Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am happy to speak on the government's continued legislative response, the Nature Positive (Environment Protection Australia) Bill 2024 and the associated bills, to the Samuel report. That report of the review into the Commonwealth EPBC Act was delivered to government in October 2020. The coalition failed to respond to that report and failed to act. Their opposition to this legislation is simply a continuation of that failure.

In contrast, the Albanese government has taken to the task. This is the second tranche of reforms following the review, with a third to follow. In the foreword to the report Professor Graeme Samuel stated:

Australia's natural environment and iconic places are in an overall state of decline and are under increasing threat. They are not sufficiently resilient to withstand current, emerging or future threats, including climate change.

In my electorate of Hasluck, this has been absolutely evident this season. Until this crossover between autumn and winter, Western Australia had experienced a drought, and we have seen forest collapse in the northern jarrah forests. To have this happen—where, no matter how many kilometres you drive, you witness the loss of the stunning, beautiful habitat that supports an enormous ecosystem, from the birdlife of our black cockatoos through to insects and other flora and fauna—is absolutely, utterly devastating, and everyone across the community is pointing it out and talking about it. It happened once before, in 2011, and it was then deemed a 'first in the world' event. And now we've seen it again in 2024.

This is real, and we have a responsibility to respond. Some of the ways in which we respond are a little dry and technical, but are necessary in order to create the framework to achieve action that's lasting. To this end, Graeme Samuel's review said that the EPBC Act is outdated and requires fundamental reform. Importantly, he stressed that because the environmental law required fundamental reform, it would need done in a sensible way, with a staged pathway to achieve it.

This second stage of legislation establishes two pivotal bodies, each of them with necessary independence from the government of the day and, importantly, independent from one another. We are building the house in which the final stage of the reforms will find its home. Environment Information Australia will inform the application of the new environmental law, and Environment Protection Australia, an independent EPA with teeth, will administer it. The ALP's national platform states that Labor believes in a strong national environmental protection framework. It commits the party to pursue a strong and independent EPA, and publicly available and transparent environmental data.

I wish to speak first about Environment Information Australia. I think the body we are creating here is generally underestimated. It's a great, positive change vehicle. The EIA will make a difference to environmental outcomes in two particular ways: it will become, over time, the fundamental national repository of up-to-date and historical information about our environment; and, importantly, it will be an ongoing, respected independent voice that will, without fear or favour, tell the community and each successive government, regardless of their propensity to listen to it, just how we are going with protection of environment.

Recommendation 10 of the Samuel report emphasises the vital importance of improving the information base of our environmental protection system. This legislation embodies that attitude, and, through the statutory position of the head of Environment Information Australia, it will ensure the establishment and the ongoing integrity of accurate, timely, regular and useful environmental reporting for the country as a whole. The head of the EIA, while situated within the department, will not be subject to direction by the secretary of the department, the minister or any other person in the fulfilment of their statutory duties in relation to monitoring, evaluation or reporting, including the state of the environment reports and the environmental economic accounts.

There will be a public environmental portal created and maintained by the EIA, and this will work both ways. An example from the UK is their government supported Environmental Information Data Centre, which carries as menu headings on its website, firstly, 'Find & use data', and, secondly, 'Deposit data'. Who will deposit the data for the EIA? State governments, university researchers and, of course, the many grassroots organisations and peak bodies that work in their own fields or regions every day. For example: just with this forest collapse, we were called upon as a community and as scientific citizens to photograph and capture the GPS data of where these tree collapses occurred, and we've uploaded that into a particular data point within the university. In due course, we'll be able to share that on this national platform.

There are many other groups with memberships across Hasluck that I know will make the most of these new opportunities, such as RegenNarration podcasts, ACF Community Darling Range, local chapters of the Citizens Climate Lobby and Climate Action Network Australia. And we have Guildford in Transition; the Darling Range Wildlife Centre; Save Perth Hills; the industrious catchment groups of Jane Brook, Susannah Brook, Blackadder Woodbridge and the lower Helena Valley; the Swan Valley Wildlife & Environment Advocacy Group; and the Perth Hills Climate Change Interest Group, to name just a few. Collectively, they see what's happening on the ground. They notice the change. They can understand when we've got fuel loads and when the soil is becoming dry. They can see the changes that are a consequence of a drying climate, particularly in Perth and across the hills. Their data is valuable, but now we can extract the value from their efforts and use that data in a meaningful way. I expect the EIA will also find helpful synergies with other major repositories, such as Geoscience Australia's recently launched Digital Atlas of Australia, so we can start to join the dots around the nation.

Further, this legislation places positive duties upon the environment minister to respond to the state of the environment reports in a timely way and to table annual statements of the environmental economic accounts. It's good legislation, and an essential part of underpinning the new environmental legislation and the efficacy of the EPA. The budget sees an allocation of $54 million over the four years to establish the EIA, and the legislation requires the minister to conduct five-yearly reviews too.

In an article in the Conversation this month by Professor Hugh Possingham and others, they agreed that the EIA was needed but suggested that, by itself, it won't improve outcomes for nature. While I certainly understand the intent of the comment, I actually disagree. I think that this body will have an effect all on its own, both through the more comprehensive and available information it will provide and through the spotlight its reporting regime will throw upon environmental needs, outcomes and responses. The data that will be collected will include data not just on native species but also on invasive species, for both flora and fauna.

In relation to feral cats, which kill about six million native animals every day, this government is developing a new action plan, and state and local governments across the country will have then the data to share. Action to remove feral cats from islands such as Christmas Island and other protected areas have been shown to be an effective way to save animals in place and avoid extinctions. Federal government leadership in this area is important so that the experience and success of state and local efforts can be shared and replicated. The feral cat abatement plan consultation late last year received over 1,600 responses, and the new draft is being created by the department presently.

I'm pleased to support the establishment of the EIA. Once it is in place, it will mean, as the minister said, that no future government will be able to hide information about the state of the environment, as the previous coalition government did.

The other bill before us, the Nature Positive (Environment Protection Australia) Bill 2024, is to establish the Commonwealth EPA, Environment Protection Australia. It will have strong new powers and penalties and will be independent. Almost every state and territory in Australia has an EPA—almost. Perhaps Queensland will take the hint after this bill passes. The USA has an EPA; Canada has its environmental and climate change agency; the UK has its environment agency; Germany has the Umweltbundesamt, or the UBA.

In order to show that we are serious as a parliament about environmental protection, we need to create a powerful authority to embody that intention and we need to fund it. The budget provides $121 million to establish the EPA, which will act across a wide range of legislative powers and activities, including the natural environment, recycling, waste exports, hazardous waste, sea dumping, ozone protection, cultural heritage, air and water quality, and offset appropriateness and delivery, amongst many other things.

The EPA will be an independent statutory agency. The CEO will not be subject to direction by the minister, the secretary of the department or anyone else. Public statements of intent will frame the relationship between the EPA and the minister of the day. This new agency will have formidable powers and penalties. Courts will be able to impose fines of up to $780 million or send people to prison for up to seven years for extremely serious, intentional breaches of federal environmental law. The EPA has significant separation in the regulation of our environmental approvals and will underpin the delivery of the new environmental laws that will come before the parliament next.

It does appear, though, that some members opposite are uneasy about the proposals to legislate an EPA and an environment information body. The member for Page wants to pretend that this environmental law is the city people telling the country people what to do. He says we will quash investment, but this government is the one creating an attractive investment environment. It is those opposite who are trying to wreck it with their nuclear fantasies. The Clean Energy Council welcomes the introduction of these bills. The member for Mallee complained that the government seemed to want to insert consideration for the climate into every area of policy. Well, that's right. I put it to the members for Mallee and Page—and perhaps the National Party as a whole needs to hear this—that if you aren't willing to put climate related considerations into every area of policy, then you simply do not understand the nature and the extent of the climate emergency.

Fortunately, most voters do seem to care, and carry that understanding. I don't just mean city voters; I mean most voters—in Mallee and Page too. The members might need to catch up with their constituents. People in rural areas understand the issues that climate change and environmental degradation carry. Let the member for Mallee go and ask the Yarrilinks Landcare Network at Warracknabeal or Scaada Environmental & Sustainability Group at Horsham what they think about the new environmental laws. Let the member for Page seek the views of the Coffs Coast Climate Action Group or the Lismore Environment Centre. Come back next sitting and tell us what those people, and others working at the coalface of environmental issues in your electorates, think about this legislation for the federal EPA and Environmental Information Australia. The member for Mallee also stated that enshrining the independence of the two bodies in legislation was an issue. We are proud to create these independent bodies with teeth. They will, no doubt, provide challenges for Labor environment ministers, and I can tell members that Minister Plibersek is up to the challenge. I can understand if the challenge of that independence would be too much for some coalition members who'd rather not have to take significant action on the environment; they may just need to adjust to the new reality.

The coalition seems to be saying that Labor is doing too much to assist the environment with this legislation. On the other hand, the Greens have come in and pretended that they don't support the legislation by speaking about anything but the legislation. The member for Brisbane said the legislation is a cynical distraction. The truth, as usual, is neither of these things. The coalition can't support the legislation because they don't have the imagination to realise how necessary it is. The Greens will support the legislation, but can't say they will because they are terrified of being irrelevant to the real and deliberate action Labor is taking to fix our environmental laws.

I commend Minister Plibersek for her carriage of this legislation and for her dedication to seeing all these laws—our response to the Samuel report—through to completion. I support these bills.

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