Minister for Northern Australia Matt Canavan has warned Labor’s revived Carbon Tax policy will hike up power bills and stymie agricultural development in Northern Australia.

“Under Labor, the ‘tree police’ will be raiding farms,” Senator Canavan said.

“Labor has today revealed it will expand its great big tax on everything to block Queensland and West Australian farmers from land clearing.

“Labor’s harsh tree-clearing bans will see their inspectors roaming farmers’ properties checking what’s happening in their paddocks.

“This is another Labor policy developed to try to win back inner-city voters that hurts families in regional Australia. That’s where Labor is focused: on the inner-city electorates under threat from the Greens.”

Senator Canavan said that, at a time when Australia needed to take advantage of the growing demand for fresh food in Asia, Labor wanted to put the brakes on our capacity to expand agricultural exports.

“Labor wants to effectively employ a force of tree police to micromanage what happens on Australian farms.

"Labor's reckless plan to regulate land clearing will bring the expansion of Australia’s farming potential to a standstill.

“Labor’s Carbon Tax will put tens of thousands of jobs at risk, see power bills skyrocket, reduce wages and weaken the economy.

Senator Canavan said the Turnbull Government has an effective suite of environmental policies, which are achieving real results without a Carbon Tax.

“As announced last week at the signing of the Paris climate agreement, Australia is on track to meet and beat our 2020 targets by 78 million tonnes of emissions.

“While there are many families struggling to make ends meet, especially in rural and regional Australia, the last thing the nation needs is a crippling Labor Carbon Tax.”