Isra-Mart srl: 'Our prime agricultural land is one of, if not our most scarce resource' - Turnbull

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The former opposition leader and now Opposition spokesman on Communication and Broadband, Malcolm Turnbull has spent the last two days in the New England and North West.

On the Carbon Tax he declined to give his personal opinion on the new deal.

"The coalition as you know supported a carbon trading scheme under john Howard, in fact we went to the 2007 election with that as our policy, but after tony Abbott took over from me as leader of the Liberal party the policy was changed to one of absolute opposition to any emissions trading scheme. So the Coalition's policy, its position as you heard from Tony Abbott and others is to be opposed to this. As far as this particular proposal is concerned."

"It's been a contentious policy area for the coalition, but the current position of the coalition is to be opposed to this scheme/carbon tax."

But he's pointed out that Mr Abbott has changed his mind on carbon pricing.

"He had been supported a carbon tax at one point, he supported an emissions trading scheme, and then no doubt... I'm not suggesting he did so other than for what were good reasons, he changed his position.

On more local issues. Mr Turnbull has spent time talking to local farmers and coal seam gas companies about some of the major mining projects planned for the area and what role if any the Federal Government might have in the approvals process.

He said our prime agricultural land is one of, if not our most scarce resources, while stressing he is not against mining.

"I think there is a powerful argument for ht federal government to have a greater role in the approvals of these projects .... the state government's have a massive vested financial interest in these projects going ahead. They don't get any revenue or very little revenue from prime agricultural land, but they get 100's of millions of dollars from these coal mines and coal seam gas. So there is a gigantic conflict of interest. ... so we need to have a debate about having a more disinterested, utterly impartial, no conflict path to the end of these things."

"We've got more coal than we have prime agricultural land, let's be honest, we have a gigantic amount of coal in this country. What we have to do is get that balance right. Lucy and I have been farming in the Hunter Valley for 30 years and we have seen the impact of coal mining down there on agriculture... up here, you don't want to have that happen on the Liverpool Plains."

The Federal Independent member for New England Tony Windsor has indicated he is preparing legislation for the parliament that will attempt to use water management at a federal level to protect prime agricultural land and valuable aquifers.

While Malcolm Turnbull said he had not spoken to Tony Windsor about the legislation in enough detail to have an opinion, he believed understanding the connectivity between water resources is very important.

"We all tell our kids don't dive into creeks or water unless you know exactly how deep it is, in other words find out what you are getting into before you start doing any potential damage."