Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I second the amendment. And, without commencing my speech on the amendment to the second reading, I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the question for the second reading of the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Legislation Amendment (Safety and Other Measures) Bill 2024 being put to the House for decision only when the Government's promised environmental reform package has passed both houses.

Not one Labor member has the guts to come in here and speak to this bill. Not one. Not the member for Macnamara, not the member for Wills, not the member for Cooper, not the member for Sydney, not the member for Richmond—none of them are prepared to come in here and even speak to this bill. Labor and Liberal are trying to rush a bill through right now to fast-track gas projects and take away First Nations voices.

The debate on this bill must be adjourned until after we hear what the government intends to do around its environment reforms. If we don't do it that way, if we rush this dirty deal with the Leader of the Opposition and the climate deniers in the Liberal Party and Labor Party, if they rush this legislation through today, then it will take away the rights of First Nations people to be consulted on projects as they currently enjoy it, if the resources minister so decides. It will render completely pointless huge swathes of the election promise that Labor gave to us about strengthening environmental reforms, because what the bill will do is carve out big chunks of our environment laws and approvals and give it over to the gas-loving resources minister, who, under the primary section of this bill, will be able to say, 'Even the rules put in place by John Howard back in 2014 don't need to be followed anymore'.

It is a dirty deal between Labor and Liberal done at the behest of the big gas corporations, and they are trying to sneak it through in the week before Easter with no debate, when not even one member of their backbench has the guts to come in and explain. Why? Because they know they will be standing up to explain that, in their first legislative act affecting First Nations people since the referendum, they are taking away First Nations voices, if the resources minister so determines.

We know that that is the exact purpose of this bill that Labor is trying to rush through, which is why standing orders have to be suspended. We have seen courageous First Nations owners in the Tiwi Islands and in the north-west of Western Australia take the big gas corporations to court and say, 'Even under our weak environment laws, you have to consult us.' As a result of that, and the full Federal Court finding that those consultation provisions are workable, Santos, the big gas corporation, wrote a letter to the resources minister and said, 'Oh, we can't have this. These rights that First Nations owners have to consultation are slowing down our projects. You've got to change it.' Santos said, 'Jump', and Labor said, 'How high?' They've come up with a bill that has no guidance for us about what the new consultation regime will look like. It's not like they've come up with a replacement. They've come up with a bill at a time when they've said: 'We know we're doing broader consultations about what our environment laws should look like, and that might affect this, but we don't want to wait till those are finished. While all these other discussions are taking place, we want you now to fast-track a bill that gives the resources minister a blank cheque to not even have to comply with the John Howard era requirements anymore. Please pass that, and then we'll get back to the business of pretending that we care about climate and of pretending that we care about First Nations owners.'

This bill must be delayed at a minimum until we see what the government is intending to do to so-called strengthen our environment laws—although you've got to think that promise is under a cloud right now. It has to be delayed. If it's as important as the government say it is, then they should come and tell us what the new regime is going to look like and what the new consultation provisions are going to look like. The one thing we know for sure is that it's not just Santos who are backing it; the Liberal Party are backing it. We just heard the shadow minister get up and say the Liberals have been calling for this legislation. They want this legislation, and they said they're not going to stand in the way of it either. So here, on the eve of Easter, we have a dirty deal between Labor and the Liberals to fast-track new gas projects and take away First Nations voices and to give the resources minister huge powers to say that gas corporations don't even have to comply with the minimum standards that were set down by John Howard.

It is absolutely critical that this bill not be rushed through and be subject to the fullest possible scrutiny. Do you know what happened when this bill came to parliament? Labor and the Liberals got together to have a half-day inquiry that happened over the break when most of them were there remotely—maybe for good reasons, I don't know, but they scheduled it at a time when they couldn't make it. So we have had next to no scrutiny of this.

To this legislation: the Prime Minister has said that he wants to hear what First Nations voices say. The question is: does that come with an asterisk attached to it as well that says, 'We'll only listen to First Nations voices if they agree with us'? Maybe there are some Labor backbenchers who don't know about this—maybe they've had the wool pulled over their eyes by the resources minister—but this bill will say that the resources minister can, of their own volition, absolutely rewrite all this substantial consultation and other environmental protections that exist with respect to offshore gas projects that exist in the 2014 plan. Many of those, I would say, should be much stronger. They do not give First Nations owners the rights they are entitled to. But they are there. They were put in place by John Howard. Labor now wants to weaken the John Howard consultation provisions because apparently they're too strong. Labor is now more pro gas than Scott Morrison. Labor is now a bigger booster of the gas industry than Scott Morrison. Not even Scott Morrison tried to take away First Nations owners' rights to be consulted over projects. Not even Scott Morrison moved to amend the environment protection laws by carving out offshore gas projects from them. This is an astounding bill.

The reason this suspension must be supported is that Labor has said: 'Trust us. Look, it's okay. Yes, we've got an amendment here that's going to give huge unfettered power to the resources minister'—in exactly the way the Liberal Party wants; they've just admitted it. This is what the Liberal Party wants. That was their whole speech. Labor's now saying, 'We want to give the resources minister full power', at the same time as the environment minister and the government are out saying, 'We're going to burnish our environment credentials by rewriting the EPBC Act,' including around these very matters.

Up until now, everyone had been led to believe that the government was consulting in good faith about reforms to its environment laws that would include the question about how these big new projects get approved. Now, because the government has taken the time they want to take on that and it hasn't been completed yet—and we haven't seen what new protections, if any, are likely to come—rather than let that process finish and come back to us with a full package about what new environment laws and consultation provisions might look like, they've said, 'In the meantime, no, what we want to do is slip this bill through, with no speakers from the Labor backbench having the guts to come up and even speak to it'—and the Liberals offering the only speaker in support of it to say, 'This is great; it's exactly the legislation that we wanted'. Labor are saying, 'Pass this through quickly, please; please, parliament, don't notice it, don't scrutinise it, so that we can rewrite those consultation provisions and take away people's rights and hopefully no-one will notice.'

Well, the Greens have noticed. The crossbenchers have noticed. First Nations organisations have noticed. The environment groups have noticed. The climate groups have noticed that Labor are climate con artists, trying to rush through a bill in the week before Easter to remove First Nations rights while working with the climate deniers in the coalition to fast-track gas projects. Well, we are here to call you out. If you don't even have the guts to speak to this bill, at the very least defer it until you've done your consultations.

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