Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I see the member for Curtin's froglet and I raise her three handfish from southern Tasmania, three of the most critically endangered fish in the world. When you see these remarkable creatures, you'll know why. They've evolved over the centuries and millennia to travel with their little tiny hands on the bottom of the River Derwent. How they are still there I don't know. We love them and we are committed to keeping them.

After a decade of disaster and neglect under those opposite—and I don't include the crossbench there—the Australian Labor government is taking real action on environment. It's fair to say that no Australian government has ever done more on environment and climate than this one. I take the member for Clark's matter of public importance very seriously—it's a serious issue—but I think it has to be recognised that this government is taking this issue seriously. While we welcome the crossbench's support for what we are doing, we didn't need the crossbench to tell us about the importance of the environment, climate change, housing policy and an integrity commission. These are all Labor programs. They're all part of a Labor agenda. We welcome the crossbench's support. Often they make very constructive contributions to the Labor agenda. But this is a Labor agenda before this parliament. It's this government that is putting forward emissions reduction targets, that is putting forward climate change energy policy, that is rewiring the nation and so on and so forth.

We've set a goal of zero new extinctions to give a clear signal that we want to save our threatened species. We target to protect and conserve at least 30 per cent of Australia's land and 30 per cent of our oceans by 2030 to protect and restore habitat. We are investing more than $500 million to better protect threatened plants and animals and tackle invasive species. In March this government announced its Threatened Species Action Plan, developed with input from experts, the community, natural resource managers, scientists, conservation groups and First Nations peoples, which gives a pathway for conservation and recovery over the next 10 years.

We are investing $200 million to clean up urban rivers and waterways as part of the Urban Rivers and Catchments Program. This government's Urban Rivers and Catchments Plan will make sure that these waterways are home to nearly half our threatened animals and a quarter of threatened plants and make sure that we take action on that. The program will support projects that improve waterways in urban, outer urban and regional centres, and, as a member for a regional community, I take that very seriously indeed.

Projects funded will help conserve native plants and animals such as birds, platypi and native fish. They will also reconnect people with nature, improving access to the valuable spaces that waterways provide for our health and social wellbeing. So far this government has protected an extra 40 million hectares of Australian ocean and bush, an area bigger than Germany, and we are doubling the number of Indigenous rangers and investing in 10 new Indigenous protected areas.

I'll run out of time if I go on, but in my electorate of Lyons we have unique threatened species right on our doorstep. My electorate is home to a number of threatened species—the eastern quoll, the orange-bellied parrot, the red handfish, as I've mentioned, and the Tasmanian giant freshwater crayfish—and they will all be protected from further depletion and extinction thanks to our funding. The minister has outlined a time line for delivery of this legislation; I think it's by the end of the year.

I note the member for Clark is concerned, if that time line is kept, that the consultation will be over the Christmas period, which he's worried about. We've had a pretty full dance card, Member for Clark. This government has had a lot to get through in the first 18 months: wages legislation, housing legislation, aged care, national reconstruction, rewiring the nation, the integrity commission and robodebt. The Nature Positive Plan is important, but it's by no means the only arrow in our environmental quiver. We've already taken emissions reduction legislation and Rewiring the Nation to parliament, as I said, so it's just one element of what we're doing.

We are committed to it. The minister is working very hard, as the member for Higgins said. She is rewriting the EPBC Act to take into account the concerns of the Samuel's report. We are absolutely committed, and no doubt the member for Clark knows this. Just as he is committed to getting real action on this, we are committed too. I'm confident that the minister will meet her time line by the end of the year.

See this speech in context