Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Nature Positive (Environment Protection Australia) Bill 2024 and the two related bills. As a farmer by trade, I know thing or two about working the land. I know a thing or two about being environmentally savvy. I also know a thing or two about what it takes to protect the environment and to leave the land better than when you found it, which is something the Albanese Labor government is simply not doing. This Albanese Labor government will have the Australian public believe that those who worked the land are the problem. You can see this in all of their rushed legislation that they're trying to bring in or have brought in. Right across Australia they've attacked our farmers, they've attacked our fishers and they've attacked our logging industry, which I know is a major cause of concern for my colleagues down south. Those opposite say they want a future made in Australia, but the Albanese Labor government are MIA when it comes to Australia's future.

Closer to home, in my electorate of Dawson, the Minister for the Environment and Water bowed down to UNESCO's 10 demands, including the bans on gillnet fishing. This is a decision that has put Australia's sustainable wild-caught fishing industry in jeopardy. The reality is though—and I say this based on decades of experience—that those of us who have made a living out of working on the land look after our rivers and our oceans. We rely on these ecosystems not only to survive but to thrive. Without these thriving ecosystems there would be nothing there for us to harvest. We would lose our ability to make a living. We would lose our ability to pay our bills, and we would lose our ability to feed our families and to feed our nation.

Aussie farmers and fishers are Australia's biggest environmental warriors. We know what it takes. More importantly, we do what it takes to ensure that our land and our waterways are healthy. Anyone who says otherwise has never been a farmer. Those opposite are persecuting us at every turn, with more and more paperwork, more regulation and even monitoring the amount of fertiliser we use, claiming that we are the problem. What an absolute joke! Anyone who thinks a farmer wastes fertiliser has never had to pay for the stuff. Farmers are nature positive, unlike this bill.

I could stand here in this House and tell you all about how lazy the Albanese Labor government are when it comes to their policy and legislation. I could tell you how lacklustre this government have been. I could tell you exactly how much they do not care about rural and regional Australia, and that the only thing they care about is putting out political agendas and marketing spin to draw on the heartstrings of those inner city voters. And yet, they make no real effort towards positive change.

I stand here and I say this and, yes, I will yell it from the rooftops if I have to: let's actually have a look at a few of the examples of how those opposite have already let the Australian public down and how they continue to let the Australian public down. I've already mentioned the minister's ban on the use of commercial gillnets right across Queensland, impacting Australia's fishos and removing 2,000 tonnes of Australian wild-caught seafood from the market. This decision was rushed and not based on science. It was pushed through by the Labor government without consultation with the local fishing industry and without any plan for if or when these men and women were going to be compensated, leaving all of them scared for their future and their families, which for most spans back many generations—all with a stroke of a pen from Canberra by a minister who, when invited to my electorate to speak with these fishers and to consult with the experts and all of the industry, just refused. Tell me how that works, Minister? Please tell me, because I really struggle with this concept. I say it again: this decision was rushed through without any scientific backing. It's a pattern that we've seen emerge from this one-term government.

What else have those opposite done that goes against protecting the environment or that goes against protecting Australia's future? As a display of hypocrisy at its best, the Albanese Labor government wants to destroy thousands of hectares of prime agricultural land and native vegetation for this reckless race to renewables. Let me be clear: I am not against renewable energy. I love renewable energy. But you have to do it sensibly and you have to do it in the right place.

Instead of clearing the plant life that naturally removes carbon dioxide from the air and turns this into oxygen through a process called photosynthesis—those opposite might want to google that and see what photosynthesis does—they want to build massive metal wind turbines that only produce energy when the wind blows—but not too much wind because they won't work then either. Those opposite want to fill thousands of hectares of land with giant solar panels that can't be recycled at the end of their life, which is only about 10 to 15 years. And then where do they go? They go straight into landfill, and then the landfill has to be monitored forever. Now, that is not very nature positive, is it? In fact, I'd have to say that's nature negative.

Instead of having a mature discussion after looking at its viability, safety and potential, the Labor government won't even talk to us about zero emission nuclear technology that would provide continuous and reliable power 24 hours a day, seven days a week; have a life expectancy of 80 years; and take up a physical footprint that is only a small percentage of that under the renewables plan. Instead, those opposite are utilising scare campaigns, with images of three-eyed fish from The Simpsons. Australia already has a nuclear industry in Sydney. Where are the three-eyed fish there?

Refusing to have a mature discussion about zero emission technology that lasts for decades and choosing to bulldoze thousands of hectares of prime agricultural land and native vegetation instead is certainly not nature positive.

Those opposite gagged debate on the family ute and car tax and rushed that legislation through without bothering to stop and consider the consequences for those of us living in rural and regional areas, where the infrastructure to power electric vehicles simply does not exist. It's nowhere to be found. In my electorate of Dawson, we are the biggest cane-farming region in Australia, we have farmers growing beautiful Bowen mangoes, we have a half-a-billion-dollar horticultural crop and we supply food for the entire nation. What this government doesn't understand is that our farmers and food producers can't use electric vehicles, because they're not fit for purpose. They can't carry the weight, they can't tow the load and they cannot travel the vast distances that we need to be able to travel. As a result, our farmers are going to be charged thousands of dollars more for their vehicles just for the privilege of feeding our nation and keeping our nation alive.

It is abundantly clear that the Labor government are not interested in the welfare of Australia or the Australian environment. Those opposite are playing a game of pass the parcel with Australia's future, and you never know what you're going to find under each new layer of bureaucratic paper.

Now we have had these rushed nature positive bills through from Minister Plibersek, nothing about these bills is very nature positive at all, but everything about them is Australia negative. These bills are going to be bad for business, bad for the economy and bad for every Australian who is trying to work hard and get on with the job.

Let's get to the reality of the situation. If Labor get their way with this legislation, we are going have yet another environmental protection agency handed millions of dollars to do exactly what all the other environmental organisations have been established to do. The minister is handing over all the power to these organisations before even legislating how they will work—another pattern emerging from the Albanese Labor government. This is what happens when you have a prime minister that provides weak leadership; it filters down through the whole organisation. As the fishos in my electorate say, 'The fish rots from the head.'

We already have the Environmental Defenders Office, who come after legitimate projects and shut them down. But where are they when it comes to defending the environment as a Labor government is decimating thousands of hectares of prime agricultural land, native vegetation and koala habitats to put up wind farms and solar panels that all end up in landfill? There is nothing renewable about these renewables. The Environmental Defenders Office is nowhere.

As I mentioned before, the minister wants to legislate another body that is a duplication of something that already exists. But that isn't even the most sinister part of this bill. This organisation won't have to report to anyone, not even the minister. They will have all the power to walk into a workplace and shut your business down, stop your projects and hand over enormous fines, and all they will have to say is, 'We have reasonable suspicion to do it.' Whose version of reasonable is reasonable, though, Minister? Nothing those opposite have done so far has shown me that they are reasonable. This is nothing but green lawfare on business and on the hardworking Aussies just trying to do their bit and get on with their lives.

This isn't an environmental protection agency; this is an environmental union. This minister wants to give this organisation union power, and the scary thing is it is going to hurt everyone. Yes, it's going to hurt big business and, yes, it's going to hurt small business too. This environmental union will be able to walk into any business—restaurants, hairdressers, accountants, engineering shops and your local fish and chip shops—and force them to stop trading. If they want to shut you down, they will be able to do this. I will not be supporting this bill. As I've clearly demonstrated, this bill is not nature positive; on the contrary, this bill is nature negative.

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