Federal Agriculture Minister Julie Collins has refused to use her veto over the pine conversion of Rushy Lagoon, conceding under sustained questioning on Monday that she holds the power to stop carbon plantings that harm farm production but will not deploy it. That is according to questioning first reported by the Mercury, three weeks after Treasurer Jim Chalmers and the Foreign Investment Review Board cleared the A$142 million sale to the Gresham House-backed Tasmania Natural Asset Trust.
“Tasmania needs this investment and needs these jobs,” Collins, the Labor member for Franklin, said of a project that will put 12 million radiata pines across the 21,744-hectare estate over five years, producing 5 million tonnes of timber, 3.2 million carbon credit units, and more than 190 new jobs. Asked whether she would use the mechanism, the minister said the Australian Carbon Credit Unit Scheme’s national test on farming impacts had already been applied to the project.
“Julie Collins has finally admitted she has the power to veto,” State Primary Industries Minister Gavin Pearce said within hours, accusing the federal minister of “taking Tasmanian farmers for mugs” and demanding she now act. Pearce had earlier accused Collins of delegating her review of the project to her department, telling a community meeting that the future of the state’s biggest farm should not rest with bureaucrats in Canberra.
Established in 2022 by former agriculture minister and now Opposition Leader Angus Taylor, the veto covers plantings of more than 15 hectares across more than one-third of an existing farm, letting the minister of the day stop projects that damage agricultural production. “Minister Julie Collins has the power to veto access to carbon credits,” Taylor said this month, backing TasFarmers’ call for her to step in and keep the property producing food.
It comes as the Tasmania Natural Asset Trust fronted its first public information sessions at Gladstone and Scottsdale over the weekend, days after a packed community meeting heard 98 per cent of TasFarmers survey respondents opposed the sale.
Gresham House, the UK forestry investor first tied to the property in March, has already mounted its defence, rejecting claims that carbon credits inflated the purchase price and describing the plantation areas as marginal Class 5 and 6 country rather than prime farmland. The trust claims every log grown across the estate will be processed by Tasmanian sawmills, easing harvesting pressure on the state’s native forests.
Not every industry voice wants the deal stopped, with the TFTU declaring the 12 million pines a win for Tasmanian workers and the union’s Danny Murphy arguing the timber for the state’s future homes must be planted today.
The money trail has sharpened the fight, with TasFarmers president Nathan Cox citing an $8.8 million Support Plantation Establishment Program grant that took the public backing to $77.8 million, awarded to the trust when Collins announced 16 recipients on 19 May, weeks before the Foreign Investment Review Board cleared the sale. Australian Business Register records show the trust was registered on 31 October 2025, days before that open grant round closed on 5 November.
The department has not disputed the grant, confirming it announced the funding in May while stating the trust has received none of the money, which a trust spokesperson said will be paid as planting begins and matched dollar for dollar under the program’s conditions.
With three dairies de-stocked, cattle sold interstate, and a tree nursery established, the conversion Collins declined to stop is already underway, and on the Clean Energy Finance Corporation’s own figures, taxpayers carry $69 million of the $142 million deal.
Please note: This article was updated on 28 July 2026 to correct an earlier statement that the $8.8 million grant claim had collapsed. The federal agriculture department confirmed the grant was announced to the trust in May 2026, before the sale’s approval, with no funds yet paid.
