Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to support the amendment moved by the shadow environment minister, Terri Butler. We can't say any louder than we have been that Labor wants to work constructively with the government on getting a decent set of environmental laws. We have reached out our hand to the government but we can't force the government to take our hand on this matter. So we're left with a rehash of old legislation put forward by former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, a bill that failed then and fails now not only because it puts Australia's natural environment at greater risk but also because it puts jobs and investment at risk. We are very clear that this needs to be a piece of legislation that provides for the long term, that gives stability and that is a win-win. Our environment has to win out of this. But people who are looking to have projects assessed also have to have certainty out of it.

When we look at why this matters, we really have to look at the state of play that we have at the moment. There are some extremely serious challenges before the government, and the environment is not the least of those. I turn to the words of Professor Graeme Samuel, hardly a bleeding lefty, a greenie or any of those terms that those opposite like to throw around; he is an eminent Australian whose background is in regulation, through the ACCC and business. This is what he has said to the government:

Australia's natural environment and iconic places are in an overall state of decline and are under increasing threat.

He goes on to say:

The pressures on the environment are significant—including land-use change, habitat loss and degradation, and feral animals and invasive plant species. The impact of climate change on the environment will exacerbate pressures and contribute to further decline. In its current state, the environment is not sufficiently resilient to withstand these threats.

I just want to say that again:

In its current state, the environment is not sufficiently resilient to withstand these threats.

He goes on to say:

The current environmental trajectory is unsustainable.

Those are Professor Samuel's words, through his review of the EPBC Act, and it is so obvious from the language that he uses that we have a need for immediate action to be taken.

I have a personal interest in this, given that I, along with my constituents, live in the middle of World Heritage, an area that the world identifies as being exceptional and unique. The World Heritage Greater Blue Mountains Area covers more than 10,000 square kilometres. The reason it has been declared World Heritage is the exceptional diversity of eucalypts. It's estimated that there are about 91 different eucalypts found in the World Heritage Greater Blue Mountains Area. There are outstanding examples of how those eucalypts have evolved and adapted on our continent. We have a wide range of habitats, from wet and dry sclerophyll forests to woodlands, mallee heathlands, grasslands and localised swamps. Besides the eucalypts, we also have primitive plant species such as the Wollemi pine.

That means, of course, that we have exceptional animals as well, which live in and around our eucalypts, and the flora is extraordinary. From a fauna perspective, 400 species have been recorded in our World Heritage area, everything from koalas and red-necked wallabies to squirrel gliders, platypus, tiger quolls, echidnas, gliders, eastern grey kangaroos and mountain brushtail possums—I don't think they're going to be on the endangered list soon, but many of other ones are, especially koalas. We also have rare reptiles and amphibians, such as the Blue Mountains water skink and the green and golden belt frog. We have 4,000 moths and 120 butterfly species. We're considered to be an important bird area, with a high number of significant bird species, such as flame robins, glossy black-cockatoos, white-browed babblers, white-eared honeyeaters, superb lyrebirds and diamond firetails.

It is an extraordinary place. It's spread over a large area, but each separate habitat is vital for the survival of those species. Of course, the bushfires have affected that area really badly. A total of 79 per cent of the World Heritage Greater Blue Mountains Area was burnt in the 2019-20 fires. That's 855,000 hectares that was burnt, and there were consequences of that. People say, 'Well, the bush bounces back really easily.' No, this bush hasn't bounced back very easily in every area. There's still black as far as the eye can see in some valleys, and we know it has a really long way to go. But, in terms of the impact on native fauna, the estimate is that 15 million mammals, excluding bats, 17 million birds and 110 million reptiles died. That's a shocking toll, and I have to say that I think we've done very little. This government has done very little to properly audit and then look at how we recover from some of the losses that have been experienced there.

When you look at this legislation and you think about the things that we're facing, that was just one natural disaster. Yes, it was one of the worst fires we've ever seen—the largest fire the world has seen from a single ignition point—but we know that those fires are coming increasingly frequently. We know that they're bigger. We know they're wilder. Therefore, there's even greater reason for us to have strong environmental and biodiversity protections.

The Australian government has acknowledged that 13 of our endemic species, including 12 mammals and the first reptile known to have been lost since European colonisation, are gone. It puts us in the shameful position—I've heard it described as 'unenviable', but actually it's shameful—of being No. 1 in the world for mammal extinctions, lifting to 34 the total number of mammals that are known to have died out. When I looked into this, no other country is even close to us. We've really excelled at this, and that is a disgrace. The updated list of extinct animals means that more than 10 per cent of the 320 land mammals known to have lived in Australia in 1788 are extinct, and we've managed to lose that 10 per cent in a really short time frame. I'd like to see laws that slow down and, ideally, reverse that process, but these laws don't offer us the sorts of protections that we need. These laws don't strengthen what we have. They do nothing to help reverse these trends.

We all know that koalas could soon be listed as endangered in Queensland, New South Wales and the ACT because those populations in particular were smashed by the bushfires. In my own area, a couple that were rescued have now been re-released. We had one of the few chlamydia-free koala populations, but they have taken such a hit that no-one really knows whether they will be able to come back from it. What we do know, though, is that koalas could be extinct in New South Wales by 2050 unless urgent action is taken, yet here we have a piece of legislation that indicates no sense of urgency about the threats that we are facing. Even the kids at Winmalee Public School have a greater sense of urgency. I want to commend them for the work they've done just recently with a koala expert, Dr Kellie Leigh. They've been working to plant habitat that is considered one of the favourites for koalas. This is a mass planting at Deanei Reserve in Springwood. Well done to the Winmalee Public School kids! It's the school my children went to, and I know there has always been a strong sense of wanting to protect and enhance the environment that their school nestles in, with their suburb surrounded by a World Heritage area.

While we're talking about environment laws, I also think it's significant what the world expects of us. There are certain expectations that the laws that are put in place, both in this place and in New South Wales, are actually there to enhance our World Heritage area. It isn't any surprise to see that the New South Wales government has been asked by UNESCO to submit the environmental impact study on its plan to raise the Warragamba Dam wall so that it can be reviewed before final approval. They're concerned about the damage the project will do to wildlife and Indigenous culture in the World Heritage area. That's the latest request. It aligns with the concerns that the UN body has about areas like the Great Barrier Reef, which they consider to be in significant danger. These aren't just minor issues. We're not in a grey zone here; we're in a really clear zone where there are threats and where there are projects that create ongoing threats. There's the threat that the community and the wildlife faces from the flight paths of the new Western Sydney airport. We don't even know where those flight paths are going to be. Will the sound impact this World Heritage area in a way that nothing ever has before, and what will that do? Maybe not in the first week or in the first year, but, over a long period of time, what environmental consequences will there be in an area considered to be exceptional?

Those are some of the reasons why this legislation is inadequate. It's also inadequate because Australians have to have confidence that, when a project is put forward, it can be assessed in a reasonable time frame. Every single unnecessary delay in a project that has an environmental impact is a delay for that investment and therefore a delay for the jobs. We've been really consistent in the discussions about this review. We've been critical of the government's failures to make decisions on time, but consistent in saying that you need a piece of legislation that enables those processes to happen efficiently. And yet this legislation fails to do that. What we'd like to see, of course, is a government that's willing to work with us on this. I don't understand why a government that uses the word 'bipartisan', throws it around so happily, is unable to actually put it into effect.

An opposition member: Because it doesn't know what it actually means.

Maybe it doesn't know what it actually means. More likely, it knows what it means but just doesn't care and always wants to politicise what is going on, rather than acting in the best interests of the country. What we see as a consequence of this legislation, should it go through unamended, is that it's likely to lead to even more problems, not less, for investment and for jobs. We're not the only ones who have made this assessment; it's in statements from resources peak bodies and from businesses that recognise that it is inadequate legislation. I really urge the government to rethink this legislation. We are still offering to work constructively on it. How about we come up with something that is actually agreed by this parliament, across the aisle, so that it has longevity? We all want our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren to enjoy the environment that we have been gifted in Australia. But legislation like this will just continue to allow it to be trashed, and I blame the Morrison government for doing that.

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