Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am proud to rise to say some words on the Nature Repair Market Bill 2023 and how it relates to my electorate. My electorate will be one of the big winners if this bill goes through. I want to outline why. Being a regional electorate, an electorate with quite a significant history of agriculture but also of gold mining, there is a lot of repair work that needs to be done to our natural environment. If I can just take people back to the gold rush, back then they didn't know a lot about the environment, and practically every tree was felled in Greater Bendigo. You can go on bushwalks or on forest walks now where local Landcare groups will point to the one tree that survived the gold rushes, the beautiful iron barks. There are a few of them still around, but not many that survived the goldrush period.

The legacy of gold mining is long scars on electorates like my electorate. There was a period where they kind of locked up the areas and hoped that they would restore themselves but they didn't. We have a thing called tooth picking, where iron barks have grown back, but there are so many of them that they actually need to be thinned. It has been a bit contentious between local First Nations groups and local environmental groups about the best way to do that. I raise that because, in a lot of our regional electorates like mine, which is a very old region of Australia, there is a lot of history in what has happened to our land. In the early days of agriculture, we farmed very differently to how we farm today. New farmers are adapting, are restoring land. They get the importance of having that biodiversity on their land to improve the soil, to improve the experience of livestock.

New farmers are adapting to those ways. But there is a lot of disused farmland out there that is being bought up by people who are now wanting to restore country. They are doing the lifestyle change and wanting to restore land but are trying to find out how. In parts of regional Australia, particularly regional Victoria, this bill, for the first time in a long time, puts a real opportunity on the table to reward those who do engage in that work. I am talking about our farmers and our First Nations people.

This bill will make it easier for people to invest in activities that help repair our natural environment. It will help create those linkages between our national parks and state parks. There is a great organisation in my electorate called Biolinks that is working with landholders, working with business owners, working with corporations, working with First Nations people on how we can create those links between state parks and national parks to help our flora and fauna survive, basically. Because a possum or a protected species doesn't know that they're walking onto private property, and we do have linkages issues. Landowners talk me quite regularly about no lack of wanting to tap in and do work to restore country, to build those biolinks. They know it isn't their entire farm or their entire property, but they want to create those links so that we do have those nature corridors. They want to know how and they want to know the cost. We now know this bill is a way that can really incentivise getting on top of those costs and rewarding those who do step up and do something to improve our environment.

We want to leave nature better for our kids and grandkids than it is today. That is why this government is supporting landholders, including farmers and First Nations communities, to do things like plant native species, repair damaged riverbeds and remove invasive species. There is an organisation in my electorate in Maldon, the Tarrangower cactus wheel club. The members literally get out once a month to help poison cacti wheel, which is a big problem in the Maldon and Tarrangower area. So committed are local people that they actually go out there each and every month to help kill this introduced species that does create such a problem for us. They're one of many groups in my electorate where people just get on with helping private landowners to stop the spread of these invasive species.

What we hope to see is this bill helping people to repair damaged riverbeds, which is another big problem, the legacy of goldmining and the way in which natural riverbanks dried up. Take a five-minute walk off a major road between Bendigo and Heathcote and you'll hit a gully. First Nations people will tell you that there shouldn't be a gully there. There shouldn't be a riverbank there, but because of what has happened through erosion, the legacy that landowners have inherited, we have a very unnatural way in which water runs into our major rivers.

This bill will help local people who are already doing good work. It will reward those who want to do more. The Labor government is delivering on its Nature Positive Plan and will establish the Nature Repair Market in this bill. The market will make it easier for businesses, organisations and individuals to invest in projects that protect and repair nature. Our government is committed to protecting 30 per cent of Australia's lands and seas by 2030. It's an ambitious target, but with good partners we can do it. The same goal has been adopted globally under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. These goals reinforce the findings of the State of the environment 2021 report and its story of environmental degradation, loss and inaction.

We need significant investment in conservation to help restore nature for a positive, natural future. Businesses and private sector investment can contribute by reversing environmental decline. This was highlighted in the findings of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act review that was handed down. Private companies and conservation groups, farmers and other landholders are increasingly looking for ways to achieve positive outcomes for nature, and this bill helps to deliver that. The Nature Repair Market will be based on science and will enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to promote their unique knowledge in their terms. It establishes a market in legislation which will help ensure ongoing integrity and encourage investment in nature. It will drive environmental improvements across Australia.

This 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. These certificates can then be sold to businesses, organisations, governments and individuals, and that's the incentive that is so important. It puts on the table reward for our farmers, reward for First Nations, reward for individuals and corporations that want to do right by our environment. And we know that they will. This will encourage a new market, a positive market. It will help to give the opportunity to those who want to do the right thing to create those biolinks that I referred to in my earlier remarks.

Locally, the Dja Dja Wurrung, the Jaara people, have already started to do this work. I was privileged to be at their version of a sod turning on Friday for their new headquarters, which will be at the old Golden Square high school site. In our part of the world, they have had settlement with the state government for almost a decade. What that has brought in the decade that they've had is a level of experience and a level of knowledge and opportunity, and they're starting to share with the rest of us how we can restore country to what it was like for their ancestors. Their plans for the Bendigo Creek and the lands around the Bendigo Creek are absolutely phenomenal. But the Bendigo Creek doesn't run through just state forests. There's a lot of work that needs to be done with private landowners, and this bill could create an opportunity to do joint work that will see the Bendigo Creek restored, in line with the vision of our First Nations people.

The nature repair market will enable participation and create employment and economic opportunities for First Nations people. That's what the people in my electorate are looking forward to—the economic opportunity of earning credits by restoring country and teaching others how to do the same. It will promote and enable free and informed consent on land and water projects.

I just want to say this to the opposition. In my experience, from talking to farmers in my local area, farmers really want to embrace this. The next generation of farmers coming through gets the importance of land restoration. They get the importance of having these biolinks through their properties, connecting one another. The livestock opportunity—how it keeps their farms cooler—is critical, as is having natural water resources, whether it be the Campaspe River, catchments or the Bendigo Creek. For a lot of people who have bought big chunks of land and are trying to restore it back to nature, this bill provides the opportunity to work within this market and to help their neighbours.

We have a very mixed land ownership in my electorate. There are tree changers, who see this as an opportunity to restore country. There are the now significant holdings of our First Nations people. There are big farmers, including many of the next generation coming through, who will see this bill as a real opportunity to set up an alternative income stream at the same time as restoring biolinks. Then there are the not-for-profit organisations that will see this as an opportunity to partner with and help landholders. There is a lot of good work already going on in so many of our electorates, and this bill will enhance that work. It will supersize what we're already doing. It will unlock so much opportunity and incentivise what we're already doing. I note, also, that the role of local government is critically important. The City of Greater Bendigo owns a significant amount of land in my electorate, as does the Mount Alexander Shire Council and the Macedon Ranges Shire Council. Their ability to tap into this market will help them with their own offsets work that they're doing.

The bill provides for biodiversity certificates to ensure integrity and actual environmental improvements. That is a critical point that I want to end on. Integrity is key to environmental outcomes. Australians want us to do more to protect our natural environment; they want to see its restoration. When we talk about being in a climate change emergency, we also need to talk about being in an environmental emergency. We really are playing catch-up in restoring country, restoring land, going back beyond what it looked like before the gold rushes, in my part of the world, and before we had settlement in this country.

We need to look at better ways to partner with the people that are willing, and that is the other critical point: this is optional. This is about those who want to get involved in being part of a positive solution. This is about having integrity in a carbon credit system, making sure that we repair nature in a positive way. This bill will reward those who are doing the right thing by nature. I know that groups in my electorate are really keen to see this bill passed and the scheme established. Whether it's the biolinks, which will be able to help to co-ordinate the work, First Nations people, building on the work they're already doing, or the many farmers who are already trying to do this work and tapping into the expanded program, the Nature Repair Market Bill will help incentivise that work and ensure it continues. It demonstrates how we as a government are supporting landholders, farmers, First Nations people and communities to do the right thing by our natural environment—plant the species that we need, repair the riverbeds and the lands that need it, and remove the invasive species. It's a good bill, and I can't wait to see it pass the parliament so it can help people in our communities do more of the good work they're already doing.

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