Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

Here we go again. This government doesn't find any bill, doesn't find any legislation and doesn't find anything else where it can't fight to make things more difficult for people in Australia trying to do something. This is called the 'nature-positive bill'. Something about the 'nature-positive bill'. Most of the people over there live in the natural environment of a concrete jungle. They live in cities. Members on the other side, from that corner around, are city elites. They don't live in the country. They don't live in the natural environment anyway. Yet, again, in this bill they are telling us in the country—this is a city-versus-country thing again—how we can do things better: 'What you do is not okay. How you do it is not okay.' That is from their elite and entitled position in society.

What is this bill going to do? I'll tell you what this bill is going to do. It will mean less investment in this country and fewer jobs over time in this country. People looking to invest in this country will go: 'You know what? It's too hard. This is all just too hard.' And it isn't rocket science to work out how you succeed as a country. Let's take it down to the family level. As a family, you sit around the table and you go: 'Okay, we need to increase the income of our family here. If we want to send the kids here or if we want to go on a holiday there or if we want to put a thing out the back, we need more money. We need to increase the income of this family unit.' We all understand that one. Even members over there understand that one.

Then go to the next level. You have a small business. You not only employ yourself and other people but you need to attract some investment or capital into the business and, as a bigger business, you might need to attract a fair bit of capital into your business. Those opposite have no idea about what you have to do to attract investment, to attract capital into your business. You have to make it attractive and be able to sell it to people by saying, 'This is the idea. This is what we will do. Get involved and you are going to make some money.'

As a country, we are no different. Those opposite are all very good at spending money. They love spending money. They have great ideas about how to spend money—some of it I don't disagree with, some of it I do—but all you see with these types of bills is how to make it harder to make it. What this bill will do is make it a much more unattractive country to invest in, resulting in less investment into this country. Therefore, it will make it harder for us as a country to attract investment—therefore, income—and have money to spend on the government services that we want and that those opposite want to spend money on.

Why do I say that, Deputy Speaker Vamvakinou? I will go through parts of the bill with you. This is going to create a new bureaucracy, create a new entity. The bill will create an environmental protection authority. We have a few already but let's create a new one and let's also then get a data collection body we will call Environment Information Australia. What is this going to mean? It will mean an extensive new audit and inspection arrangement—great—that will create a few more jobs for people to go around looking for ways and ideas to stop people from doing stuff.

The other thing it will do is provide the ability through what will be called environmental protection orders to force projects' proponents to immediately cease work on their developments. Well, that is sounding like the unions now—unions with a different modus operandi. Let's walk into places where people are trying to have a go, trying to get an investment up, trying to employ people, maybe even trying to export stuff from our country and force them to immediately cease work on their developments. The other thing it will do is impose unprecedented monetary fines on businesses. What else is it going to do? It will increase red tape and confusion, increase sovereign risk and a whole lot of other stuff.

This bill will result in less investment in this country, fewer jobs in this country over time, which will damage our economy, which will mean less money to spend on the services that the other side talk about. I will go through quite a number of other ways this bill does that. It will give the power or authority to the DCCEEW to undertake many of the environmental assessments under the EPBC Act. As I said, it will result in extensive new audit and inspection arrangements. It is going to force project proponents to immediately cease work on their developments at any time where it is reasonably suspected they have contravened obligations. It will mean the imposition of unprecedented monetary fines, a significant degree of free reign and the near-complete impunity from the removal for the EPA CEO. All of these changes will be especially damaging to industry and will leave it with more red tape and confusion, increase sovereign risk and exert a chilling effect on the future investment in Australia.

Similarly, the legislation will inevitably prove heavy-handed given it will legislate for the substantial authority and autonomy of its head. I am going to have a wild guess here that none of the people who run this, the people who head this up, the people who go on to these places and say, 'You are going to stop this, or 'You cannot invest in this,' or 'We are going to stop you from doing what you are doing,' have ever worked in private enterprise and employed people on their own bat. That is my prediction. I am happy to be proven wrong. I am happy for someone to come back into this chamber in six or 12 months time and say 'No, actually, the head of this has had good experience in the business world.' I will happily eat humble pie but it won't be the case.

I've spoken on the Export Control Amendment (Ending Live Sheep Exports by Sea) Bill 2024 in the last couple of days too. What did we see in that bill, like we've seen in this bill? This will affect investments. I remind those opposite too that, as shadow trade minister, I'm very conscious of our export industries. Our four biggest export industries are coal, gas, iron ore and farming. I ask of those opposite, because of the types of electorates they represent, how many of them have a coalmine in their electorate? Maybe one member who's in here does, but not many.

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