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

Thank you, Deputy Speaker Buchholz, and thank you as well for filling in for me while I give this speech. I also rise to support this Nature Repair Market Bill. It is a very important piece of legislation. We just heard the member for Hawke outline many of the intricate details in his clear, precise speech about what this Nature Repair Market Bill will be doing. It is very important to restore nature to its natural habitat, while ensuring at the same time we give the opportunity to local community groups, farmers, Indigenous groups to restore their part of the world back to nature. That is what this bill is all about. It is about making it easier for people to invest in those types of activities that help repair nature, because we all have a duty to leave nature better for our children and our grandchildren. I have said many, many times here that we have an absolute duty in this place to ensure that we hand over a better world to the next generation, not just on the side of economics and everything else, which are very important, but also nature so this earth can survive.

This bill is about supporting landholders, as I said, including farmers, who are doing a lot of good work around the country. This will enhance that good work. It will also support First Nations communities to do things like plant native species to repair the damage done in riverbeds or to remove invasive species. We are also making it easier for businesses and philanthropists to invest in these efforts.

We know that last year the Minister for the Environment and Water released the official five-yearly report card on the Australian environment, which was called the State of the Environment Report. We know there were a lot of issues in that report. It was like going through a catalogue of horrors showing how much damage has been done to our environment through neglect. The report says that the Australian environment is in very bad shape and getting worse. Reading the report, some of the statistics you'll be shocked to hear. It found Australia has lost more mammal species to extinction than any other continent in the world. For the first time Australia has more foreign plants than native species. Habitat the size of Tasmania has been cleared between 2000 and 2017, and we hear plastics are absolutely choking our oceans, with up to 80,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometre. It is pretty horrendous when you stop and think about these statistics. And, of course, we have all seen over the last 10 to 20 years flows in most Murray-Darling rivers have reached record low levels. It's no wonder that our environment has fared pretty badly in the last decade.

The government is making it easier, as I said, even in my electorate, with the River Torrens, which flows right through the middle of my electorate. It starts up in the Adelaide Hills and runs out to the outlet at Henley Beach in the electorate of Hindmarsh. This was a natural river that came from the Adelaide Hills, flowed through the Adelaide Plains and out into the ocean. Before we settled here, before we urbanised most of that area that I'm talking about, the natural landscape played its part in nature. For example, most of the western suburbs, towards the beachside, were full of reed beds. The reed beds slowed the flow and filtered the water before it went out into the ocean. We've urbanised that entire area. We've cemented canals et cetera. All the pollution run-off into the River Torrens flows out into the Gulf of St Vincent, to Adelaide's beaches, destroying seagrass, destroying the environment in the sea. A Senate report came out in the year 2000, if I recall correctly, with many recommendations to restore the outlet into the Gulf of St Vincent in South Australia to ensure that we protected our fishing industry and the environment. The fishing industry in South Australia is huge, especially in the Gulf of St Vincent—everything from prawns to snapper to squid. You name it. I'm pleased to say that some of those recommendations were taken up, but this will be another opportunity for us in my electorate and in the state of South Australia to see how we can restore some of those flows back into a natural environment. I know a lot of good work is being done. We've seen parts of the River Torrens restored already. This will give the opportunity to smaller environmental groups, conservation groups, neighbourhoods, to jump on board and assist in restoring some of those reed beds back to their natural state so they can play a part in filtration of some of the pollution before it goes out into the sea, ensuring that we have a healthy Gulf of St Vincent so we can continue with our fishing industry and our recreation industry and, of course, maintain our natural environment.

With this legislation, the Albanese Labor government is delivering on its Nature Positive Plan, with the establishment of the nature repair market. This market will make it easier for businesses, organisations and individuals to invest in projects in their local area to protect and repair nature. As I said, an example is the River Torrens in my electorate. The government is committed to protecting 30 per cent of Australia's land and seas by 2030. The same goals have been adopted globally under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. These goals reinforce the findings of the 2021 State of the environment report and its story of environmental degradation. I pointed out earlier that we've lost more mammal species to extinction than any other continent in the world, and, for the first time, Australia has more foreign plant species than native species, which is pretty shocking. This will assist with some of that. We need significant investment in conservation and restoration for a nature-positive future, so we can hand over a better environment to the next generation.

Business and private sector investment can contribute to reversing environmental decline. This was highlighted in the findings of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act review by Professor Graeme Samuel AC. Private companies, conservation groups, farmers and other landholders are increasingly looking for ways to achieve positive outcomes for nature. I already hear some tremendous stories of work that farmers are doing in restoring some of their landholdings back to nature and of course the great work that conservation groups do in all of our electorates.

A recent report prepared independently by PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that the market for biodiversity in Australia could unlock $137 billion in financial flows by 2050, and we're responding to that demand. The Nature Repair Market will be based on science and enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to promote their unique knowledge—and we know that they have unique knowledge—on their terms. Establishing the market in legislation will ensure its ongoing integrity, encourage investment in nature and drive environmental improvements across Australia.

The bill will enable the Clean Energy Regulator, an independent statutory authority with significant experience in regulating environmental markets, to issue Australian landholders with tradable biodiversity certificates. The certificates can be then sold to businesses, organisations, governments and individuals, and all landholders including Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders, conservation groups and farmers can participate in the market. Projects will deliver long-term nature-positive outcomes through activities such as weeding, planting native species and pest control, and they can be undertaken on land or water.

Again, I go back to the Gulf St Vincent in my part of the world where seagrass is being planted just offshore, which then generates breeding spots for the fishing industry. We know that's where sea species—fish and squid and everything else—do their breeding and feeding, where there's seagrass. So it's very important. They've been restoring that part of the world for a number of years now, and I hope this will encourage more restoration in the Gulf St Vincent.

The Nature Repair Market will enable, as I said, all that participation and utilise First Nations people to use their skills and knowledge for a nature-positive future. The market will also operate in parallel with the carbon market, facilitated by having the same regulator. This is important because the alignment will encourage carbon farming projects that will also deliver benefits for biodiversity. There will be administrative efficiencies in this approach and, more importantly, clear and accurate oversight of claims made in both markets. Our government acknowledges the recent review of carbon crediting led by Professor Ian Chubb. Lessons learnt from the carbon market have informed the bill and will continue to be reflected upon as the environmental markets develop. It will also provide for biodiversity certificates to have integrity and represent an actual environmental improvement. Buyers can then invest in the market with confidence knowing that it does have some outcome in the environment.

A key integrity measure is an independent expert committee that will be responsible for ensuring projects deliver high-quality nature-positive outcomes underpinned by a consistent approach to the measurement, assessment and verification of biodiversity. The integrity of environmental outcomes is also enabled through assurance and compliance requirements that will be part of this bill. This includes the monitoring, reporting and notification of the delivery of project activities and progress on the environmental outcome. The regulator will have monitoring and enforcement powers to ensure that projects are conducted in accordance with the rules, and that's very important.

Transparency will be a core element to the scheme. Comprehensive information about projects, how they're travelling and their certificates will be available on a public register for all to see. Additional information will be regularly published by the regulator, and there will be active release of relevant data by that Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. This will enable the parliament and the public to monitor the scheme and provide an opportunity for citizen oversight, and it will support certainly and value to the market.

The department is committed to working with the ACCC and ASIC to ensure that certificates issued in the Nature Repair Market are not victims of greenwashing claims. We have seen some reports of greenwashing, and we've also seen ASIC looking into some of these greenwashing claims that are currently happening at the moment; we don't want to see that creeping in. That the statements made about the certificates accuracy must reflect the projects and investment they represent and that projects in the carbon and biodiversity markets are not affected by misleading claims. There has to be confidence in this system and this scheme, and this is one way of doing it.

We know that our environment has been deteriorating rapidly. There was a report that was received after the report showing that one of the foundational elements of this was an offset system that lacked integrity. We need to have that integrity, and I know that ASIC will be oversighting this, ensuring that greenwashing doesn't happen and that companies or people getting these credits are not just getting them without actual improvement in the environment. I commend this bill to the House. It's very important. I assure you that I will be supporting it, and I hope everyone else will also be supporting it, because it is our absolute obligation to the next generation of Australians.

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