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

The government won't be supporting the amendments proposed by the member for Clark, but I thank the member for Clark and the member for Goldstein for their comments. I have to say that, while I don't support these amendments, I do share the concerns of the member for Clark about the way offsets have been used in the past. That is the reason that we are absolutely determined to reform the use of offsets in this country.

There is a misunderstanding by some people who have been observing this legislation that this nature repair market is being established to provide offsets for development proposals. It's not being established for that reason. It's being established to provide a transparent system with integrity that is publicly verifiable, trackable and traceable, with baseline and measured improvement, to facilitate both private sector investment and philanthropic investment in nature repair. If none of these projects are ever used for an offset, that's fine. That's not the primary reason for the establishment of this market.

The government has committed to a major overhaul of Commonwealth environmental laws, including the use of environmental offsets. The member for Clark has very sensibly asked, 'Why do this first when those laws are not ready?' The reason they're not ready is that this is a huge drafting task with extensive public consultation that we have to do. The reason we want to introduce these laws now is that we need a year to get the methodologies right and for the staff to be employed by the Clean Energy Regulator—all of the foundational work needs to be done before we can open the nature repair market for business.

We've made clear, in our response to the Samuel review into Commonwealth environmental laws, that offsets will only be used as a last resort and to deliver like-for-like benefits for the environment, as the member for Clark has said. The government will regulate these changes as part of its reform to Commonwealth environmental laws and will release those for public consultation later this year. The laws will include a new national environmental standard, including an offset standard, that will regulate the integrity of projects used to offset environmental impacts.

The government is hoping for the passage of that legislation in the first half of 2024, after there has been extensive opportunity for the member for Clark, his constituents and anybody else who has an interest to give us feedback on those laws and those environmental standards.

Once the Nature Repair Market Bill passes, however, project methodologies can begin to be developed. The expert committee can be appointed to assess whether the draft methods meet the requirements in the legislation. The Clean Energy Regulator can bring in new expertise and set up its systems. That will take 12 months. That's why the bill includes a clause that provides for me as the minister to make a legislative instrument that opens the scheme for business so the regulator can start receiving project applications later, not with the commencement of the bill.

The member for Clark also asked why the government won't regulate the use of offsets in this bill and then repeal those provisions as part of the new EPBC laws. The answer is that regulating the use of offsets interacts with the rules that are used for assessing the impacts of a development and whether everything was done in the first place to avoid and to mitigate any impacts on nature. We can't do that through this bill. We are absolutely determined to restrict when offsets can be used in the first place to reduce the reliance on offsets. I can't say clearly enough to the member for Clark and the member for Goldstein that I know the offset standard has to improve on what is being done at the moment.

The member for Clark and the member for Goldstein have talked about stakeholder support. If I had a bit more time I would go through some of the stakeholders that do strongly support this. Stakeholders like the Northern Land Council, the Australian Land Conservation Alliance and Australian Ethical Investment see this as a great opportunity to draw more money to nature repair.

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