Budget Debate
Extract from Hansard
Statement
12th August 2025
Hon Dr Steve Thomas (8:59 pm): I would just like to take a few minutes to try to get to the end of the contribution I made today in the budget estimates debate, as there were a number of things that I did not have time to get to. I will comment on the international measurement of emissions when we get to the carbon emissions and reduction debate, and I want to make a point about food production, because it is absolutely critical. Members might be aware that there are three versions of emissions: scope 1, scope 2 and scope 3 emissions. Scope 1 emissions are the emissions that we generate ourselves. Scope 2 emissions are the emissions that we generate almost de facto, by the energy that we buy-in to do the things that we are going to do. Scope 3 emissions are effectively the handballing of our emissions to some other entity—in particular, some other country—that would like us to take responsibility for the emissions resulting from our products, despite the fact that when the product goes overseas, all the benefit is derived by the overseas entities and countries to whom it has been exported.
Scope 1 emissions are those we omit ourselves—I get that. I understand it. I think that is reasonable. I hope one day we will have a serious debate about how we manage that, how we price it and how we deal with it. Scope 2 emissions need to be careful that they are not simply a repeat of scope 1 emissions from another company. For example, if a company that generates electricity as scope 1 emissions, we have to make sure that we do not double count that carbon as scope 2 emissions down the track, otherwise we are simply punishing industry development. The issue is around scope 3 emissions, whereby we simply abrogate responsibility by having them paid for by people who we can guilt into paying it, in countries that can afford to, when all the benefit goes to countries that those emissions are benefiting. Therefore, I think we need to be really careful around scope 3 emissions, particularly in relation to agriculture.
There is a push on at the moment to apply scope 3 emissions to agriculture. What does that look like? It means that if we raise an agricultural product, say, beef, then obviously a cow has some carbon emissions. I might say that everybody gets this particular bit wrong: cows eructate and horses flatulate. Everybody thinks it is the flatulence of cows that is the problem; it is actually an eructation, because the rumen is at the front end of the beast. A cow has a rumen; horses have theirs at the colon at the back end of the beast, so it is very different. But the reality is that there are carbon emissions. When we send that beef overseas, for example, and we apply scope 3 emissions and go, "Well, we'll make the Australian farming community pay for the scope 3 emissions of transporting that beef and taking it to the end recipient and that end recipient is enjoying that beef," I think that is immensely dangerous.
I did not get a chance to say this today, but I take the view—just so that we are very clear about this—that scope 3 emissions for agriculture should be eliminated immediately. There should be no scope 3 emissions on agricultural produce from Western Australia. I then take the view that we could spend the next few years talking about whether scope 1 and scope 2 emissions should apply to food production. I think that is an interesting debate because I think that perhaps we might want to take some of those emissions' impacts off agriculture because we are actually feeding the world. I would also then have a look at scope 3 emissions across all of industry. I am reminded of this because of the debate today. We are meant to feel guilty in Western Australia about our success, and we are meant to be punished for that! I think we need to take a far more pragmatic approach to this, so my recommendation to the house, the agricultural community and the wider Western Australian community is this: let us make sure that no scope 3 emission costs are passed onto agriculture in Western Australia, and then let us have a debate about whether a scope 1 and scope 2 should apply to food production in Western Australia and whether scope 3 emissions should apply at all. That would be a really productive and healthy debate.
My position that I think I am coming to more firmly is that I accept scope 1 emissions; we should question scope 2; but we should remove scope 3 emissions completely. I think that they are bad. They are effectively taxes on the success of Western Australia to the benefit of other countries, and I think perhaps, particularly in agriculture, that should be looked at. Unfortunately, I just did not get time to get to that point in today's debate, but I would recommend that no scope 3 emissions should apply in agriculture immediately, that we undertake a review of scope 1 and scope 2 in agriculture over the next year or two and a review of scope 3 across the board. I think there are potentially great negatives for Western Australia and I, for one, do not think that we should be guilted into that when the rest of the world responds completely differently.
