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

I am so very proud to get up and talk about the environment and water budgets, because no government in Australia's history has done more to support action on the environment, climate change and water than this government, including in this budget. Over coming years, we will invest more than $9 billion in the environment and around $5 billion in water. The Albanese Labor government is doing more than ever to protect our natural world, to fix more of what's been damaged and to care for the places we love. We continue to invest in the environment and water at record levels.

We're expanding our Antarctic science program and spending more than ever to support the wonderful work of Antarctic science. On water, we're taking real action, with record investments in water infrastructure, including to deliver the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in full—and I know my South Australian colleagues are very interested in this—and to support basin communities as we make these changes. We're investing well over $500 million to manage our precious water resources. I can't disclose some of the dollar figures, for commercial reasons, as we of course will be buying water in coming years. This budget locks in an extra half a billion dollars for Antarctic science, bringing spending to record levels, and $353 million on our Nature Positive Plan to establish our first federal Environment Protection Agency and also Environment Information Australia and to establish the Nature Repair Market. We're also using that investment to speed up environmental approvals for all the projects we know will make a real difference to the Australian economy, like renewable energy projects, transmission, and critical minerals projects.

We've got $65 million extra for threatened species research, $29 million for cultural heritage reform and remediating Jabiru, and $23 million to develop a national circular economy framework and to tackle problematic waste streams. We know how concerned Australians are about plastics, in particular, entering our environment in record amounts.

But that's not all. In recent years we've doubled funding to better look after our national parks, like Kakadu and Uluru. That is a very necessary response to years of neglect from the previous government. We've protected an extra 40 million hectares of Australia's beautiful land and sea. An area bigger than Germany has been added to the Macquarie Island Marine Park. And of course there'll be more to come as we announce our new Indigenous Protected Areas, for example. I'd remind the House that the tripling of the Macquarie Island Marine Park was the biggest addition to conservation anywhere in the world in 2023—bigger than anything else that was done anywhere in the world. We've kept the Great Barrier Reef off the World Heritage in-danger list by better protecting it with a $1.2 billion investment and the doubling of money for the marine scientists who look after it. The work that's being done to better protect and keep the water that's flowing onto the reef in a better state—for example, reducing the nitrogen loads—has been quite transformational. And we're working to provide World Heritage listing for more of our incredible natural treasures, like the Murujuga Cultural Landscape in Western Australia, Cape York, the Flinders Ranges and others.

I was very interested to hear what the member for Riverina was saying about feral horses recently. We are absolutely determined to make sure that feral animals, whether horses, pigs, goats or cats, are properly and humanely dealt with, because they are having a huge impact on our native species. This is a choice between allowing introduced species—feral animals and weeds—to take over our natural landscapes or standing up for Australian plants and animals and landscapes and protecting them from these invasive species. It is literally a choice between the feral horses and the platypuses, echidnas, bilbies and quolls—whether we protect their environments and help them to survive. We're doubling the number of Indigenous Rangers to make sure our special places are better cared for. I will continue my remarks shortly.

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