Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank all of the members who have participated in what I think has been largely a very constructive debate. I want to particularly thank my colleagues but also a number of the crossbench members of parliament, who have made some suggestions to the bill that I'll be going through later on and who have made very constructive contributions.

Our government is committed to protecting more of what's precious, restoring more of what's been damaged and managing nature better for our children and our grandchildren. That's what this legislation is about. It's about restoring habitats, it's about eradicating pests, it's about improving our soils, it's about helping threatened species, it's about protecting our beaches and it's about making our land more resilient to drought and floods. This bill does this by making it easier for businesses, for philanthropists and for other Australians to invest in projects that repair and protect nature. It will establish the framework that is needed to measure, monitor, report and track these projects.

This scheme will be open to all landholders, including farmers, First Nations peoples, conservation groups and businesses. It will be built on integrity and the best science, with independent experts providing advice as the market develops, and it will contain strong compliance and assurance so that everyone can have confidence in the environmental benefits being provided.

There will be full transparency about the operation and performance of the market and of the Clean Energy Regulator in administering the scheme. The regulator will publish annual reports and be subject to questioning through Senate estimates. It will be subject to regular independent reviews and the scrutiny of the Auditor-General.

Our government is committed to using every available tool to halt and reverse environmental decline. Our latest budget confirms that no government has spent more on the environment than the Albanese Labor government. This bill is another piece of the puzzle, but it's an important piece in a broader nature-positive agenda.

As members of parliament will know, we are developing comprehensive reforms to our environment laws. Last December I set out our government's plans to fix our broken environmental laws. This is a huge undertaking. Work on the design of these laws is currently underway, and the draft legislation will be available for public consultation later this year.

These reforms include changes to environmental offsets. As the government has made clear in its response to the Samuel review of our environmental laws, offsets will only ever be used as a last resort. Offsets cannot make unacceptable impacts on nature acceptable. That doesn't work. Our new laws will make sure that offsets are used to more than compensate for acceptable and residual environmental impacts—like for like—so that nature is demonstrably better off overall.

These changes to our environmental laws are coming, but it's important that we pass this bill now. Once this bill passes, we can start to develop the detailed rules or methodologies that will be needed for projects to proceed. The development of methodologies is not simple. It's not quick. We need to start work on that now. The Clean Energy Regulator will need to set up its systems and recruit the expertise it needs to administer this new scheme. All this will take time. It will take at least 12 months before the scheme is open for business and the first projects can start coming forward. By that time, I certainly hope we will have passed our new Commonwealth environmental laws.

Demand for these projects is something that will also develop and grow over time. Changes to the safeguard mechanism will create new incentives for carbon projects. These projects will include, for example, the planting of trees and the regeneration of depleted landscapes. We want to provide every incentive for these carbon projects to also deliver biodiversity benefits for nature and for the sustainability of our farms to protect waterways, to reduce erosion and to provide habitat for native species. This is what farmers have been telling us that they're already doing and they want to do more of. It's why work on this scheme started under the previous government. Companies are also telling us that they want to invest in nature. It's something that their customers are demanding of them, their shareholders want to see and their staff also want to be part of.

This is part of a global movement because businesses internationally understand that we have a biodiversity crisis as well as a climate crisis. Right now there is a global, industry led initiative called the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures that's helping organisations report on their nature related risks and opportunities. This task force is made up of individuals and organisations with assets of over US$20 trillion. I want to make sure that we have an operational nature repair market properly up and running for when businesses are ready to start investing and managing their nature related risks at scale, and that means we need to start setting this infrastructure in place now.

We acknowledge that this is new and innovative policy. For some time now Australia has been at the forefront of efforts to measure and value environmental services, and that's something we can be proud of. We know there are challenges to delivering on a successful market and it will take time for this market to be established and to reach maturity, but we have to start tackling those challenges now. We need to send clear signals to scientists, to business, to farmers and to other landholders that we want to see more investment in nature repair. Private investment is not designed to replace government investment. It will complement government efforts. It will add private money to the stream of investment our government is already making in nature protection and restoration. As I said a moment ago, no government has invested more in nature than this current government.

This bill will facilitate further private investment and philanthropic investment. It will help connect individuals and businesses that want to be part of that better future to landholders who want to repair and protect our unique environment. It will enable farmers and First Nations communities to be rewarded for their ongoing stewardship of our country.

This bill has been developed in close consultation with many parties—with First Nations groups, with farmers and other landholders, with scientists, with economists, with legal experts, with environmental NGOs and Landcare groups, with businesses, with philanthropists and others who want to demonstrate their environmental credentials, and with investors who want a transparent, regulated, high-integrity scheme for supporting nature repair. We've said we're open to refining and clarifying the bill where appropriate. We've agreed to better define the role of both the regulator and the environment department in supporting participation and shaping the market. We've reinforced the scheme's integrity and transparency to ensure that projects deliver real outcomes for nature. We've made improvements to support First Nations participation in the scheme and better protect First Nations interests in land and restoration of land.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I want to thank many of the Independent members of this House for their support and for their active engagement in the content of this bill. Many of their suggestions have been accepted by the government, will be accepted by this House and have led to genuine improvements to the bill. The objects of the bill will better reflect the government's goal of no more extinctions in Australia as well as implementing our international obligations through the convention on biodiversity. The objects will be subject to five-yearly statutory reviews that will report on how well the nature market is achieving its goals. Amendments will also give landholders more options for how they participate in the scheme. They'll be able to determine whether or not a biodiversity certificate issued for their project can be used as an offset. Further amendments will improve transparency and integrity by expanding the publication of information both in the parliament and on the public register of projects.

I specifically thank the members for Curtin, Goldstein, North Sydney, Clark, Warringah, Wentworth and Calare for their very active engagement on the Nature Repair Market Bill, for their proposed amendments and, I hope, for their support for this important bill. I thank all members for their contributions and I commend the bill to the House.

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