Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to speak today on the ministerial statement on Australia's international environmental leadership—something that I've been very proud of since coming to government in 2022. Here in Australia, we are extremely aware of the impact that the climate crisis is having on our environment. From the horrific Black Summer bushfires we saw in the summer of 2019 to 2020, to the increase in flash flooding across our country, to devastating drought, Australians are increasingly aware of the human and natural impacts of climate change.

Now, more than ever, we must take strong action on climate change and ensure that we are leaving the world a better place for our children and the future. But this also means Australians must be leading the way in environmental protection and climate positive policy.

In November 2023, Minister Plibersek delivered a statement on Australia's international environment leadership, affirming our government's commitment to this. In that statement, the minister outlined how important it was for Australia to take on the responsibility of protecting and restoring Australia's environment, to ensure we are helping to achieve a stable Indo-Pacific region, a sustainable planet and a safer world based on our environmental action. This is what we promised during the 2022 election, and it's what our government is committed to delivering.

After a decade of climate denial and inaction, the Albanese Labor government is shouldering our responsibility as international environment leaders, and we're taking this responsibility extremely seriously. We are not playing games with the environment for the sake of contrarianism and politics, like some opposite have done.

We have made tangible steps to protect our environment. When we came to government, we immediately submitted stronger climate targets to the United Nations. We quickly legislated net zero emissions by 2050. We reformed the safeguard mechanism. We doubled the rate of renewable energy projects being approved. We implemented a marine protection framework. In just two years, we have greenlit a record 54 renewable energy projects—enough to power over three million Australian homes.

We are catching Australia up to the rest of the world, after we saw the previous government have a decade of denial and delay. We have also made our international partnerships with the United States and, more broadly, with our allies in the Asia-Pacific based on climate action. Our government has also signed on to several international agreements, committing Australia to taking strong action on climate change and protecting our environment. These include the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, signed in 2022 with 196 other countries, which is a global agreement to stop new extinctions, halt the spread of invasive species, restore degraded environments and protect 30 per cent of the planet's land and sea by 2030. This ambitious agreement is something that the Australian delegation led the charge on—something unheard of in this country before 2022—and we are delivering on this agreement.

We know we have more work to do. The Albanese Labor government is continuing to make progress, to ensure that we are at the forefront of environmental policies and climate action. We are still working to be the leaders on that front.

Just this week, we are debating the Nature Positive (Environment Protection Australia) Bill, the Nature Positive (Environment Information Australia) Bill and the Nature Positive (Environment Law Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill. These bills are setting up Australia's first national environmental protection agency, which will have strong powers and penalties to enforce federal environmental laws and ensure that the EPA is ready to administer our new environmental laws that are currently under consultation. These bills are also legislating Environment Information Australia, which is an independent agency that has a mandate to provide environmental data and information to the EPA, the minister and the public. Ultimately, they are the next step in the minister's Nature Positive Plan and they complement the ongoing work of the minister to reform the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act according to the Samuel review.

We are also investing in a future made in Australia, to capitalise on Australia's capacity to become a renewable-energy powerhouse. This is beneficial for our nation but also for our international partners. We have lots of sun and wind here. We have a natural advantage in this area, and we plan to make the most of it.

Another key way is showing environmental leadership is through addressing pollution, particularly of the ocean. The ocean, of course, does not belong just to one nation. Australia has always been famous for our beautiful beaches. While we may only have Acton Beach here in Canberra, Australia's coastline is iconic and Canberrans certainly love our South Coast. But imagine if that coastline were covered in plastic and other rubbish. This is something that our Pacific allies know far too well. We know that plastic pollution is having devastating effects on our marine life and ecosystems. A plastic-free Pacific is something that we can achieve in our lifetimes. In 2022, Australia joined the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution. It aims to end plastic pollution by 2040. Also in our region we are funding the Pacific Ocean Litter Project, with $16 million to reduce single-use plastics. We are also building new recycling facilities and regulating packaging standards, which is lowering the amount going into landfill. As the minister put it:

Protecting nature is a human rights issue. It's an economic opportunity. It's also a foreign policy issue. It's a security issue.

There is no doubt that we are in a climate crisis and action must be taken. I am proud to be part of a government that is taking that strong action that we need on climate change. I am also proud to represent a community that is deeply engaged on environmental and climate issues.

When I and other members of the class of 2019 were first elected, one of the very first experiences that many of us had was of the bushfires and the response to those. While we didn't have the fires here in Canberra, they were obviously in the region and in many places that Canberrans love and have connections to, particularly on the South Coast of New South Wales. But also, here in Canberra, where we normally have very good air-quality, for much of that January of 2020 we had some of the worst air quality in the world, to the point that our city was locked down many times, lots of public buildings were closed and people were advised to stay in their homes and to have air conditioning on. Anyone who had an existing health condition, pregnant women or anyone with particular vulnerabilities was advised that they should be relocating, which, of course, wasn't an option for so many people. Similarly, staying at home with the air conditioning on wasn't an option for so many people, particularly people living on social security, people who couldn't afford air conditioning and didn't have it. As a relatively new local member, I was confronted with people asking for my help with those issues, and I think it really brought home to me and to all of us how unprepared we were for those very real impacts of climate change that we were already seeing. This is not something off into the future but something we are already seeing around us.

It is so critically important that the action we are delivering is the most ambitious that it can be and that we are doing the most that we can do to confront this global challenge. I am incredibly proud that our government is doing just that: that we have set ambitious targets—not just ambitious targets for the sake of that but ones that we know we can get to, that we have a plan to actually deliver. It is also disingenuous to say that we can turn this around tomorrow; we can't. This will be the biggest transformation that our economy has ever seen, and it is one for which we are up for the challenge. We want Australia to make the most of the opportunities. That's what our Future Made in Australia plan is about as well. It is about capitalising on the fact that we have natural advantages for renewable energy and we should be building those things here as well.

On coming into government, I remember it was said that under Labor the environment is back. That has been so incredibly important. The bills I mentioned earlier that we are debating this week include enshrining in legislation the principle of being nature positive, which is not just a slogan; it is about leaving the environment in a better state than we found it and about fixing some of the terrible problems with Australia's environment right now. It is something our government is deeply committed to, as is my community.

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