Kate Thwaites (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to add my voice to the many on this side of the chamber and the member for Indi who have pointed out the many flaws in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Standards and Assurance) Bill 2021 and their serious concerns about the climate and the environmental crisis that this country is facing and that this bill does not address. As the member for Indi said, we do not have time to waste. We do not have another 10 years to get this right. We are at a tipping point. We are in a climate crisis. We are in an extinction crisis. It is the job of this government to address that crisis. Unfortunately, this bill puts the environment, jobs and investment at risk, so I cannot support it and I know people on this side of the chamber cannot support it. We need much better regulation than this bill gives us. Debate on this bill comes in a week when we've really seen the government nail its colours to the mast on where it stands on the environment and where it stands on climate. This week we've had UNESCO, an international body, come out and tell us how at-risk the Great Barrier Reef is. The iconic Great Barrier Reef, loved by so many Australians, known by so many Australians, the source of jobs, tourism and income, is at serious risk. This government's response to that is to quibble, to fight, not to fix. Its response is not to think, 'We're failing in our responsibility, we've got a responsibility to fix the Reef now, to preserve it for the people who rely on it now and also for future generations.' No, no, their responses is to quibble.

In the other place we see members from the other side attempting to overthrow the work that's being done to preserve the Murray-Darling Basin, again, an iconic part of Australia's natural landscape and an iconic part of what helps to make sure our country is productive. It's an important part of our agricultural system, but those on the other side play politics with it. As part of some kind of revamped Nationals leadership bid that I can't explain, they decide to play politics with the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. It is unacceptable that that is what this government is doing with our environment. We are past the point of playing politics with our environment.

This bill falls well short of the Samuel review final report. That review was the most significant opportunity for reform of the past 20 years, and this government has squandered it. We had favourable conditions for reform. The opposition was prepared to be constructive. We want this to work. The review had a well-respected chair in place who has worked with leaders from agriculture, from resources and from business, as well as with traditional owners, conservationists and academics. But what we've got in front of us does not live up to that review. It does not give us an independent cop on the beat. It does not set the standards we know we need to preserve our environment, to make sure we're tackling the climate crisis. In fact, it's an absolute mess. Our environment needs protection. Businesses need certainty. Australians need jobs. They don't need this rehashed mess from the Morrison government. This bill fails on all counts.

We know that Australia has a jobs crisis and it has an environmental crisis. In fact, the cuts that the Morrison government have made in this area have exacerbated some of these crises. We know that they've cut 40 per cent of the funding to the environment department, which, predictably, led to job and investment delays, mismanagement and environmental decline. We know they've overseen massive delays to jobs and investment, which have exploded by more than 510 per cent under their watch. They've overseen 79 per cent of decisions which have been affected by error or been noncompliant—79 per cent! What a waste of time and money on tens of billions of dollars worth of projects! And, of course, they have overseen unprecedented decline in our beautiful and precious natural environment.

The government are also out of step—at loggerheads, really—with the rest of the world on climate change. We saw this in the last few weeks, when the Prime Minister went to the G7 Summit and fudged a little bit on net zero by 50 per cent. The UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, was pretty sure that we were there because our Prime Minister has been 'pretty sure, preferably, maybe' we'll get to net zero by 2050. Now we find out that 'pretty sure, preferably, maybe' we won't get to net zero by 2050, because apparently the people who rule the policy in this area are in fact the National Party. The National Party were not happy this week, and we saw that they were not happy this week. They were so unhappy they had to dump the former Deputy Prime Minister and install a new Deputy Prime Minister. So this 'pretty sure, preferably, maybe' we'll get to net zero sometime by 2050—'preferably, maybe, whenever'—is not a thing. It is not a thing, because the Prime Minister cannot convince his own party room. He has a party room full of climate deniers.

As I said before, we are running out of time. There is not the time for this government to spend another 10 years ignoring the climate crisis. Not only does that do away with all our futures, in terms of addressing the effects of global warming; it does away with the jobs and the investment that this country should be reaping the benefits of. Internationally, they are there. That's what happened at the G7. That's where the agreements of the future are going to be. That's where the jobs of the future are going to be. And this country will be locked out of them, because this government prefers to play politics and is so stubborn, is so stuck on the will of the Nationals, that it can't get there.

Australia is facing an extinction crisis, and this was further compounded by the terrible bushfires that we saw in 2019-20. At that time, more than one billion animals perished; 12 million hectares of land burned; and lives, homes and livelihoods were lost. But, once again, the Morrison government was slow on the bushfire recovery, and it failed to protect our iconic species. During the bushfire crisis, we saw 10 million hectares burn—almost the equivalent landmass of the United Kingdom. Cities and towns across the eastern seaboard were shrouded in thick smoke, and there were hazardous conditions for many people. There is no doubt that climate change and ongoing drought have created drier conditions across our country. For the first time in that crisis, we saw rainforest and areas of bushland burn that had no prior history of fires. We lost countless native animals, and natural habitats were decimated. This has had and will have a lasting impact on our wildlife populations, and we have many threatened species at risk of extinction. This is a critical turning point in our history. We must conserve our native species, both flora and fauna, to ensure that these ecosystems remain for future generations. We need stronger environmental protection in place to ensure this happens. We need an independent cop on the beat. We need genuine national regulations—not what is contained in this bill, because it just won't cut it.

On this side of the House, we get it. Every major achievement in environmental protection in this nation's history has been delivered by a Labor government. Labor's legacy is that we protected Antarctica; we protected the Daintree, Kakadu and the Great Barrier Reef; we protected the Great Barrier Reef—we don't give it away; we don't quibble over it—we protected the Franklin; we created Landcare; and we created what was at the time the largest network of marine parks in the world. Labor has the will and the capacity to protect Australia's environment. But those on the other side do not share that commitment. They do not share that record of achievement. In fact, their record of achievement is nothing short of woeful and disgraceful.

This is something that the constituents in my electorate of Jagajaga could not be clearer about with me. I have had hundreds of people contact me and my office to tell me that they are incredibly worried about the future, that they want real action on climate change and that they do not support the weak non-protection bill that this government has put forward. They have asked me time and time again to speak up in this place for better, to speak up for the environmental protection that this country needs and deserves. So I am here today doing just that—telling this government that it must do better.

My constituents rely on the evidence of scientists, and the correspondence I've received from them and the conversations I've had express their deep frustration that we are stuck in a politically ideological war because this government will not recognise the science and will not do its job but, instead, continues to try to play politics. This is too important to be a political game. The science is real. Climate change is real. Our environment needs protection, and now is the time for this government to show strong leadership. Now is the time for a genuine protection act that genuinely protects our environment. Now is the time for a commitment to net zero—a genuine commitment to net zero, not probably, preferably, maybe, sometime. Now is the time for that commitment. We do not have time to waste.

I very much fear that the people on the other side and the Prime Minister are trying to use the cover of the COVID-19 crisis and the ongoing crisis that this country is facing to, in fact, do away with environmental regulation and to make sure that, going forward, we do not have the regulation in place that this country needs. The government's track record is terrible. It has cut jobs, and that means that the environment department hasn't been able to do its job. We've had delays. We've had decisions that have had to be reviewed. And then the government ignored its own review into this act. This government has ignored the work of Graeme Samuel, this respected reviewer, and instead of putting forward reforms that were based on that, instead of putting forward reforms that give us an independent cop on the beat and genuine national standards, it has put forward this weak suggestion.

It can't be supported. They have ignored and cherrypicked the recommendations of the Samuel review. They've ruled out a genuinely independent commissioner for our environment. We know from scientists that this act fails to take adequate account of the biggest threats that we all face: climate change and environmental degradation. It does mean our important and iconic sites and species are at risk. The Great Barrier Reef is at risk. Australians want this government to act to protect our reef. They do not want quibbling. They do not want politics. They want our iconic sites, the sites that we all love and treasure, to be protected.

We know that this government has an issue with listening to and comprehending science. I say to them: get over it. It is time for you to act and listen to the experts. It is time for you to get on with it and listen to the experts when it comes to dealing with climate change and the environmental protections that we all need. Otherwise, you are continuing to put the places that we all love at risk—not just big, iconic sites like the Great Barrier Reef but sites in my own electorate. We are very lucky in my electorate that we have the Yarra River flowing through. We have a number of natural parks and bushland. For an urban environment we are very privileged. We have a number of iconic species that live in our electorate as well. I know how much my constituents value having that natural environment. They know how much it is at risk. They know that these species that we get to enjoy, that are part of our local landscape, will not survive unless we start to do things differently, unless we do have the regulations in place, unless we have the independent cop on the beat that makes sure that development and changes all happen in a way that support our environment. That's not what this bill gives us. It is what this country needs. It is what my constituents need.

I want to assure all the people in my community who have contacted me, and who continue to contact me, about their concerns about this bill that I hear you and I will continue to speak up in this place about your concerns, about the need for the Morrison government to do so much better when it comes to addressing climate change and when it comes to protecting the natural environment that we all love. I know that I am joined by so many Labor colleagues on this side who understand that this is a crisis. It is a climate crisis. It is an environmental crisis. We must act now. We need a government that gets it. The Morrison government must act.

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