Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Standards and Assurance) Bill 2021. In doing so I will say there's one thing that this bill does absolutely: it cements this government's abysmal record on environmental protection. We've seen 22 policies in eight years and we've seen a divided government—even more divided in the last few days, with a Deputy Prime Minister who is absolutely resolute in not changing anything to do with the environment or climate and a Prime Minister who perhaps has a 'preference' to look at some action on the climate and the environment. There's an inability to commit to any clear, firm targets, and that's what this policy does: it cements the government's position on their inability to protect the environment.

It's no wonder that Australians and Australia have become laughing-stocks on the world stage when it comes to the environment. Just recently, at the G7 meeting last week or the week before, we saw Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of Britain, praising the Prime Minister for committing to net zero 2050—that was in Boris Johnson's words. It was the journalists who pulled him up at that point and corrected the British Prime Minister by saying that Australia's target is not a commitment; it's a preference. The Prime Minister has said it's 'preferable' by 2050.

What does 'preferable' even mean? What is preferable? When you go to a restaurant, perhaps you prefer pasta over a salad, and if you don't get the pasta you shrug your shoulders and say, 'Okay, well, I'll have the salad.' But when it comes to environmental protection, when it comes to protection of the climate and climate change, and to protecting our biodiversity so that our children and grandchildren, the next generation of Australians, can live in a healthy world, it's not a question of preference. It's a question of action and it's a question of priority. We have a duty, as legislators, to hand over a healthy environment and climate that the next generation can live in.

So it's a question of actions and clear targets—targets that will deliver. But this government is just not delivering. For example, just yesterday UNESCO recommended that the Great Barrier Reef should be placed on the list of World Heritage sites that are endangered. This is our Barrier Reef—our iconic environmental reef, one of the largest in the world. UN officials are urging Australia to take accelerated action at all possible levels on climate change. All experts have warned that ongoing inaction on climate change and lack of environmental protection could cause irreversible damage to our reef. When we have UNESCO saying that it's endangered then something terribly wrong is going on. And yet the Minister for the Environment here in this place insists that the Great Barrier Reef is the best-managed reef in the world. How can that be? How can that be when we have UNESCO recommending that the Barrier Reef be placed on the list of World Heritage sites that are endangered? They didn't say that it was in good condition or that it should be put up on a pedestal as a model; they said that it's one of the heritage sites that are in danger.

This is just another example of the government having a preference—it prefers its version over that of experts. We've seen that quite a bit over the years. When we look at this government, it's actually very sad. It has one of the poorest records when it comes to the environment. Unfortunately, this bill is just another example of this fact. It's one more example of the poor record of this government. The 10-year review of the EPBC Act was an opportunity. It was regarded as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to strengthen our environmental laws and to make them more effective so that we can hand over a healthy environment to the next generation—to our children and our grandchildren. But that is not the case.

This review was conducted by a very well-respected professor, Professor Graeme Samuel, who didn't hold back in his report and in his scathing assessment of the current act. Graeme Samuel's final report states that 'the EPBC Act is ineffective' because 'it does not enable the Commonwealth to protect environmental matters that are important for the nation'—as a nation—and that 'it is not fit to address current or future environmental challenges'. He also said that, unless the government implemented the fundamental reforms that were recommended by the review, it will contribute to:

… the continued decline of our iconic places and the extinction of our most threatened plants, animals and ecosystems.

Including the Barrier Reef. But it's clear that this government once again prefers not to listen to the experts, because its response to the review, judging by this bill, is nothing short of disappointing.

This bill is the second of proposed legislation to be considered alongside the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Streamlining Environmental Approvals) Bill 2020. That bill is commonly known as the Abbott 2.0 bill, because it effectively replaces the former Abbott government's failed one-stop-shop policy from 2014. It just replaces it. We on this side of the House opposed the Abbott 2.0 bill, which was introduced into this parliament in 2020. As I said, it was referred to the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee for inquiry and report. Labor senators, in their dissenting report, found that the standards in this bill will do nothing other than duplicate existing obligations.

We've been calling for a genuinely independent cop on the beat for the environment. This is absolutely necessary. You need a cop on the beat with teeth. It is necessary if we're serious about protecting our environment and restoring the Australian public's trust in the EPBC Act. Australians need to be able to trust their national government to preserve our precious natural environment. They also need to trust that there won't be unnecessary delays in environmental decision-making that in turn lead to delays in jobs and investments—and have we seen delays! In these eight or nine years of the Morrison government we have seen no decisions and delay after delay, costing us jobs and investment. That's what we have seen from this Morrison government—repeated cuts to the environment department and to resourcing. This has led to unnecessary delays in decision-making and a greater chance of errors occurring.

We're calling for legislation that will offer stronger environmental protections to address the overall state of decline of and increasing threat to the environment. There is a decline, as has been said over and over again by UNESCO and other bodies and as we saw with the Great Barrier Reef. We need to establish a tough cop on the beat to help restore that trust. We need legislation that supports efficient and effective decision-making under the EPBC Act in the interests of avoiding unnecessary delays to jobs and investments.

In his final report, Graeme Samuel included a set of proposed interim national environmental standards which was the product of extensive consultation with stakeholders. But this government has produced its own set of proposed interim national environmental standards. These standards fall well short of the Samuel version. They do nothing more than replicate the act's existing arrangements—like a mirror image—and are materially the same as the draft standards that were prepared back in 2014 in support of the Abbott government's failed bill, which was the one-stop shop. They are no different.

So, after spending millions of dollars—vast amounts of money—and countless hours on the review, this government has delivered second-rate so-called standards that are inconsistent with the Samuel review final report. How can Australians trust this government with our most precious asset—our environment? True to form, the Prime Minister and his ministers refuse to take responsibility for the environment and for their jobs failures. If we had taken action, we could have created jobs as well. Instead of delivering jobs and protecting the environment, this government has focused on spending a billion dollars on marketing itself and on advertising and many other things that really are great on spin and great on announcements but are zilch on the delivery. We've seen this time and time again from this government: they think more about their own jobs. It's about how to be re-elected, not about what's delivered and the benefit for Australia. When you're in this place, when you're in government, you always have to take the view of what's best for the nation, not for the short term but for the long term.

As I said earlier, the environment and climate change are areas where we have an absolute responsibility to take action to ensure that we hand over to the next generation of Australians a healthy environment and a climate that we can live in. Without a climate that is able to sustain us, there'll be no farms and no industry. All we'll have is a dust bowl around the world. We'll all just be extinguished at some point if we don't take action. It's really important. This debate is about the future generations on our earth. Again, this particular bill is about our nation and those iconic environmental places. There has been no action on any of these areas. We support the introduction of strong national environmental standards underpinned by legislation—which this bill doesn't provide—and these standards must ensure that all jurisdictions in Australia comply with the national standards and with our international obligations. This bill doesn't even have any standards in it. It does nothing to protect the environment; it just duplicates what's already in the act. This is not deregulation, and it's not protecting the environment.

The entire point of this bill and this act was to set standards and, unfortunately, the bill is not setting any standards. Without those standards, we on this side of the House simply cannot support this bill. Any proposal needs to have a strong role for the Commonwealth, especially when it comes to matters of national environmental significance, and the Commonwealth must retain the right and the ability to undertake assessments and approval of any matter of national environmental significance. This is crucial. Imagine what would have happened if the decision in respect to logging in the Daintree, drilling on the reef and the Franklin dam had been entirely left to the states. It took Labor, when we were in government in those days federally, to put a stop to this environmental vandalism. Labor is the only party in this House that is serious about protecting our environment. Our national environment is a driver of tens of thousands of jobs and, unfortunately, we've missed that opportunity.

Professor Samuel made it clear in his report that the Commonwealth must continue to have oversight of environmental protection, and I believe that the majority of Australians agree, especially when it comes to sites of national significance. That's why we're insisting on the establishment of an independent compliance watchdog with teeth which is genuinely independent and which will provide ongoing parliamentary scrutiny. I believe that Australians also agree. Australia cannot afford to allow the continued and alarming environmental decline that we have seen under this government.

See this speech in context