Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very glad to speak in support of the Nature Repair Market Bill and the Nature Repair Market (Consequential Amendments) Bill. They deliver a key feature of the Albanese government's commitment to take a very different approach to Australia's environmental condition and biodiversity. We are not going to sit idle while Australia's environment continues on a trajectory of deterioration, especially when we know that risks and threats are increasing in the form of climate change, biosecurity impacts and natural disasters.

Creating a nature repair market is just one part of a set of coordinated measures being taken by the Albanese government, led by the Minister for the Environment and Water. The member for Lyne, who just spoke, gave the impression that this is the only thing that we're doing, and that's far from the truth. We need to do lots of things, and this is one of them. The fact that we're doing anything stands in stark contrast to those opposite. The member for Lyne and I were members of the environment and energy committee, and some of the things he was just talking about before in terms of controlling feral animals are quite laudable, but what did the previous government do when he was a part of it for nine or 10 years? Absolutely nothing.

The nature repair market is a world first. It will, in essence, connect those who rightly and sensibly want to invest in nature repair with those who can do the work on the ground, and that's a good thing. We need to repair and restore our environment and biodiversity in addition to protecting our environment and biodiversity. There is another thing about the member for Lyne's contribution which was odd. I don't know if he noticed, but only recently, in 2021, while he was in government, the member for Maranoa, who was the minister for agriculture at that stage, introduced the Agriculture Biodiversity Stewardship Package. It was essentially a pilot form of what we are doing. It was a means by which farmers could get credit for work they were doing, in addition to fixing carbon, to improve biodiversity. At the time, they described the pilot as a world first. This nature repair market, which we will actually deliver, is clearly a world first, but it was something that the previous government and the member for Maranoa, as the minister for agriculture at the time, were spruiking to anyone and everyone who would listen to it. I'm not sure whether the member for Lyne was paying attention in those government meetings, but it's something that I expect that those opposite will endorse, because it's a bigger and better form of something that they were thinking about doing but, as with so many things, never got around to.

As the Minister for the Environment and Water has explained, this bill puts the framework in place to create a nature repair market. It puts in place the register, the rules and the regulator so that landholders who undertake restoration and repair will be able to receive a tradeable certificate that represents that environmental value. The certificates will be listed and traceable through the public register and will be issued and overseen by the Clean Energy Regulator. It is true that we need to go and create this market with care, and we need to make sure that those who undertake environmental repair and restoration and biodiversity improvement do so in a way that is rigorously overseen, measured and tracked. There is always the potential in any market for things to be done in a way that doesn't have the integrity that we would all expect. That's why the Clean Energy Regulator, as an independent statutory authority, will be given the task of ensuring that that kind of integrity and confidence exists in this market.

Again, the member for Lyne talked about the market as being an artificial construct. Every market is an artificial construct. The problem with our market and our economy is that they have taken certain forms of harm and the costs related to that harm, whether it's climate change or impacts to the environment and biodiversity, and just let them fall on the common wealth, really. A tragedy of the commons is how it's described, where you basically have all kinds of economic activity that have harmful impacts and costs associated with those harmful impacts but they're not actually built into the market, so all of the people producing carbon and profiting from the production that involves carbon emissions never actually incorporate the cost of those emissions into their economic process. It's the fact that all markets, which we, as human beings, create, don't work very well that causes a lot of these problems, and they're ultimately unsustainable.

The other phrase that I found a bit interesting from the member for Lyne is that he described this as a piecemeal response to a perceived ill. Is anyone suggesting that the savage and profound environmental decline the world over but also in Australia—the biodiversity decline in Australia in particular—is a perceived ill? That's just bizarre.

But this new framework is a world first. It will work with a range of other measures to begin the considerable work required to protect, repair and restore Australia's environment on land and at sea, and we cannot wait another day for that work to begin. It is a genuinely desperate imperative. Our environment is not in good shape. Our environment has been hammered, chiefly because of us, chiefly because we've lived in a way that is unsustainable. The two vectors of harm have been destruction of habitat and the impact of invasive species. To that we have added, in recent decades, climate change, which, sadly, in lots of areas has now become the greatest threat and is exacerbating the already severe impacts of habitat destruction and invasive species.

The previous government knew all about that. They knew all about the big picture, they knew all about the vectors of harm and they didn't do anything about them. They knew because they commissioned the Samuel report and they knew it because they received, but hid, the most recent State of the environment report. The Samuel review put all of this pretty cleanly. This is a review that the previous government commissioned, that they received and that you'd think they might have read. This is what Graeme Samuel said:

Australia's natural environment and iconic places are in an overall state of decline and are under increasing threat. The environment is not sufficiently resilient to withstand current, emerging or future threats, including climate change.

The EPBC Act is out dated and requires fundamental reform. It does not enable the Commonwealth to effectively fulfil its environmental management responsibilities to protect nationally important matters.

What did the former government do with that review that they commissioned? Nothing, zero—literally nothing. There were a few elements of the report which were pretty clear and sensible: reform the EPBC, make sure that there are strong and effective national standards and put in place an independent environmental protection agency. No, they weren't going to have any of that. In fact, they made it clear from the very outset that they would never introduce an independent environmental protection agency. That is another of the reforms that the Albanese Labor government is getting on with, and there is funding of $120 million in the budget for precisely that.

The previous government comprehensively ignored the Samuel review when it said to them quite plainly:

To shy away from the fundamental reforms recommended by this Review is to accept the continued decline of our iconic places and the extinction of our most threatened plants, animals and ecosystems. This is unacceptable. A firm commitment to change from all stakeholders is needed to enable future generations to enjoy and benefit from Australia's unique environment and heritage.

The review said:

Given the current state of Australia's environment, broad restoration is required to address past loss, build resilience and reverse the current trajectory of environmental decline. Restoration is necessary to enable Australia to accommodate future development in a sustainable way. The scale of the task ahead is significant and is too large for governments to try to solve alone. To support greater collaboration between governments and the private sector, new mechanisms are needed to leverage the scale of investment that will be needed for decades to come.

These bills and the reforms they create are exactly the kinds of things that Samuel was calling for; exactly the prescription that he gave to the former government when he called for new mechanisms to leverage the scale of investment. That's what this bill will do, among all the other measures that have been led by the Minister for the Environment and Water.

As I've said, we know the scale of the crisis we are dealing with. The government received the latest State of the environment report. It went to the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party as the responsible minister at the time. Like so many reports in her portfolio area, it went straight to the bottom of the drawer. The State of the environment report—with its damning indictment of the deteriorated condition of Australia's terrestrial and marine ecosystems and its damning indictment of the fragility of our biodiversity, particularly in the form of many, many endangered species that exist on the brink—went straight to the bottom drawer. That was not put in the public domain, because the previous government weren't prepared to do anything and didn't want the opprobrium, didn't want to bear the responsibility, for their inaction. But we've got the State of the environment report because, of course, with a change of government those things have to come out of the bottom drawer and into the light. That environment report tells us the environmental circumstances in Australia, in no uncertain terms.

We've lost more mammal species than any other continent in the last two centuries. We've got one of the highest rates of species decline among countries in the OECD. We've got more than 1,900 Australian species and ecological communities that are threatened or at risk of extinction. Almost half of Australia's major vegetation types have lost at least 20 per cent of their original extent, and one, which is the casuarina forests and woodlands, has lost more than 40 per cent of its original extent.

The overall assessment of Australia's freshwater ecosystems in southern, eastern and south-western Australia since the Australia state of the environment2016 report—in other words, the previous five-year report—is that they are generally in very poor condition. In the Murray-Darling Basin, which is home to 16 internationally significant Ramsar wetlands, 35 endangered species and 98 species of waterbirds, rivers and catchments are mostly in poor condition. Native fish populations in the Murray-Darling Basin have declined by more than 90 per cent in the past 150 years. The member for Lyne described this as a perceived ill. Ninety per cent of the native fish populations in the Murray-Darling Basin have gone in the last 150 years, thanks to us—and that's a 'perceived ill'! We know coral reef ecosystems are in poor condition. We had unprecedented marine heatwaves in 2016, 2017 and 2020, the first-ever consecutive years of coral bleaching.

That's the reality of our environment, and that's the reason for the desperate urgency of the task of greater environmental protection, repair and restoration. We cannot turn away from that harm. We cannot ignore that trajectory of decline. That is what we have done, and we've borne the results. Now we're seeing species of marine birds and fish where you get 50 per cent of them with microplastic in their gut, because we've done nothing about marine plastic pollution. The previous government did nothing about plastic pollution.

That's why this government is acting to do something different, to take a different approach. We are acting on climate change. It's why the minister for environment wasted no time in getting started on work nationally and being proactive and collaborative internationally. We've made a commitment to protect 30 per cent of our land and sea by 2030. We've joined the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution. On 5 June this year, World Environment Day, which is also my birthday, I'm happy to say—

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