Deputy prime minister and member for Riverina, Michael McCormack, has sympathised with a landowner's confusion over a State government agency providing incentives for planting of paddock trees while at the same time permitting old-growth trees to be destroyed.
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"I was as puzzled as you were", Mr McCormack said in a letter to Benthungra property owner Ashley Hermes, by the offer by Local Land Service (LLS) of grants to plant paddock trees, "while the same agency had approved the removal of trees on land purchased by Virids Ag".
Viridis Ag, owned by the Macquarie Banking Group, has received a grant of $100 million from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC).
Mr McCormack said he had no jurisdiction over the LLS, but had been in touch with the State member, Steph Cooke, about the tree clearing and had also written to the CEFC head, Ian Learmonth, asking about the background to the funding of extensive land clearing.