Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am so grateful to be in the chamber to hear the member for Hindmarsh's contribution, because, like him, I see this bill as a necessary step for us all to support in order to make sure that we are leaving this continent a better place for future generations. During the election campaign, many people asked me why I decided to put my hand up to run. I said that, first and foremost, it was because I wanted to make sure that we saw action on climate change. That is what drove me to stand and put my hand up to be the candidate for Reid, and it is what drove me each and every day of that campaign.

I think about what we are doing when it comes to the environment, how we are acting on climate, and what we are doing for future generations, and to that end I think about my son and the world that he will inherit. When I explained to him what this role was and why mummy was running to be a member of the federal parliament, I told him that I wanted to make sure that we were looking out of the environment. He had a couple of specific requests for me, should I become a federal member of parliament—he wanted me to plant more trees and protect our environment. I was very grateful to Strathfield Council, because on National Tree Day I was able to plant some trees in our local park along with my son. I was also able to fulfil a commitment to my husband recently when we went to the Great Barrier Reef. That was something he had been wanting to do for a number of years, and we finally got around to doing it. We were able to show my son the incredible diversity of marine life that is in the Great Barrier Reef, something that we are very lucky to have in this country. I've been able to fulfil two important commitments to my son and my husband when it comes to the environment in Australia. What I haven't been able to do is celebrate my son's birthday with him tomorrow. I wish him a very happy birthday for tomorrow. Hopefully, he will understand that mummy is in this place trying to ensure that we do everything we can to protect the environment so that we are able to grant his wishes that we protect the environment, that we plant more trees and that we look after the animals in Australia.

I saw the beauty of the Australian environment at the Great Barrier Reef, but I also saw the fragility of it when we went down to the south coast after the bushfires had torn through that place. There is so much for us to do to make sure that we are protecting our environment when it comes to things like this bill, acting on climate change and making sure that we take seriously the threats to our national environment that come when we do have climate change.

I think this bill being introduced to this House is incredibly important. It's very personal to me. It's the reason I put my hand up to stand for this seat and it's what I am driven to do every day in this place. When it comes to the environment, over the last decade there has been very little good news. The state of the environment report crystallised that. The report states:

Overall, the state and trend of the environment of Australia is poor and deteriorating because of increasing pressures from climate change, habitat loss, invasive species, pollution and resource extraction.

Changing environmental conditions mean that many species and ecosystems are increasingly threatened, and that is a stark warning—a warning which I hope everyone in this House listens to. We are the mammal extinction capital of the world. What an awful title to have. We have lost more mammal species to extinction than any other continent. I hope that's sits heavy with us all here. I hope we think about, if we had acted a decade earlier, how many of those mammals we could have saved. So let's not waste time. Let's start acting now.

Of all our different ecological systems, more than half have been found to be in poor state. What did the coalition do in response to this urgent report—a report that was sounding the alarm? It could not have sounded the alarm louder, and yet what did they do? The former environment minister, the member for Farrer, did nothing. Worse than that: she actively hid it from the Australian people. Heads in the sand, those opposite wouldn't even have the courage to own up to their own failings. We can add this to the long litany of failures presided over by those opposite when it comes to the environment.

They had a new energy policy almost every month but failed to stick with any of them. They announced recycling targets that sounded good on paper—70 per cent—but failed to get past the 16 per cent mark. They failed to progress our environmental laws despite having the blueprint to go forward. And let's not forget the Leader of the Opposition laughing at our neighbours in the Pacific for their climate change challenges—laughing at them.

But their neglect for the environment does not stop there. No, those opposite must feel like they are onto a good thing with this environmental denial, because in this term, after the electorate had sent a very loud and clear message that they wanted action on climate change, that they wanted us to be a more sustainable country where we were protecting our environment—after there was a resounding message sent at the last election, what did those opposite do? They continued to deny. They have opposed the safeguard mechanism, forgoing the chance for bipartisanship where business can invest with certainty when it comes to emissions. Unsurprisingly, they're opposing this bill.

What is surprising, though, about their opposition to this bill is that you would think that the party of the free market, the party of business, the pro-capitalist party would back this bill, because this bill seeks at a technical level to establish the legislative framework for a voluntary national market and biodiversity certificates. It would establish a market where proponents of a particular project could buy and sell these certificates on the Nature Repair Market. It would attach a value to the extraordinary flora and fauna that we have in this country so that we would no longer see mammals becoming extinct. It would provide a value to the extraordinary marine life and environment that we have on the Great Barrier Reef so that we would be incentivised to protect it.

What it does is provide an opportunity for private money to sit alongside the public money that we are providing through the government to protect our environment. But it's not there to replace government funds; it's there to bolster the significant efforts that we as a government are putting into protecting nature and restoring it, because unlocking private money in a monitored and regulated way is a good way to ensure that there is a broad cross-section of support for conservation efforts. This market would sit within this government's broader Nature Positive Plan, the biggest environmental reform agenda in a generation. It would sit alongside our reform of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, the establishment of an independent environmental protection agency and our reform of the use of environmental offsets.

We are on this side of the House take our obligations to the natural world and to future generations seriously. The scope of this policy will extend to projects that contribute to the enhancement and preservation of existing environments, as well as to projects focused on establishing or rehabilitating habitats. These projects can happen on land, in lakes and rivers, and in marine and coastal environments. Participation will be voluntary and open to all landholders, including farmers, First Nations peoples, conservation groups, businesses and local councils.

Once a participant implements a project aimed at repairing or safeguarding nature, they will receive a tradable certificate as recognition. These certificates will contain standardised information, including the size of the restored land and the nature of the work undertaken for the protection of threatened species. It will enable buyers to gain a precise understanding of their investments and facilitate comparisons and evaluations of different projects. Once approved by the regulatory body, these certificates can be sold to third parties, including philanthropists, businesses, governments or individuals. Landholders will be able to generate additional income from the sale of these certificates.

Those opposite who say they are on the side of farmers, get behind this bill. It's a system that will assist companies in showcasing their environmental commitments and demonstrating their sustainability efforts. Locally, it will encourage a variety of beneficial environmental work that a landholder might want to do but might not have the money to complete. I want to give an example here that the Minister for the Environment and Water used in her second reading speech, because I think it best illustrates the real advantage of the system that is being proposed here. She said that it could, for example, help:

… a farming family, who want to remove invasive plants and manage feral animals on their land so they can better protect a stretch of native forest where endangered greater gliders live; or a group of Indigenous land and sea rangers, who want to control feral species across a coastal floodplain, to protect sea turtles, migratory birds, and to improve water quality for fish and crabs; or another farmer, who wants to replant native grasses and trees on an unproductive stretch of land to make the area more resilient to drought …

When you think about it in terms of how it could possibly help farmers as well as the environment, I don't understand why those opposite are not backing this bill. There is no shortage of businesses, private individuals and not-for-profits who are keen to do the right thing environmentally. Many are doing it already, whether out of their own goodwill or because of community pressure or shareholder pressure. There is a move to make sure that corporates and the community are assisting with environmental protection, but they're currently doing it without any of the institutional frameworks to assist. We have a surplus of good environmental will, often with nowhere to go.

That's what this bill does: it builds a bridge between environmental goodwill and positive environmental outcomes. It is the means by which investors can invest in these positive outcomes without owning a plot of land directly and without having to enter into costly contractual arrangements. It allows investors to put their money behind projects that have the confidence of regulators. This leads me to the other important part of this bill: it will introduce the oversight and regulation necessary for this market to function. This is particularly important given the lessons of the Chubb review. I want to commend the bill to the House because I think it's important that we all get behind protecting and restoring our environment.

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