Nationals Senate leader and Regionalisation Minister Bridget McKenzie, who was restored to federal cabinet when Mr Joyce returned to the leadership in June, said the partys responsibility was to assess the plan on behalf of voters.
We will not be signing a blank cheque sight unseen, she said.
Regional Health Minister David Gillespie, a supporter of Mr Joyce, questioned whether a 2050 pledge would mean anything.
We have got to have affordable 24/7 reliable cheap energy and we will use technology to achieve that rather than make an aspirational 2050 commitment that is 30 years away, he told ABC News.
Mr Joyce has a history of questioning climate science and the need for a policy response, claiming a decade ago that a carbon tax would push the price of a lamb roast to $100, a prediction never substantiated and subject to intense criticism.
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Mr Morrisons allies consider his latest comments as relatively positive for a negotiation on net zero, saying the Nationals leader was leaving room to be persuaded if he can be sure regional Australia is rewarded.
The assistance for farmers comes from schemes such as increasing the vegetation on land they do not need for food production or sequestering carbon in soil, measures that provoke dispute because some climate activists think the ideas cannot produce meaningful cuts to emissions.
Mr Littleproud declared farmers had missed out on fair compensation in previous climate policies that restricted their land use without giving them any payment for the property rights they had lost.
That is not the Australian way. That has cost a lot of livelihoods in regional and rural Australia.
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Mr Littleproud said pilot schemes were already under way and he would have a trading platform operating by the end of the year to allow businesses to trade biodiversity credits, giving landowners a payment.
We are the first country in the world to be able to measure improvement in biodiversity because the reason I came up with this was exactly the point that these farmers had missed the boat in being paid for a property right lost, he said.
So Im trying to square the ledger.
The cost to the federal budget could be significant but the scheme is emerging as an essential part of any agreement with the Nationals, although it would not be enough on its own to upgrade the governments climate target to net zero by 2050.
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Nationals stake their claim on carbon compensation - Sydney Morning Herald
