. When you get to that endpoint - that's crazy.

For a moment there, we got absolutely carried away with the conviction that climate change was the most important thing we were dealing with.

Let's get this straight, it is not. It doesn't trump everything else that we are doing. I would argue feeding children is more important, educating children is more important and heating up homes in the winter is more important.

Thank goodness for this announcement, because it is absolutely correcting our priorities.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, here's a little bit of good news for farmers
on the eve of field days. They're not going to
have to pay for their emissions. How good is that?
The government's just announced it's taking agriculture back out of
the etes, which is where it's always been until the
last gave Labor government put it into the ets. Where
it's supposed to have been was obviously outside of it,
and that's where it should always be, because the idea

(00:21):
of putting a climate tax on farmers who provide the
food that we need to survive is just crazy. It
is so crazy an idea that, as far as I
can tell, no other country in the world does it. Now.
Labour's threat to farmers, if you recall, was that unless
that was basically that they were in the etes, unless
they could find another way to pay for their emissions.
So there's likely going to be an expectation that farmers

(00:42):
will still have to find that other way, and frankly,
I hope they don't have to. I hope that we
just give up on the stupid idea, because making farmers
pay to grow the food that we need is absolutely nuts.
I'm not having an argument about whether climate change is
real or not, because of course it's real. And I'm
also not having an argument about whether we should make
an to reduce emissions if we can. Of course we should,
and it should always be within reason. But I am

(01:04):
prepared to argue black and blue about how far you
take that idea. I think that idea was taken too
far when the Labor Party put farmers in the ets.
It went too far because the natural end point of
making farmers pay for their climate emissions is that it's
another cost of farming, which means our farmers would then
farm fewer animals. And that's not up for debate. It

(01:26):
was in the documents that's what was going to happen.
Farmers were going to farm fewer animals, therefore they would
produce less meat and milk for us. Therefore we would
be we'd have fewer humans being fed. Therefore our country
would be poorer because we would be selling less to
the world. And the endpoint, when you get to that endpoint,
that's crazy. You shouldn't be doing that. For a moment
that we got absolutely carried away with the conviction that

(01:47):
the climate change was the most important thing that we
were dealing with. Let's just get this straight. Climate change
is important, it is not the most important thing that
we are dealing with. It does not trump absolutely everything
else that we are doing. I would argue feeding your
kids is more important than dealing with climate change. I

(02:09):
would argue that having the money in the country to
educate our kids is more important than dealing with climate change.
I'll also argue being able to head up your home
in winter so that you don't get sick is more
important than dealing with climate change. Absolutely deal with climate
change as well, but these things come first. So thank
goodness for this announcement because this is absolutely correcting our priorities.

(02:29):
For more from Hither Duplicy Alan Drive, listen live to
News Talk said B from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.