The soil carbon industry must be excited - even though they cannot agree on how to measure or monitor the sequestraion, the opposition can claim what it likes has been sequestered and no one will ever be able to give a definitve answer. When soil carbon is included in an international agreement (as the US wants) will the landholders have to maintain (not cultivate) the carbon in the soil and will the government compensate them for loss of opportunity? You can bet the back paddock that most of this money will go to the big industry and the city for solar panels - the opposition has already said it wants most of the trees planted in the cities. You have been conned by your representatives - again.

How can it not be a tax Mr Abbott? The money is coming from the taxpayer - expect your EC requests to be denied, R and D to be cut, trade delegations to be cut, funding to the rural communities to be cut. Wake UP. The ETS may not be the best but it offers far more opportunities for farmers. Trees under the CPRS and soil under the NCOS are available. You want compensation for remnant veg - then the NCOS will allow for improved forest management and even soil carbon projects. You are not getting the full story here nor are you listening. You have been conned on the impacts of the ETS; you are losing massive opportunities for income and development and new technologies. As the world demands more coal for power generation where do you think they are going to get it? Through mining your land and by god you have no rights under the mining act. The opposition just keep saying the ETS is Great Big Tax - when it isn't and you keep lapping it up without even looking into it. Why? You so desperately want to believe the opposition and the Nats because most of you hate Rudd and believe he is a communist - well his polices are more right wing than a Abbot's govt-controlled scheme