Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In continuation, projects will reflect the knowledge and connection to country of our First Nations peoples, utilising their skills and knowledge for nature-positive events in the future. I mentioned earlier the great work that's going on in my electorate at Botany Bay in a partnership between the University of New South Wales and the Gamay Rangers, the Indigenous rangers group, for seagrass restoration. That's a classic example of a nature-positive project in a partnership between the university and Indigenous rangers. These will operate side by side with the carbon market, with a shared regulator, and the market will encourage carbon farming projects that also deliver biodiversity developments.

The alignment will result in administrative efficiencies and, more importantly, a clear and accurate oversight of claims in both markets. Buyers can have faith in the market thanks to the integrity measures that the government is putting in place with this bill, such as an independent expert committee ensuring projects deliver high-quality, nature-positive outcomes. This approach will guarantee that biodiversity certificates reflect genuine environmental improvement. The regulator will enforce, monitor, report and provide notification requirements for project activities and environmental outcomes, and it will exercise its powers to ensure compliance with those rules.

We've also committed to restoring public accountability and trust through our nature-positive plan. The plan ensures transparency, with comprehensive project and certificate information available to the public. Regulator information updates will also come from the regulator, and the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water will actively release relevant data. We're also working hand in hand with the ACCC and ASIC to prevent the so-called greenwashing of certificates in the nature repair market. The statements about certificates should accurately reflect the projects and the investments that they represent. We value consultation and engagement as we navigate our environmental reform agenda. We're not just listening but actively incorporating feedback on the market's design and operation to ensure that integrity into the future.

We're engaging in a co-design approach, with First Nations Australians helping to develop priority methods and proper incorporation of traditional knowledge and management practices. That's a key feature of the seagrass restoration project that's occurring in Botany Bay. The scientists at UNSW have been sitting down and taking in the traditional knowledge and the cultural knowledge of those involved, with the Gamay Rangers and those that have the traditional knowledge because of their connection to country. Professor Adriana Verges, the UNSW scientist that's leading this project, spoke to me and outlined how in the past there had always been a scientific approach to projects such as this, but it ignored the cultural and historical connection that First Nations Australians have with the natural ecology around Australia. But this time they were taking a different approach and listening to and consulting with First Nations Australians from the La Perouse Aboriginal community about their cultural knowledge and traditional practices, and how important that is for ecology as well.

This bill will mandate public consultation on methods and the instrument for measuring and assessing biodiversity. The proposed legislation establishes the Nature Repair Market Committee to advise the minister following that public consultation. The committee will include five to six experts with extensive experience and standing in areas like agriculture, science, environmental markets, land management, economics or Indigenous knowledge. The Nature Positive Plan outlines a fresh approach to biodiversity offsets, and we will legislate to make offsets the last resort. The government is also designing and consulting on a new national standard for matters of national environmental significance and environmental offsets, and the standards will provide certainty in the use of biodiversity offsets under Commonwealth laws, focusing on the protection and restoration of ecosystems. Projects under the nature repair scheme won't be used as offsets unless they meet new standards. The nature repair market will provide a supply of projects certified through purpose designed offset methods. The register will provide comprehensive public information on these projects and the biodiversity that they are protecting.

The bill will create a new market for investing in nature-positive outcomes. It will support Australia's international commitments to protect and repair ecosystems and reverse species decline and extinction. Unfortunately, Australia has the unenviable record of the largest rate of mammal extinctions in the world, and that is something that this government is deeply keen to arrest and to change. We're striving to protect and improve that rate and that record, and in doing so protect not only endangered species but all species for the future as well. We're dedicated to striving to improve our natural environment for future generations.

The government is simplifying the investment process for businesses, organisations and individuals that are interested in conservation projects across the country. We're backing those landholders that know conservation and ecology best, farmers and, of course, First Nations communities, with specific environmental projects such as the replanting of crucial koala habitats, the restoration of damaged riverbeds, the removal of invasive species and projects such as the one that I mentioned in my electorate—the seagrass restoration project in Botany Bay. By establishing an integral and transparent nature repair market, we will ensure that businesses and philanthropists can confidently invest in nature into the future. They will have the ability to purchase quality, well-regulated nature repair certificates and ensure that their investments in protection and restoration yield significant yet lasting environmental benefits. I commend this bill to the House.

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

These two bills, the Nature Repair Market Bill 2023 and the Nature Repair Market (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2023, establish a legislative framework for what I think initially will be a voluntary national market for new so-called biodiversity certificates. This sounds quite harmless and beneficial, but there are a lot of problems with this scheme which I will just outline for people in the House and listening around Australia. This market, an artificial construct, would enable biodiversity certificates and enable project proponents to start up a biodiversity project on any type of land tenure, including aquatic and coastal environments. This legislation is only the beginning of it. It is just the primary legislation, but all the details will subsequently follow in legislative instruments that won't have as much scrutiny. The bills also amend part of the Clean Energy Regulator Act 2011 and the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act.

People have said this will ignite a green Wall Street. People, even people in the Greens, have mentioned that the logic and the science behind it is a bit spurious, and it will allow people to greenwash projects that have huge environmental footprints. It's a piecemeal response to a perceived ill. It will lead to a lot of industries chasing yet more certificates to allow them to continue their businesses. We already have Australian carbon credit units and we have safeguard mechanism credits, and to this we can add biodiversity certificates. This demand by industry for these certificates is having adverse consequences and misappropriating the use of good agricultural land. It's putting up the price of land as people with much bigger chequebooks than farmers will be dedicating large and small swathes of good agricultural land to these passive schemes, and we will have much less agriculture as a result.

There are a few other really important issues. These biodiversity certificates, once created, can be purchased, transferred, claimed, used and publicly traded. It creates a personal property, a tradable personal property, which can be separated from the owner of the land on which the project is put. The proponent of the biodiversity doesn't necessarily have to be the title owner of the land. It provides a requirement to obtain consent; if there is land that is subject to native title, there will be a requirement for the proponent and the owner of the land to obtain consent from native title holders.

On the face of it, that sounds good, but in many states even Torrens title has native title claims or cultural rights claimed over it. In Queensland, it's not just Crown land but grazing homestead perpetual leases; a lot of agricultural grazing and productive land is held under that sort of tenure. It will be able to be applied on onshore waters, in lakes and rivers, and in offshore waters, in the marine and coastal environment. I can understand why they would have to approve for areas of native title exclusive use, because it's theirs exclusively. But because native title claims can be put just about anywhere, depending on what state you are in, and over vastly more areas, it basically sets up a requirement for everyone to go and get approval.

We know this costs money. It's not just a visit and, 'Yes, this will be great.' There is always money changing hands. That is where I have great problems with this, because the certificate then becomes a very tradable instrument which doesn't necessarily deliver any coherent, broad strategy. It will cherrypick bits and pieces, not just of those lands that I mentioned but all private lands—Crown lands. And, over time, the requirement under the safeguard mechanism for industry to offset all their existentially required industrial processes for Australia and the modern industrial world to exist means Australia will be dotted with all these biodiversity certificates on top of Australian Carbon Credit Unit lands, and Safeguard Mechanism Credits lands.

Under this proposed scheme, the certificates can be generated as class A for 25 years, or up to 100 years. But when you read the detail, and when we do see the legislative instruments—which will come at some time in the next year or two—the secretary could purchase these or he could have auctions for them. He could deem, if he thinks it's needed, to change a 25-year commitment to a 100-year commitment. So anyone who is thinking that this is voluntary, should know that it might end up with their land being tied up for anything from 25 to 100 years.-Even when they onsell it, that covenant on the property will last.

These could be auctioned off by Crown landholders and purchased or deposited with the regulator, who could then onsell them. It's really a question of there being a lot of market—in fact, all market. I can see why people love these schemes, because it's just like trading tulips: there's nothing tangible. We're trying to put strict compliance and regulation into it but, as one ecologist, Dr Yung En Chee, a quantitative ecologist at the University of Melbourne, said that the nature repair market:

… is a policy based on lawed premises, non-existent evidence of effectiveness and is a poor use of public resources relative to alternative policies …

We know there is a threat to biodiversity in this country, but it would be much better if we were doing things to address the horrifying rates for Australian marsupials, invertebrates and large and small animals under threat from feral pests. Many of us here have sat on environment committees looking into the threat of cane toads or feral cats, that lead to more extinguishments of birds, in particular, and small mammals than the latest bushfires. And they do that every year, but there's nothing that I've seen coming out after the State of the environment report about us addressing that. There are millions of feral pigs and dogs, and, I hasten to say, hundreds of thousands of camels in Australia destroying a lot of habitat. These are of far, far greater importance to control rather than tying up someone's property, leading to something like a Ponzi scheme where certificates are traded around the country with Indigenous landholders clipping the ticket on the way through. It's really something that's very concerning. We've always got to look at the details and the consequences of these schemes.

As I said, the main thing is that there's increasing pressure on a lot of our big industries to get these certificates in some shape or form. They're like the indulgences that brought about the Reformation in the 1500s: you got plenary absolution if you paid money and offset some of the sin that you were deemed to have created. A lot of these processes that happen in the industrial world are existential for the modern world to happen. Sure, we have to try to minimise it, but the biggest thing in this country to offset all the carbon going up into the atmosphere is to put low-carbon energy systems in place. But the lowest, safest, cheapest and most rapidly expanding form of energy is banned in this country. We are banning the cleanest and the safest form of energy.

Look at the plans the states have in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. These 41 renewable energy zones around the country are going to span ridges, vast tracts of land, like Alan Finkel said, 'as far as the eye can see' solar panels and 40 giant wind turbines every month—millions and millions of solar panels that only last 15 years or so before they have to be destroyed. They will be destroying vast tracts of habitat. The Hume Link will consume about 45,000 hectares of habitat that will be destroyed, remnant vegetation. There's the windfarm at Walcha where there are 550 big towers. It's like an industrial wind park. It will destroy that valley. All the marsupials and animals that live on those ridges won't go anywhere when there's DC current and whirring and infrasound all over the place. They become wastelands.

They're planning on putting in pumped hydro schemes in Queensland, like in New South Wales. There are three in New South Wales, at least. There are a couple of huge pumped hydro schemes in Borumba, in the Pioneer-Burdekin. Run-of-river hydro, where the river still flows—if you're going to lock up water and do it so that you can use it whenever the price goes up, when the wind and the sun aren't generating, that's a bad use of resources. It's unnecessarily destroying a lot of nature. The footprint of a nuclear power plant is minuscule compared to the millions of acres that the perpetual building of renewable energy will release on the Australian landscape.

As I said, this is another scheme that will make the bankers and the traders and all those people who are making money out of flipping certificates and trading them very pleased. I'm getting into a lather thinking about it. But I don't think there's going to be much. Even Sarah Hanson-Young thinks people are deluding themselves. She is a pretty extreme Greens senator, but, for once, she's actually making a point. These are indulgences. It is like the tulip mania. People think you can make money out of something and pay much more than the intrinsic value of it.

If we are really going to get serious about repairing nature, let's control all our feral pests and animals; let's abandon this reckless destruction of sensitive agriculture and horticultural landscapes with the 28,000 kilometres of poles and wires that aren't necessary. We could just be using our existing grid if we replaced our coal plants with clean nuclear power reactors, which have a very low environmental footprint. So, buyer beware! If I was an owner of land, I wouldn't be signing up for this. A lot of people I know who have had vast tracts of land that have been hard to work but have been very productive see this as money for jam. But once it's there, everyone will be feeding off it. You will be encumbered and that property will be encumbered for up to 100 years. It's voluntary at the moment, but the gods of environmentalism that deem these things the solution to a problem will be urging them to become mandatory.

Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm very glad to speak in support of the Nature Repair Market Bill and the Nature Repair Market (Consequential Amendments) Bill. They deliver a key feature of the Albanese government's commitment to take a very different approach to Australia's environmental condition and biodiversity. We are not going to sit idle while Australia's environment continues on a trajectory of deterioration, especially when we know that risks and threats are increasing in the form of climate change, biosecurity impacts and natural disasters.

Creating a nature repair market is just one part of a set of coordinated measures being taken by the Albanese government, led by the Minister for the Environment and Water. The member for Lyne, who just spoke, gave the impression that this is the only thing that we're doing, and that's far from the truth. We need to do lots of things, and this is one of them. The fact that we're doing anything stands in stark contrast to those opposite. The member for Lyne and I were members of the environment and energy committee, and some of the things he was just talking about before in terms of controlling feral animals are quite laudable, but what did the previous government do when he was a part of it for nine or 10 years? Absolutely nothing.

The nature repair market is a world first. It will, in essence, connect those who rightly and sensibly want to invest in nature repair with those who can do the work on the ground, and that's a good thing. We need to repair and restore our environment and biodiversity in addition to protecting our environment and biodiversity. There is another thing about the member for Lyne's contribution which was odd. I don't know if he noticed, but only recently, in 2021, while he was in government, the member for Maranoa, who was the minister for agriculture at that stage, introduced the Agriculture Biodiversity Stewardship Package. It was essentially a pilot form of what we are doing. It was a means by which farmers could get credit for work they were doing, in addition to fixing carbon, to improve biodiversity. At the time, they described the pilot as a world first. This nature repair market, which we will actually deliver, is clearly a world first, but it was something that the previous government and the member for Maranoa, as the minister for agriculture at the time, were spruiking to anyone and everyone who would listen to it. I'm not sure whether the member for Lyne was paying attention in those government meetings, but it's something that I expect that those opposite will endorse, because it's a bigger and better form of something that they were thinking about doing but, as with so many things, never got around to.

As the Minister for the Environment and Water has explained, this bill puts the framework in place to create a nature repair market. It puts in place the register, the rules and the regulator so that landholders who undertake restoration and repair will be able to receive a tradeable certificate that represents that environmental value. The certificates will be listed and traceable through the public register and will be issued and overseen by the Clean Energy Regulator. It is true that we need to go and create this market with care, and we need to make sure that those who undertake environmental repair and restoration and biodiversity improvement do so in a way that is rigorously overseen, measured and tracked. There is always the potential in any market for things to be done in a way that doesn't have the integrity that we would all expect. That's why the Clean Energy Regulator, as an independent statutory authority, will be given the task of ensuring that that kind of integrity and confidence exists in this market.

Again, the member for Lyne talked about the market as being an artificial construct. Every market is an artificial construct. The problem with our market and our economy is that they have taken certain forms of harm and the costs related to that harm, whether it's climate change or impacts to the environment and biodiversity, and just let them fall on the common wealth, really. A tragedy of the commons is how it's described, where you basically have all kinds of economic activity that have harmful impacts and costs associated with those harmful impacts but they're not actually built into the market, so all of the people producing carbon and profiting from the production that involves carbon emissions never actually incorporate the cost of those emissions into their economic process. It's the fact that all markets, which we, as human beings, create, don't work very well that causes a lot of these problems, and they're ultimately unsustainable.

The other phrase that I found a bit interesting from the member for Lyne is that he described this as a piecemeal response to a perceived ill. Is anyone suggesting that the savage and profound environmental decline the world over but also in Australia—the biodiversity decline in Australia in particular—is a perceived ill? That's just bizarre.

But this new framework is a world first. It will work with a range of other measures to begin the considerable work required to protect, repair and restore Australia's environment on land and at sea, and we cannot wait another day for that work to begin. It is a genuinely desperate imperative. Our environment is not in good shape. Our environment has been hammered, chiefly because of us, chiefly because we've lived in a way that is unsustainable. The two vectors of harm have been destruction of habitat and the impact of invasive species. To that we have added, in recent decades, climate change, which, sadly, in lots of areas has now become the greatest threat and is exacerbating the already severe impacts of habitat destruction and invasive species.

The previous government knew all about that. They knew all about the big picture, they knew all about the vectors of harm and they didn't do anything about them. They knew because they commissioned the Samuel report and they knew it because they received, but hid, the most recent State of the environment report. The Samuel review put all of this pretty cleanly. This is a review that the previous government commissioned, that they received and that you'd think they might have read. This is what Graeme Samuel said:

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

The EPBC Act is out dated and requires fundamental reform. It does not enable the Commonwealth to effectively fulfil its environmental management responsibilities to protect nationally important matters.

What did the former government do with that review that they commissioned? Nothing, zero—literally nothing. There were a few elements of the report which were pretty clear and sensible: reform the EPBC, make sure that there are strong and effective national standards and put in place an independent environmental protection agency. No, they weren't going to have any of that. In fact, they made it clear from the very outset that they would never introduce an independent environmental protection agency. That is another of the reforms that the Albanese Labor government is getting on with, and there is funding of $120 million in the budget for precisely that.

The previous government comprehensively ignored the Samuel review when it said to them quite plainly:

To shy away from the fundamental reforms recommended by this Review is to accept the continued decline of our iconic places and the extinction of our most threatened plants, animals and ecosystems. This is unacceptable. A firm commitment to change from all stakeholders is needed to enable future generations to enjoy and benefit from Australia's unique environment and heritage.

The review said:

Given the current state of Australia's environment, broad restoration is required to address past loss, build resilience and reverse the current trajectory of environmental decline. Restoration is necessary to enable Australia to accommodate future development in a sustainable way. The scale of the task ahead is significant and is too large for governments to try to solve alone. To support greater collaboration between governments and the private sector, new mechanisms are needed to leverage the scale of investment that will be needed for decades to come.

These bills and the reforms they create are exactly the kinds of things that Samuel was calling for; exactly the prescription that he gave to the former government when he called for new mechanisms to leverage the scale of investment. That's what this bill will do, among all the other measures that have been led by the Minister for the Environment and Water.

As I've said, we know the scale of the crisis we are dealing with. The government received the latest State of the environment report. It went to the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party as the responsible minister at the time. Like so many reports in her portfolio area, it went straight to the bottom of the drawer. The State of the environment report—with its damning indictment of the deteriorated condition of Australia's terrestrial and marine ecosystems and its damning indictment of the fragility of our biodiversity, particularly in the form of many, many endangered species that exist on the brink—went straight to the bottom drawer. That was not put in the public domain, because the previous government weren't prepared to do anything and didn't want the opprobrium, didn't want to bear the responsibility, for their inaction. But we've got the State of the environment report because, of course, with a change of government those things have to come out of the bottom drawer and into the light. That environment report tells us the environmental circumstances in Australia, in no uncertain terms.

We've lost more mammal species than any other continent in the last two centuries. We've got one of the highest rates of species decline among countries in the OECD. We've got more than 1,900 Australian species and ecological communities that are threatened or at risk of extinction. Almost half of Australia's major vegetation types have lost at least 20 per cent of their original extent, and one, which is the casuarina forests and woodlands, has lost more than 40 per cent of its original extent.

The overall assessment of Australia's freshwater ecosystems in southern, eastern and south-western Australia since the Australia state of the environment2016 report—in other words, the previous five-year report—is that they are generally in very poor condition. In the Murray-Darling Basin, which is home to 16 internationally significant Ramsar wetlands, 35 endangered species and 98 species of waterbirds, rivers and catchments are mostly in poor condition. Native fish populations in the Murray-Darling Basin have declined by more than 90 per cent in the past 150 years. The member for Lyne described this as a perceived ill. Ninety per cent of the native fish populations in the Murray-Darling Basin have gone in the last 150 years, thanks to us—and that's a 'perceived ill'! We know coral reef ecosystems are in poor condition. We had unprecedented marine heatwaves in 2016, 2017 and 2020, the first-ever consecutive years of coral bleaching.

That's the reality of our environment, and that's the reason for the desperate urgency of the task of greater environmental protection, repair and restoration. We cannot turn away from that harm. We cannot ignore that trajectory of decline. That is what we have done, and we've borne the results. Now we're seeing species of marine birds and fish where you get 50 per cent of them with microplastic in their gut, because we've done nothing about marine plastic pollution. The previous government did nothing about plastic pollution.

That's why this government is acting to do something different, to take a different approach. We are acting on climate change. It's why the minister for environment wasted no time in getting started on work nationally and being proactive and collaborative internationally. We've made a commitment to protect 30 per cent of our land and sea by 2030. We've joined the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution. On 5 June this year, World Environment Day, which is also my birthday, I'm happy to say—

Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Happy birthday!

Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you—the minister announced that the Macquarie Island Marine Park is set to triple in size. That's 385,000 additional square kilometres of Australia's oceans under higher protection, an area larger than Germany, that will be completely protected from fishing, mining and other extractive activities. This makes not just a significant contribution within the oceans for which we are responsible but a globally significant contribution to the health and resilience of our oceans.

It picks up and continues the work that Labor undertook when last in government to create a national network of marine protected areas. We did that when we were last in government, and we're barely 12 months into the job and we're getting on with that again. We've added a remarkable and very significant additional amount of ocean protection.

The recent budget includes funding to create an EPA, $262 million to support Commonwealth national parks, $163 million to the brilliant Australian Institute of Marine Science to continue their world-leading scientific marine research, and nearly $120 million to community groups, NGOs and local governments and First Nations groups to clean up and restore local urban rivers and waterways. All of those things, along with these bills creating a nature repair market, are part of a massive night-and-day, black-and-white change between the awful neglect and wilful blindness of the previous government, when it came to our environment, and the approach that the Albanese Labor government is taking under the leadership of the Minister for Environment and Water.

As I've outlined, the Albanese government as a whole and the Minister for Environment and Water have wasted no time, because there is no time to waste. Creating a nature repair market is one measure that answers what experts like Graeme Samuel have called for—new and innovative ways of delivering repair and restoration while, at the same time, we make new, rigorous, urgent and, in many cases, uncompromising efforts to protect Australia's environment and remarkable but endangered biodiversity. That's what has to be done. That's what this government is getting on with and doing.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Indi is home to some of the most beautiful natural landscapes in Australia—indeed, in the world. We are rich with parks, wetlands, rivers, grasslands, abundant fields, fauna and flora, from the grass-tree orchards in the Warby Ranges to the native orchids in the Chiltern-Mount Pilot National Park. Our high rainfall also means that we're home to fertile farmland producing beef, dairy, wool, wine, cherries, berries, apples and more.

Sadly, though, like much of Australia, Indi's unique flora and fauna are under threat. Land clearing for farming and timber supply means that plants and animals across Indi are threatened with extinction. Some of our most endangered species include the Macquarie perch, the swift parrot, the mountain pygmy possum and the Swainson-pea. A changing climate presents one of the biggest threats to our wildlife. Of Australia's 1,800 threatened species, 327 were severely impacted by the Black Summer bushfires, including the koala, the greater glider and the regent honeyeater. Losing just one species forever has a ripple effect. It impacts the water we drink, the pollination of our crops and the existence of other native species. The regent honeyeater, for example, pollinates iconic eucalyptus trees. If we lose it, then we're at risk of losing food and habitat for many other native animals.

The Nature Repair Market Bill 2023 presents a significant opportunity to restore, repair and protect Indi's farmland, bushland, public land and parks, and, in turn, protects our native species. I support this bill's intentions but, to ensure its success, we must support those navigating this new complex biodiversity market. This is key to ensuring a robust and trusted framework. The bill aims to repair nature by creating a framework for a national market in biodiversity certificates. This means that organisations and businesses, including farms, can undertake projects on land that protect or enhance biodiversity. If someone wants to remove an invasive pest, repair a riverbank or replant a species habitat, they can apply to the Clean Energy Regulator for a unique biodiversity certificate that would then be sold on the market to government, businesses or philanthropists.

This bill is one part of fulfilling the government's important commitment under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and to protect 30 per cent of land, inland waters and ocean by 2030. Farmers are going to play a key role in this new market. Indeed, this bill is closely modelled on the former government's Agriculture Biodiversity Stewardship Market Bill, where only farmers would participate in a biodiversity credit scheme. For this bill to work, farmers must be educated and supported so they can fully participate in the market. That's because farmers already engage in nature repair. JP Murphy, who runs a beef farm near Lurg in my electorate of Indi, has reintroduced native trees on his property to improve the canopy and understorey. Many other farmers are like JP Murphy. He speaks about how this kind of nature repair activity brings back other species, like bird life and wombats, in abundance to create resilient and self-replenishing ecosystems that benefit the landscape and, therefore, his farming business.

JP wants any participation in a biodiversity credit market to ensure co-benefits for the environment and for business. A survey of 600 farmers by Farmers for Climate Action found that 94 per cent of respondents, just like JP, want to change their practices if it would benefit both themselves and the environment. But 70 per cent of these respondents had not been involved in any kind of educational extension program to help them do this. Government funded extension programs have been used historically to help farmers navigate changing times. But in recent times the government has clearly failed to provide this kind of support. We can, and must, change this, and the government's Climate-Smart Agriculture program is the beginning.

I was overjoyed that this budget included support for a network of sustainable agricultural facilitators. These facilitators will provide extension services to farmers to do exactly what we need: to build their knowledge of climate-smart practices and to understand the emerging carbon and biodiversity markets to inform future investment decisions. This replicates directly my policy that I took to the last election, a policy about which farmers in my electorate, farmers just like JP Murphy, told me, 'This is what we needed to bridge the knowledge gap.' I heard from them that a network of neutral and trusted advisers on sustainable practices, technologies and emerging markets was exactly the kind of information they needed. What a great idea coming from the farmers!

So I took this idea to Canberra and, on the way, gained the support of the National Farmers Federation, Farmers for Climate Action and many others. I've used every tool available to me to show government that this is part of the solution, a key one: speeches, motions and a budget submission to Treasury back in January. I've had many conversations with the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, and I want to thank him very much for working with me so constructively to listen to farmers and deliver on this policy.

As an Independent regional member of parliament, I listened to the farmers in my community saying they wanted to be more sustainable, to understand about carbon and biodiversity markets—to understand what they mean for them and to understand how they can improve the productivity of their farming enterprises to be more profitable and to help the environment. This is what happens when you listen to the people in your community and take evidence based solutions—solutions from the ground up—to government. I'm really proud of that.

I want to thank all of those who fought alongside me to see this policy through, including the farmers in Indi and the agricultural community around the nation more broadly. I'll now watch very closely how the government consults with the agricultural sector and these organisations—organisations like Landcare—to ensure the funding that's been committed delivers real benefits to farmers' productivity and profitability and to the environment.

I support this bill but I also hear concerns from local and national environmental groups, including the Environmental Defenders Office and the Landcare groups in my electorate. I hear concerns about whether the new nature repair market will be used to offset biodiversity loss from proposed developments and projects. Experts have found that the practice of offsetting biodiversity loss does not actually benefit our environment. The Samuel review found that current offset policies actually contribute to environmental decline rather than to active restoration. As the Beechworth Landcare group described to me, offsetting biodiversity loss is basically permitting harm in one area based on doing good work somewhere else. Ultimately, though, the harm still happens. I see this in my own electorate. The nearest existing offset location for a recent vegetation clearing application in Wangaratta was in the Baw Baw shire, over 300 kilometres away. If the intention is for an offset to benefit the local ecosystem, it's hard to see how it was achieved in this instance.

The government admit biodiversity offsets could be one source of demand for credits under a nature repair market, and they've committed to a future review of environmental laws that deals with offsets, a review which I very much welcome. But right now it's very unclear whether biodiversity certificates as described under the bill can be used to offset biodiversity loss, and many of my colleagues here on the crossbench share this concern. I urge the government to clarify this and clarify it very soon.

I want to see this nature repair market and the biodiversity credits it issues operate with integrity. We can't afford to lose trust in a system that is so critical to protecting our precious biodiversity. I'm pleased that the government has already implemented recommendations to improve the bill, such as ensuring the Nature Repair Market Committee always has a biodiversity expert to advise the minister on what methodologies can be used for projects, but there's still room for improvement. The government must go a lot further than this on this bill to actually protect our declining biodiversity.

I've listened to the concerns of groups like the Places You Love Alliance, who are continuing to advocate for substantial government investment in biodiversity protection. It's insufficient to rely on private investment through a nature repair market alone. This government must continue to implement the recommendations of the Samuel review, which, sadly, highlighted the deteriorating state of Australia's biodiversity and the failure of Australia's national environmental laws. We need new, legally binding, outcomes focused national environmental standards, and we need them urgently. A strong, independent and adequately funded national environment protection agency is crucial.

The bill could also be strengthened by requiring projects to align with natural resource management plans. These plans are developed by catchment management authorities, like the North East Catchment Management Authority in my electorate, alongside community groups and First Nations people. They articulate regional communities' priorities for land management, including repairing nature. Ensuring that projects under the bill align with these plans will build a stronger social licence to operate, remove potential perverse outcomes and build opportunities to leverage multiple community benefits. Government can, and must, do more to protect our environment.

Until they do, we are lucky to have dedicated organisations and individuals that are working hard, often as volunteers, to protect our native wildlife and restore our environments. For over 30 years, Wangaratta Landcare and Sustainability have been repairing native vegetation. The team manage and protect Kaluna Park, an award-winning rehabilitation site that was once a weed-infested wilderness area. Through careful removal of invasive trees, replanting native trees and regular weeding, this site, which is so close to the Wangaratta CBD, has been successfully restored. It is a total joy. Kaluna Park is particularly precious because it's home to culturally significant signal trees, birthing trees and canoe trees of the Bangerang people. It is truly a treasure.

The North East Catchment Management Authority, or NECMA, brings together partners from across the region to identify and respond to the challenges that cannot be solved by one organisation or one stakeholder alone. For five years, they've worked on the Bush for Birds program to restore habitat for the threatened regent honeyeater and swift parrot. NECMA has worked closely with Trust for Nature, local Indigenous groups, local government, Parks Victoria, Landcare and private landholders to revegetate, remove weeds and control pests across thousands of hectares to improve habitat for these beautiful bird species. The government's budget commitment to the Nature Heritage Trust will also resource NECMA and other natural resource management organisations like the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority in my electorate so that they can continue this incredibly important work delivering climate smart, sustainable agricultural actions.

Community collaboration has seen the reintroduction of the Mountain Swainson-pea, which I mentioned earlier. It was once found across the state, but grazing, land clearing and fertiliser had seen its population decline so drastically that in 2012 it disappeared entirely in Victoria. However, a Victorian government program, in collaboration with NECMA, Landcare and private landholders, has cultivated seeds and planted hundreds of these in the Chiltern-Mount Pilot National Park. Through time and dedication, this program has given the formerly extinct native plant a second chance at life. I want to recognise Neville Bartlett, Eileen Collins and all the members of the Friends of Chiltern Mount-Pilot National Park for their dedicated efforts towards rejuvenating the wild pea and many other species.

I want to support our local groups and farmers to protect and rejuvenate the flora and fauna we love so much. A nature repair market is one part of the solution. The government's budget commitments to fund climate smart agricultural projects, replicating that extension officer policy of mine that I talked about, is a fantastic start to bringing it all together. Bringing together government, farmers and Landcare groups is the right approach to protecting and repairing our treasured natural landscapes and species, like the Mountain Swainson-pea in Victoria.

During this term of parliament, we need to see a whole lot more action from this government to follow through on the goals which we all see and which we want to achieve. Our biodiversity is crucial. It's precious, because once it's gone, it is gone forever.

Tracey Roberts (Pearce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in strong support of the Nature Repair Market Bill 2023. It is an important bill that enables the protection and restoration of our valuable natural assets. Through this bill, the Albanese Labor government will make it easier for people to invest in activities that help repair nature. It is crucial that we take these measures to ensure that we leave nature in a better condition for our future generations. We are a government that values and protects our environment. I am a nature lover, like many in this place and like many people in my electorate of Pearce in Western Australia. There is nothing better for our health and our souls than being surrounded by natural landscapes. It is calming and rejuvenating. As an ambassador for the WA Parks Foundation, I promote and raise awareness of our natural environments, particularly our national parks. Pearce has many beautiful bushland areas and more than 30 kilometres of stunning coastline. We have the beautiful Yanchep National Park and the Yellagonga Regional Park, and many others that I know are highly valued by our large and fast-growing community. The Nature Repair Market Bill 2023 has many merits. It is a framework to support landholders in their efforts to protect and restore nature. The bill will help support landholders, including farmers and First Nations communities, to do things such as plant native species and repair damaged riverbeds. Establishing the nature repair market will also support landholders to remove invasive species, which are a real problem in some of our natural areas. The nature repair market is part of the Albanese Labor government's delivery of the Nature Positive Plan, and, through this, we make it easier for businesses and philanthropists to invest in these areas. The nature repair market will make it simpler for individuals, businesses, organisations and governments to invest in projects that protect and repair nature.

The Albanese Labor government has made a commitment to protect 30 per cent of Australia's land and seas by 2030. The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity has adopted the same goals across the world. These targets of protecting 30 per cent reinforce the findings of the 2021 State of the environment report—a report that speaks of environmental degradation, loss and inaction. We absolutely need significant investment in conservation and restoration for a nature-positive future. Professor Graeme Samuel AC reviewed the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. His findings highlighted the need for investment. Business and private sector investment can contribute to reversing environmental decline.

I am encouraged by the fact that conservation groups, private companies, farmers and landholders are increasingly looking for ways that they can achieve positive outcomes for nature. I see this in my electorate, with groups such as the Friends of Yellagonga Regional Park, who recently celebrated their 30th anniversary, and the Quinns Rocks Environmental Group. These are committed volunteers who understand the value of nature and the importance of what they do so very willingly. A report prepared independently estimates that the market for biodiversity in Australia could unlock a staggering $137 billion in financial flows by 2050. As a government, we are responding to that demand. What is important to note is that the nature repair market will be based on science, and it will enable Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders to promote their unique knowledge on their own terms.

Establishing the market legislation will ensure its ongoing integrity. This will also encourage investment in nature and drive environmental improvements across Australia. The bill will enable the Clean Energy Regulator, an independent statutory authority with significant experience in regulating environmental markets, to issue Australian landholders with tradeable biodiversity certificates. These certificates can then be sold to individuals, businesses, organisations and government. Importantly, the market will be inclusive, and all landholders, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, conservation groups and farmers, can participate. Potential projects will deliver long-term nature-positive outcomes through activities such as pest control, weeding and planting native species. These projects can be undertaken on land or water. This includes lakes and rivers, as well as marine and coastal environments. This bill is about doing better by our natural assets. Open participation and extensive opportunities for project locations will also support regional Australia through jobs and nature-positive economic activity. This will be fantastic for regional areas around the country when you also consider the employment potential that it will create. The nature repair market will enable participation and create employment and economic opportunities for Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders. It will promote and enable free, prior and informed consent for projects on their land or waters, and there will be opportunities to design projects that reflect the knowledge and connection to country of our First Nations people. We will be able to utilise their skills, knowledge and wisdom for a nature-positive future.

The market will operate in parallel with the carbon market, with the same regulator. This alignment will encourage carbon-farming projects that also deliver benefits for biodiversity—a win-win. By establishing it in this manner, there will be administrative efficiencies in this approach and, more importantly, clear and accurate oversight of claims made in both markets.

Our government acknowledges the recent review of carbon crediting led by Professor Ian Chubb. Lessons learnt from the carbon market have informed the bill and will continue to be reflected upon as environmental markets develop. The bill provides for biodiversity certificates to have integrity and represent an actual environmental improvement. Buyers can then invest in the market with confidence. There will be a key integrity measure too and an independent expert committee that will hold responsibility for ensuring projects deliver high-quality, nature-positive outcomes. These will be underpinned by a consistent approach to the measurement, assessment and verification of biodiversity. The integrity of the environmental outcomes is also enabled through assurance and compliance requirements, using monitoring, reporting and notification on the delivery of project activities and progress on the environmental outcomes. The regulator will have both monitoring and enforcement powers to ensure that projects are conducted in accordance with the rules.

The Nature Positive Plan reflects the Albanese Labor government's commitment to restoring public accountability and trust. A core element of the scheme will be transparency, and that is vitally important. A public register will outline in a comprehensive manner information about projects and certificates so that anyone can access details. Additional information will be regularly published by the regulator, and relevant data will be released by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. This is part of ensuring the transparency I spoke of and will enable parliament and the public to monitor the scheme and provide an opportunity for citizen oversight. Additionally, it will support certainty and value to the market.

The department is committed to working with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission to ensure that certificates issued in the nature repair market are not the object of what's known as greenwashing. It is crucial that statements made about certificates accurately reflect the projects and investment that they represent. It is also important that projects in the carbon and biodiversity markets are not affected by misleading claims, and we seek to ensure that this does not happen.

The Albanese Labor government is committed to listening to consultation and engagement under our environmental reform agenda. We have listened and will continue to listen to feedback on the design and operation of this market, and we are working with Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders on a co-design approach and supporting appropriate inclusion of traditional knowledge and management practices. As someone who values consultation and engagement, I am pleased that this bill mandates public consultation on methods and the instrument for measuring and assessing biodiversity.

The legislation establishes the Nature Repair Market Committee, which is responsible for providing advice to the minister following public consultation on the submission. This committee will have approximately six experts with substantial experience. They will have significant standing in one or more areas of expertise, including environmental markets, land management, agriculture, science, economics and Indigenous knowledge. Relying on the knowledge and expertise of these specialists will help us achieve better outcomes for nature.

The Nature Positive Plan presents a different approach to biodiversity offsets. It commits to offsets being the last resort, which will we will enshrine in legislation. Our government is already designing and consulting on new national standards for matters of national environmental significance and environmental offsets. These national standards will be legislated under the new nature-positive laws and will provide certainty and confidence in the use of biodiversity offsets under Commonwealth laws. Projects under the nature repair scheme won't be used as offsets unless and until they meet the new standards.

This bill will establish a new market for investing in nature-positive outcomes. It will support Australia's international commitment to protect and repair ecosystems and reverse species decline and extinction. It will generate investment and job opportunities for a nature-positive economy whilst also creating new income streams for landholders. I commend this bill to the House.

Stephen Bates (Brisbane, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are in the middle of a climate emergency that has been fuelled by multinational corporations, and our environment is paying the price. Right now, we require bold and urgent action to save our unique biodiversity that is under threat. Unfortunately, the first major piece of legislation the Labor environment minister has introduced is an enormous disappointment, verging on a corporate scam.

The Nature Repair Market Bill establishes the nature repair market. When first spruiking the bill, the environment minister said that it would hopefully create a 'green Wall Street', with companies making major investments in projects that protect our environment. However, in an estimates hearing on 23 May, the department of the environment conceded that they had not completed any modelling on how much investment this market could generate. Instead, the department pointed to an independent report which stated that $137 billion could be unlocked to repair and protect Australia's environment by 2050. This independent report was authorised by none other than PwC, the very same PwC that is currently under a huge international crisis after one of their partners handed over confidential Treasury information to make it easier for corporations to dodge taxes and rip off the Australian people. After releasing this independent report last year, PwC then coincidentally opened its new Centre for Nature Positive Business in April of this year. It sounds confusing and alarming. That's because this bill is exactly that, and it's not just because of PwC's involvement.

How does the environment minister propose this bill will work? Under the bill, landholders like farmers, First Nations groups, corporations or local councils can conduct a project which intends to protect or preserve biodiversity. Once this project is complete or underway, they can apply for a unique biodiversity certificate from the Clean Energy Regulator. They can then sell that certificate to an interested person in the market. If you're still confused, let's imagine an example. A local council undertakes erosion mitigation work on a beach and then applies for one of these certificates. Once that is gained, the council sells it on to a corporation, like a multinational fossil fuel corporation, let's say Santos. Under this bill, Santos is well within its rights to use the certificate to offset the omissions they create by digging into the earth to profit from Australia's natural resources while making the climate crisis worse. Essentially, the exact opposite of protecting the environment.

This is a reheated version of a bill the LNP introduced when they were in government. The LNP have said they might support the passage of this bill through parliament—and why wouldn't they when they wrote the original? This Labor government has committed to establishing an independent environmental watchdog and reviewing the outdated Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conversation Act. These are welcome commitments, but Labor has gone into radio silence on them. It is nonsensical to introduce this Nature Repair Market Bill before these sorely needed reforms. This is policymaking on the run, and it should be condemned. This bill is so rushed that it proposes the Clean Energy Regulator will have to approve the unique biodiversity certificates. This will require the regulator to assess environmental projects, something completely outside of their original remit.

Of most concern is that this bill will expand the carbon offset scheme. This scheme is under review due to the rorting undertaken by corporations and its overall inefficiency in actually delivering absolutely anything positive for the climate and environment. This time last year, the former head of the government's Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee, Professor Andrew Macintosh, said the offset is 'largely a sham'. This bill heralds the marketisation of our environment. It is simply an extension of this government's neo-liberal agenda of outsourcing its responsibilities to private interests and corporations to solve our nation's biggest issues because it is too reluctant to front up and do it itself. They're so reluctant because their funds are tied up with society-destroying projects like negative gearing or capital gains tax discounts, the stage 3 tax cuts and nuclear submarines. The action of those on the government benches do not match their supposed commitment to reversing climate change and protecting our environment. This bill wants to extend the Frankenstein scam of carbon credits in the name of protecting our wetlands, native forests and rivers.

I could stand here for the rest of the evening discussing the serious concerns I have with this bill—

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, you can't.

Stephen Bates (Brisbane, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

but I'll keep it brief. Trust me, there are lots of concerns, so thanks for the interjection. The planet is on fire, and this is just one of the many policies this government is proposing. The Greens are willing to work productively with the government to improve legislation, but with this bill, the government is signalling its unwillingness to protect our country's environment, and the bill should not pass.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's always good to follow the master over there, because the Greens are absolutists who deliver nothing but complain about everything. We see it day in, day out, and the only thing—

As you scurry from the chamber, think about this. The only thing you're good at is complaining, sooking and whingeing, but you've never delivered a thing. Think about that, Master. Think about that.

Archie Roach said:

The land is a living, breathing entity. If you love the land, the earth, it'll love you back. It's just the way it's always been. Again, there's no big secret to it. If you want a relationship with the land, you just have to love it.

…   …   …

We're not exclusive from nature. We're a part of it! We're part of everything around us

This quote from Archie Roach explains the relationship that we who live on this land have with this land and how we should interact with it.

Today, I proudly rise to speak on this innovative piece of policy, the Nature Repair Market Bill. I, along with everyone else on this side of the chamber, know the importance of implementing programs that will leave our natural world better off for our kids and grandkids. After nearly a decade of stagnation and, to be frank, outright indifference by those opposite to the ongoing progression of climate change, this piece of legislation is one of the many steps that this government is putting in place to protect Australians and Australia's natural resources.

At its core, the bill is helping to support landholders, whether they are First Nations communities or farmers, to invest in the regeneration of their land. We know that landholders across Australia have begun doing this, but we need to acknowledge that while this investment can create profit in the long run, the upfront costs and short- to mid-term investment can be a hurdle for many. This legislation is the step that will get people over that very first hurdle, and it works with the government's commitment to protect 30 per cent of Australia's land and seas by 2030.

We as a government are especially motivated to work quickly after the findings of the 2021 State of the environment report and its story of environmental degradation, loss and inaction. It is a story that paints a bleak future for Australia, a story that calls for an urgent response, a story painted on the backdrop of the Black Summer that devastated a nation. It is why we need trailblazing ideas and a multipronged approach, especially after the years of neglect under conservative governments. We know there needs to be significant investment in conservation and restoration, and while governments across all levels are stepping up, we need to find a way to make it financially viable to encourage private investment in land restoration. And that is what this bill does.

This bill, by encouraging business and private investment, will have a massive impact on individual landholders and First Nations communities looking to regenerate the land. Further, it will have a huge overall impact on the process of reversing environmental decline. We know that we can do this. Rachel Carson said in Silent Spring:

Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species—man—acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world.

This is why this government stands to make sure that we contribute to altering the world for good. Goals of regeneration and protecting the environment are common across all stakeholders. Whether it's because of the worsening climate crisis evident in the intensity of the Black Summer bushfires or the widespread flooding we've seen over the last few years, these natural disasters show that more needs to be done to protect the natural world against changing conditions, and there is a hunger amongst communities to do that. Private companies, conservation groups, farmers and other landholders are increasingly looking for ways to contribute to the environment and to conservation. But there really has been no framework to allow these groups to work together to achieve this common goal. We are responding to this demand. This is an innovative effort by this government, amongst the first globally. But what this bill is doing is already deeply ingrained in Australian landholders. Regeneration efforts, research and discourse have been at the forefront of everyone's efforts, and this legislation works to support and promote those things.

With organisations such as the National Farmers Federation, the Northern Land Council and Landcare all supporting this legislation, it shows the widespread support and demand for it. Landcare has said this boost from private investment will 'drive the substantial on-ground work required for repairing and protecting our precious natural assets', acknowledging that this legislation can keep up ongoing investment that sometimes gets lost in the short election and funding cycles.

The bill doesn't just have environmental benefits. In the long term, it has a huge economic benefit. A recent report estimates the market for biodiversity in Australia could unlock $137 billion by 2050. This money will allow farmers to regenerate their land and take on projects that protect their waterways, making their properties more droughtproof and creating a healthier and happier environment. Many farmers have already started to do this, recognising the importance of implementing regeneration projects and promoting biodiversity on their farms.

One farmer who has led the way for research in this field and who advocates for wider understanding of regenerative farming is Charles Massy, a fifth-generation farmer, scientist, leading pioneer in regenerative agriculture and author of Call of the Reed Warbler. He admits that when he took over his family farm he was ecologically illiterate, but he asked himself: why do we have to kill things to grow things? So began his journey into regenerative agriculture, a system of cultivation that aims to put carbon back in the soil, forgoing the use of chemicals and giving us nutritious food. It puts an emphasis on using a range of plants and focusing on ground cover to improve our soil quality. He talks about how these changes brought back wildlife that had been gone from the area for years and how they had improved not only the quality of the land but also the quality of the stock that he kept on it. He said that throughout his process is 'a metaphor for us humans to once more become the enablers, the nurturers, the lovers' of self-organising and regenerative earth. We know we can't force change. We can't make landholders and farmers change from a mechanistic mindset. But we can support and incentivise good practice. We can help with education, and we're showing the long-term benefits from restoration projects and integrating conservation into farming.

Some other landholders who have been pioneers in nature restoration on their properties are Vince Heffernan near Yass and Will Johnson near Cargo. Vince has planted nearly 80,000 trees and shrubs across his sheep property to restore the environment to its precolonial state. He states the importance of these projects by saying:

If I have better biodiversity then I have an ecosystem that is more resilient. It is going to handle whatever climate change throws at it. It is going to handle fires, floods and droughts much better than an ecosystem that is liable to collapse.

Similarly, Will, after planting 15,000 trees on his property, has seen productivity on the farm rapidly increase and said:

The bird life has increased really well, there are a lot of small, native grass birds that you see most days.

These examples show that the investment from the Nature Repair Market Bill will encourage and support more landholders to start their own projects so that they too can reap the benefits of this approach. By having more landholders on board with similar projects, this will really spearhead Australia's commitment to international agreements, making our country more disaster resilient and helping reinvent the way modern Australia engages with our land.

The Nature Repair Market Bill will also enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to educate and to help promote their unique knowledge within their communities and to other landholders. It will allow them to enter this education process on their own terms. As Bill Gammage explores in his book The Biggest Estate on Earth, First Nations populations expertly and carefully cultivated an environment that was not only sustainable but, most importantly, safe. He explains that their position on land care is:

All must care for the land and its creatures, all must be regenerated by care and ceremony, no soul must be extinguished, no totem put at risk, no habitat too much reduced. That mandate, not the theology, made land care purposeful, universal and predictable.

It's why we are making sure that, at the forefront of these conversations and conservation regeneration, we're educating on how we can work with, not just on, the land. Gammage finishes his explanation by saying:

We have a continent to learn. If we are to survive, let alone feel at home, we must begin to understand our country. If we succeed, one day we might become Australian.

The Nature Repair Market Bill will allow private investment into actively engaging with these communities, which will allow them to operate and educate on their own terms and to adequately get compensated for their work.

Establishing the repair market in this legislation will ensure its ongoing integrity, encouraging investment in nature and driving environmental improvements across Australia. It will allow landholders to draw on best practice to ensure quality programs for investors. The repair market will help nurture projects and deliver long-term nature-positive outcomes through activities such as weeding, planting native species and pest control. These programs can be undertaken on land or water, whether it be lakes and rivers or marine and coastal environments.

The bill will allow for open participation in extensive opportunities around the nation. The investment will allow for projects in local, regional and remote Australia through the creation of a nature-positive economy that will bring money into our local communities and create a whole industry of jobs. The nature repair market will operate with the core principles of integrity and science.

The bill provides biodiversity certificates that have integrity and represent actual environmental improvement. This will allow private investors to invest with confidence and avoid the greenwashing that has become prevalent with conservation investment. There will also be an independent expert committee responsible, making sure that projects promised are delivered and of a high quality, with monitoring, reporting and notification of the delivery of project activities and progress on the environmental outcome, the ability to enforce the said outcomes.

The department, along with the ACCC and ASIC, will help enforce nature-positive plans directly, to restore public accountability and trust. All agreements will be scrutinised by both the parliament and the public. In the design of this market the government is making a priority to listen to all stakeholders for their opinions and ideas. The bill mandates public consultation on methods and the instrument for measuring and assessing biodiversity.

I'm proud to be part of a government that is not only being a trailblazer in the environmental policy and trying new ideas but is also underpinning all our legislation with the election commitment we made to be a more transparent and accountable government.

This piece of legislation is incredibly important and acknowledges that the government has a significant role to play in the bulk conservation and biodiversity efforts. We should also enable integrity and scientifically backed avenues for private individuals and businesses to be a part of this journey. The legislation allows all landholders to participate in the market if they can deliver long-term nature-positive outcomes.

The nature repair market will enable greater participation and create employment and economic opportunities. It will promote and enable free, prior and informed consent on projects on traditional landowners' land and waters. There will be opportunities to design projects that reflect the knowledge and connection to the country of our First Nations people and utilise their skill and knowledge in a nature-positive future. While it won't have an immediate effect, it is the building blocks for a sustainable future. It's just part of our plan to get Australia to be a world leader in conservation. With this, I commend the bill to the House.

Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There's an old saying, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it,' yet this Nature Repair Market Bill tinkers with a pilot program that the coalition put forward in its Agriculture Biodiversity Stewardship Market Bill. This repair attempt has created a mess. For those reasons, at this stage, the coalition cannot support this bill. Former agriculture minister and Nationals leader David Littleproud introduced the agriculture focused bill in February 2022, but it lapsed due to an election and a change of government.

I support market based solutions to complex issues. The alternative approach that we often see from those opposite is government based solutions. This bill has been criticised by those that you could say are on the left or far left of politics, who say that the bill actually entrusts too much to the market. These critics object to the government theoretically copping out of its perceived obligation to spend on environmental projects because private market investment through these certificates will be available.

As we've seen in other fields, large corporations are falling over themselves to signal to the market that they're doing what Australians and people all over the world want to see large corporations doing. When you consider the scale of the multinational mining companies, in terms of their budgets, the federal budgets of many nations pale into insignificance. Whether you are comfortable with that or not is a debate for another time, but this bill maintains a focus on unlocking the immense private capital available to finance biodiversity outcomes rather than leaving it up to the government.

It is the market where we have seen great innovation and reward for effort achieved, rather than the arbitrary whims, fancies or even darker aspirations of government when it comes to the government picking winners. Some of the greatest innovations in human history and the latest technology we have in our hands have arisen from the private spaces of investors, their garages, laboratories or workshops, coming up with solutions that benefit humanity and the planet. So I welcome the government leaving the market based element of what was the Agriculture Biodiversity Stewardship Market Bill unchanged.

Let's also remember that biodiversity is by its nature diverse and, in some respects, still unknown. It is complex. The carbon market has been simplified to a price per tonne of carbon dioxide sequestered or prevented from being emitted into the atmosphere. In the biodiversity market, how you value a biodiversity outcome will be left up to the market. This ties into work being done internationally to set standards on how these outcomes are calculated. My point is that if these are not left up to the market and international developments, we could end up with yet another level of bureaucracy here in Australia and the subsequent cost to taxpayers of pricing the value of these certificates.

It is welcome that this bill doesn't tamper with the previous bill's market based mechanism. That part wasn't broken, and, thankfully, Labor haven't tried to fix it. But what they have done is inserted additional elements and opportunities for government to muddle the market, risking breaking the biodiversity market with their Orwellian nature repair. A key difference between this bill and the coalition's bill was that our bill rewarded farmers for the great biodiversity work that they already do. Let's remember that the majority of the Australian continent is agricultural land, be it private farm properties or pastoral leases. As the then agriculture minister Littleproud said when introducing the bill:

… farmers … play a key role in maintaining healthy ecosystems on nearly 60 per cent of Australia's land. However, their stewardship of that land is not currently valued by the market.

We need a national voluntary agriculture biodiversity stewardship market that recognises and financially rewards them for their efforts to restore, enhance or protect biodiversity.

Minister Littleproud went on to explain that the then proposed agriculture biodiversity stewardship market:

… would complement the voluntary carbon market, providing an incentive for farmers to establish carbon plantings that also deliver biodiversity benefits. Environmental plantings deliver carbon and biodiversity benefits, but to date, only carbon benefits have been recognised.

This is true, and we are breaking new ground in Australia by proposing a market for biodiversity. Labor have taken an agricultural land focused initiative and expanded it to other land and even to the oceans. They have run ahead of the pilot projects initiated under the coalition, such as the Carbon + Biodiversity Pilot, which trialled market arrangements for farmers to create a new income from plantings that deliver biodiversity improvements and carbon abatement. Eligible farmers made environmental plantings of native trees and shrubs on previously cleared land and committed to maintaining them—potentially at great cost, I might add—for 25 to 100 years. The Carbon + Biodiversity Pilot project participant farmers could also enter into a carbon abatement contract to earn Australian carbon credit units and receive a biodiversity payment. The other pilot project is the Enhancing Remnant Vegetation Pilot, enabling farmers to protect and enhance remnant vegetation on their land with tenure agreements for which they would receive a payment and/or rent and some reimbursement of their management costs. I might say that the incongruence of the Labor government now looking to put transmission lines right through that native remnant vegetation is mind-boggling.

Those pilot projects were meant to provide the first supply of biodiversity certificates, but now Labor has thrown open the door to almost any land under the Australian sun being open for credits. Would it not have been better to allow the pilot projects to establish how this will work and get through the prototypes and teething issues before throwing the market open to everyone? If this passes in its present form, we may never know. Let me give a brief example of how working collaboratively with farmers would have been a better approach. From my own electorate of Mallee, the Wimmera Regional Catchment Strategy states:

The Wimmera is a biodiversity hotspot. The region is the geographical and biological transition between temperate and arid Australia.

The strategy says that the Wimmera features:

…the distribution of numerous 'temperate' species, like the smoky mouse (Pseudomys fumeus), southern brown bandicoot (Isoodon obesulus) and long-nosed potoroo (Potorous tridactylus).

The strategy goes on to explain:

Formerly dominated by grassy woodlands, these areas are famed for their agricultural productivity but also support important biodiversity assets like the Wimmera grasslands, internationally significant wetlands and habitat for the critically endangered south-eastern red-tailed black cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus banksii graptogyne).

They are magnificent birds. The strategy goes on to explain how the remnant patches of native vegetation are extremely important to maintaining biodiversity, situated as they are, 'interspersed within the agricultural matrix'. It made sense, as the coalition was doing in working first with the farmers through the previous bill, to enhance these biodiversity stepping stones, or 'pathways', as the Wimmera Regional Catchment Strategy defines them. I understand that the initial pilot work of the coalition bill was easily adaptable to rangelands as well, and we could have expanded the market comfortably into those areas. But now the floodgates have been thrown open, and there's a risk the market could become 'not fit for purpose' in the eyes of potential investors.

This bill brings all levels of government into the market, including state governments and, at least in theory, local governments. The biodiversity enhancing work that state governments do will qualify for biodiversity certificates under this bill, so what have Labor done? They have already skewed the market. They've brought government into the game when the pilot projects were about establishing a price in the open market. Now the market involves governmental players, which will diminish what would have been the opening value of farmers' certificates under what the coalition proposed. Don't get me wrong—local government would be thrilled, in my electorate of Mallee and throughout regional Australia, with the prospect of an income stream through biodiversity certificates. However, they are already crying out that they cannot afford to maintain their roads and other services and have stretched their budgets as is. They are pulling out of providing aged care after Labor's ham-fisted implementation of the royal commission recommendations, where they failed to acknowledge the regional health crisis, the regional aged-care crisis, the regional housing crisis and the regional workforce crisis, so I'm not optimistic that, in the early nature repair market that Labor proposes, our stretched regional councils will have the budget to invest in the biodiversity work that would theoretically earn them a new income stream. In the end, most biodiversity work by governments is conducted by state governments, not local governments. Could this market have been conceived to expand state government revenue streams to offset the cost of doing biodiversity work? It is conceivable. We will see state governments get an even bigger budget and local government budgets shrink under Labor's expanded nature repair market.

As we debate in this place the constitutional mechanisms to enable a referendum on the Voice to Parliament for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, it is significant that Labor's Nature Repair Market Bill elevates the consent requirements for native title holders. This bill will require native title holders to be consulted and give their consent to the project much earlier than the previous bill allowed.

The expansion of land to which this bill applies now also means that native title bodies will be able to apply for a biodiversity certificate. I cannot help but wonder if this is the beginning of the Voice economy. In the absence of economic development in areas controlled by a land council or similar, are Labor now creating a new income stream to compete with the market that was initially designed by the coalition for farmers to reward their on-farm conservation efforts? I'm not saying that the scheme should never have been opened up more broadly, but a deliberate, considered, pilot project has now been thrown open to all comers and, conveniently, during a debate on a voice to parliament: 'Here's a new potential income stream for Indigenous communities.' I'm not critical of economic development in Indigenous communities, but this does look like Labor's opening salvo in establishing a voice economy.

Over the summer holidays, we saw Treasurer Jim Chalmers's economic essay on restructuring the Australian economy to reflect, to put it simply, Labor values and Keynesian economics. This expansion of the coalition's model to include other land holders, adding all levels of government and Indigenous land councils, looks like it has Treasurer Chalmers's ideological fingerprints all over it. The bill is silent on the apparent offset market approach. As Leader of the Nationals David Littleproud highlighted yesterday, Labor's approach to climate regulation will now see the biggest carbon dioxide emitters hunting for offsets. The compliance time frame on carbon has been brought forward to please inner-city people who believe action on climate change isn't happening fast enough, which is going to drive emitters into the offset market. Tracts of agricultural land will be purchased to tick the box, and emitters will continue emitting. Due to the likely interconnections between biodiversity and carbon credits, we can be sure the mysterious offset arrangements, hiding to the side of this bill, will further frustrate what was, under the coalition government, a soundly developed biodiversity market.

Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Higgins, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Nature Repair Market Bill 2023 and the related bill. In Australia, we pride ourselves on having a pristine natural environment, with white sandy beaches as far as the eye can see, tropical and temperate rainforests teeming with life, and the quiet power of our central desert. Our spiritual connection and economic dependency on nature is indisputable. More than half of Australia's GDP is moderately to highly dependent on nature, tourism and food production, noting that 70 per cent of our food is reliant on pollinators, such as bees, insects and bats, as are pharmaceuticals. Many of the drugs I used to dispense actually originated in nature, particularly from fungi. However, when you pull back the veil, the reality is completely different. It is confronting. This was highlighted in the Samuel review, which was released in 2020, and then confirmed in the State of the environment report, which was released in 2021. Those opposite actually suppressed this report. What it stated was that Australia's environment is in a poor and deteriorating state. When read in parallel, the picture is grim. The environment is certainly deteriorating, and it is not resilient enough to current or emerging threats. We are witnessing native species extinction, habitat loss and cultural heritage destruction, all of which are accelerating.

Climate change presents the threat multiplier, adding to competing pressures like economic development and human activity, as well as the ingress of invasive species—feral cats, foxes and gamba grass to name a few. Australia now has the ignominious title of being the mammal extinction capital of the world. Since colonisation, 100 endemic species—meaning they're only found on this continent—have become extinct, and we have one of the highest rates of species decline among countries in the OECD. There are more than 1,900 threatened species listed under the EPBC Act of which plants comprise more than half, with over 1,300 at risk of extinction. At least 19 ecosystems are showing signs of collapse or near collapse, including the Great Barrier Reef. If we keep going this way, koalas could become extinct in New South Wales before 2050. We need to pull the handbrake and course correct. We need to challenge our mental models. When we worship at the temple of GDP, nature comes off second-best. This reflects a historic failure of economics to take into account the value of our natural world. This is baffling, considering that the natural world is the source of our food, water, air and raw materials. It nourishes us, both physically and spiritually. Our current and future economies depend on our environmental capital, and that is depleting rapidly. This was always known by our First Peoples. They now seek a greater role in environmental management, and why not? Declines in biodiversity are much slower on lands governed by First Peoples.

Halting the degradation is important. This is outlined in our threatened species plan—a commitment to prevent new extinctions of plants and animals. Conserving an additional 50 million hectares of our land mass equating to 30 per cent of our land in addition to 30 per cent of our oceans is something that we want to do. We are prioritising 110 species and 20 places for conservation. These were chosen based on a set of criteria and represent our diverse land, sea and freshwater environments. Let's meet some of these critters. We have 22 birds—among them are the malleefowl, the red-tailed black cockatoo and the regent honeyeater. There are 21 mammals, including the Australian sea lion, the quokka and the western ringtail possum. There are nine fish, including the grey nurse shark. We have six frogs—frogs are like the canaries in the coal mine; when they die, it should raise alarm bells and red flags—and among them is the mountain frog.

We need to do more than protect nature; we need to go further and repair it. The scale of the problem—I mean, we are talking about reversing extinction here—means that government cannot do this alone. We need to co-opt private investment, just as we are doing with tackling climate change. It's time for a so-called green Wall Street. The nature repair market is a novel market mechanism to repair nature by attracting business and the private sector to the task. Business is brimming with innovative ideas. These can now be directed to restoring biodiversity.

The NRM aligns with target 21 of the threatened species plan by encouraging private sector investment linked to a tradeable green bond or a biodiversity certificate. It will allow landowners, farmers, conservation groups, First Nations communities, businesses and philanthropists to invest in repairing nature, either on land or in water. Possible projects might include excluding livestock and feral animals to restore a natural marsh for frogs, fish, turtles and water birds; replanting a vital corridor of koala habitat; or restoring seagrass meadows, providing refuge for turtles, dugongs, fish and seahorses, which will in turn increase local fish stocks, with benefits to commercial and recreational fishermen. It may mean planting a mix of local species on previously cleared land, feral animal exclusion, buffer grass removal or cultural burning in the Central Desert. It may also mean repairing damaged river beds.

For a young person of today, imagine the career opportunities and the spillover effects. This bill will formalise the participation of First Peoples by creating employment and economic opportunities for them on their country, using their knowledge of country, only now it will be commodified. There are huge opportunities for First Nations communities who have rights or interests over approximately 50 per cent of Australia's land.

We're repairing what's broken and protecting what's good. We understand that any investment in the nature repair market should not substitute for legislative protection, which is why we have committed to conserving 30 per cent of our land and water, with much of the focus being on terrestrial assets—land—from the current 22 per cent protection base line. Within the five-year term of the Threatened Species Action Plan, we will aim for an increase of 50 million hectares of land and sea—that is massive—managed for conversation by 2027, putting us on a trajectory to meet our 30 per cent goal by 2030. The time lines are long, often measured in decades, because reversing decline and preventing threatened species loss takes time, but it starts locally, with a million ideas and, hopefully, native flowers blooming.

What does that economic field of flowers look like? According to PwC it could be $137 billion unlocked by 2050. That is an untapped demand with the holy trinity of social, environmental and economic benefits. Major organisations, including the ACF, the WWF, the National Farmers Association and BCA—the Business Council of Australia—have provided in principle support. The bill will enable the Clean Energy Regulator, an independent statutory authority, to issue biodiversity certificates. Biodiversity certificates can then be traded between companies wanting to invest in nature and/or to enhance their environmental credentials. These certificates will be linked to a measurable outcome, because we need to be certain that proven gains are actually achieved. We have to give the market confidence and we want to put greenwashing aside.

To that end, the ACCC and ASIC will be involved so that buyers can then invest with confidence, avoiding accusations of greenwashing. Offsets in the scheme are seen as a last resort. Why? Because averting loss is not good enough. We want to remediate and restore. We will develop separately a national environmental standard for offsets associated with a hierarchy of actions where we avoid, reduce, use and offset or pay, exchanging like for like.

The independent Nature Repair Market Committee will oversee the delivery of nature-positive outcomes, to give the scheme integrity. Comprising five to six experts in agriculture, science, environmental markets, land management, economics or Indigenous knowledge, it will consult with the public and provide advice to the minister. This advice will be made public. Transparency will be a core element of the scheme; a public register of projects and certificates will be maintained to ensure that all transactions are transparent. This will enable public scrutiny of projects via parliament and via citizen oversight.

We want to incentivise the restoration of nature by mobilising private investment. The demand is there and we're now providing the framework to enable those green shoots to emerge and grow. I commend the bill to the House.

Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Nature Repair Market Bill 2023. Around 180 million years ago, the supercontinent of Gondwana split. One of the breakaway landmasses from that separation contained what would become known as Australia and Antarctica. Within 30 million years, Australia had fully separated and journeyed north on its own. Since then, changes in land formation and climate, and physical separation from the rest of the world, have led to the evolution of the unique flora and fauna we know in Australia today. Indeed, as a nation we're home to between 600,000 to 700,000 species, many of which are found nowhere else in the world. And, while the word 'biodiversity' is a scientific word, its meaning is simple: it describes the incredible array of different types of life we find around us and the delicate balance that exists between them all. It's a balance which enables them not just to survive but to thrive. It is this balance which is under threat globally.

My electorate of North Sydney is home to open scrub, dominated by black she-oaks, gully forests, estuarine mangrove forests on intertidal mudflats and estuarine saltmarshes, as well as sandstone rainforests, forest red gum and foreshore forests. And yet in this area, often referred to as the 'leafy Lower North Shore', we have 60 threatened species. Those are creatures like the powerful owl, the Regent honeyeater, the grey-headed flying fox and the giant burrowing frog, all of which called the geography now covered by my electorate home long before European settlement, but all of which are now facing the existential threat of annihilation.

Ultimately, biodiversity creates balance, and every life form plays a part in maintaining that balance. If we lose the bacteria that purify the water then the trees will not be able to get the water they need. As a result, many animals will lose their food source. As humans, we rely on this rich variety of nature for things like clean drinking water, food, medicine and shelter, and yet right across the country our unique nature is under threat. Prior to European settlement, diverse bushland habitats covered the gullies and ridge tops of the North Sydney Council area within my electorate. Today, less than five per cent of these unique vegetation communities remain and, due to our human-modified landscape, all are vulnerable to ongoing urban pressures. In the minister's own words, we're now 'the mammal extinction capital of the world', having lost more species than any other continent.

The fact that Australia has lost more mammal species than any other continent and has one of the highest rates of species decline in the developed world should be a source of national shame, yet for the preceding two decades the findings and reviews completed since the introduction of the EPBC Act in 1999 have quite literally been ignored. As a consequence, more than a hundred Australian species have been listed as either extinct or extinct in the wild, with the major causes of extinction being introduced species and habitat destruction and clearing. Meanwhile, the recent state of the environment report made it clear. In the past five years the number of threatened ecological communities has grown by another 20 per cent, and for the first time we have more foreign plant species than native ones in this country.

Looking to my own community, its level of awareness, key concerns and expectations were all clearly delivered to me, not only through direct conversations but via the results of a recent survey, which showed the vast majority of my community is very concerned about the dire state of Australia's natural environment. I'm worried we're not acting fast enough. My community is clear: success in this area must be measured in biodiversity repair and conservation, not just by a reduction in degradation. We must make every effort to rejuvenate nature. In the words of one resident, 'This is not a time for business as usual.'

In the face of a challenge of this scale, then, this government and this parliament have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to conceive and introduce truly transformational legislation to bring our nation together, uniting all levels of government: local, state and national. Private individuals, landholders, farmers, natural resource management groups, investors and banks, and businesses—large and small—must be a priority for us. Last night, I hosted an online community forum for my electorate, during which those in attendance heard from both the environment sector and the business sector. Both said that now is the time for action.

Everyone recognises the size of this challenge and is ready to work with the government to deliver a bold solution, and herein lies the rub with what we have before us. While the size of the challenge is well known, the government has chosen to start the process of looking at how we approach transformation by focusing on a small piece of the solution—the establishment of a nature repair market. It's a decision that confuses many and leaves them concerned that the government will be looking to personal and business investment to fix the problem, rather than ensuring it stays front and centre in driving action by prioritising the agreement of national environment standards and establishing the equivalent of a national environment protection agency, which the government has now given the working title Environment Information Australia.

In this context, my community fundamentally believes we should be debating a full suite of legislation that would deliver on the government's election commitment to bolster national environmental laws and introduce new national standards for development assessments in this place, in this moment. Improving the state of the environment requires national leadership; integrated management across federal, state and territory systems; new forms of funding; and improved monitoring and reporting. The sequencing should be that we have those reforms laid out before us before we debate this market mechanism.

We know from the Samuel review that the current EPBC Act is unfit for purpose and is failing to meet its objectives. As Professor Samuel himself concluded:

To shy away from the fundamental reforms recommended by this Review is to accept the continued decline of our iconic places and the extinction of our most threatened plants, animals and ecosystems.

The government have indicated they will deliver stronger laws designed to repair nature, to protect precious plants, animals and places, alongside national environmental standards to describe the environment outcomes we want to achieve and a new environment protection agency to make development decisions and properly enforce them, yet that's not what this legislation does.

The truth is many in my community are confused as to why the government is introducing a market based solution as its first priority, given the size and scope of the new environmental reforms required. North Sydney residents have told me that this bill should not replace proper reform and environmental protection laws; it should play a small part in a much bigger change to protect our natural environment. What we have before us not only puts the cart before the horse but drives it all the way to the market. We do not have stronger laws in place. We do not have national environmental standards. We do not have an agency to enforce the laws and the standards. My community fears that, without these as a strong foundation for reform, the market based scheme that this bill establishes may well fail, and failure in biodiversity protection could lead to perverse outcomes and set all efforts back significantly.

It's for these reasons that I not only support the second reading amendments moved by the members for Wentworth and Goldstein but also will be moving a number of proposed amendments during the consideration in detail debate to encourage the government to expedite broader reforms onto the same trajectory. The market should not be operational until (1) the new offsets national environmental standard is legally enforceable; and (2) the new Environment Protection Agency is legally established. The minister has indicated that these reforms are on their way, with an exposure due in the second half of 2023, so my amendment allows for a 12-month period for the broader reforms, within which this repair market would sit, to be developed, debated and passed. It is clear the government must take the lead in addressing the biodiversity and extinction crisis we face.

With this broader context in mind and essential root-and-branch reforms on the horizon, I consider the Nature Repair Market Bill a small step in the right direction. As I have outlined, the size of the challenge to enhance, protect and maintain our biodiversity requires all comers. This bill will make it easier for businesses, philanthropists and others to invest in repairing nature across Australia, allowing landowners to be paid by a third party for protecting and restoring nature on their property. Some of the programs the scheme might support include farmers removing invasive weeds and animals to give space for native animals and plants, or Indigenous rangers controlling feral animals. Groups like Landcare Australia have said it will encourage good landholder management of ecosystem services, such as restoration and protection of native habitat, with benefits for biodiversity, soil stabilisation, water quality and carbon sequestration.

I support the intent of the bill, but, in order to ensure optimal outcomes for people and nature, the bill must be strengthened. I was sent to Canberra by my community of North Sydney on a platform of more ambitious, more rapid action to address climate change. The impacts of climate change, including drought, bushfires, storms, ocean acidification, sea level rise and global warming, on our ecosystems is clear. We know many plants and animals cannot adapt to the effects of climate change, with 1,000 plant and animal species and ecological communities already at risk of extinction in New South Wales alone. In addition, we must recognise that action on nature repair cannot happen in isolation to action on climate change.

Overwhelmingly my community of North Sydney has told me the No. 1 priority for the environment portfolio is to address the underlying causes of poor biodiversity, which are human impacts, invasive species and climate related impacts. For this reason, I'm also proposing to amend the objects of this act to ensure that climate change drivers and impacts are incorporated and integrated into every step of environmental and biodiversity protection. The amendment adds to the objects of the act the objective:

… to promote the enhancement or protection of biodiversity against the urgent threat of climate change, drawing on the best available scientific knowledge.

This wording mirrors that which was recently passed through the Climate Change Act.

While there are many concerning findings and recommendations from Professor Samuel, perhaps the most worrying is that the community and industry do not trust the EPBC Act and the regulatory system that underpins its implementation. In this context, strong new institutions are essential to ensure the EPBC Act can be trusted to deliver the environmental outcomes required. A dominant theme in the 30,000 or more contributions received by the Samuel review was that many in the community do not trust the EPBC Act to deliver for the environment, and that institutional reform should promote transparency, accountability and integrity in the administration of the act, and monitoring, evaluation and improvement in the delivery of environmental outcomes.

In this context again I will be moving amendments to ensure the Clean Energy Regulator's activities reports and the Secretary's report on biodiversity certificates must not only be published on relevant websites but also tabled in parliament within 15 sitting days after the end of the financial year—again, mirroring similar amendments that I moved and that were successfully made to the climate bills. Tabling reports to the operation of regulatory schemes like the nature repair market promotes transparency and accountability. As the Scrutiny of Bills Committee outlines, there should be appropriate justification for not requiring the documents to be tabled.

As I've said previously in this place, Australian voters voted to have politics done differently. To do so, we must ensure information is shared beyond the minister and the two parties to the whole of parliament and, ultimately, our constituencies. Only through the consistent, accessible and timely provision of information are we able to do our jobs thoroughly as parliamentarians and can our communities hold us to account. As a North Sydney community member urged me: 'Let's not distract or shift accountability from the core challenge, Kylea.'

The minister, the government, all of us in this place and all of our communities must work together to stop the extinction crisis before it is too late. The State of the environment report written in 2021 told us:

… the state and trend of the environment of Australia are poor and deteriorating as a result of increasing pressures from climate change, habitat loss, invasive species, pollution and resource extraction. Changing environmental conditions mean that many species and ecosystems are increasingly threatened.

With the next report due in 2026, all of us in this place and across our communities should be prepared to hold ourselves to account for ensuring we pursue more than an expedient headline. Learning from the mistakes of the past, adopting the very clear and sensible recommendations of those who have looked at this challenge long and hard and ensuring any legislation we prioritise or pursue ultimately not just protects but restores and repairs our precious native flora, fauna and ecosystems. To do anything less is to fail to meet both the obligations and the opportunities presented to us as parliamentarians in this 47th parliament. Let's lead boldly and show that politics can be done differently to generate positive, sustainable change. I can guarantee that our great-great-grandchildren will thank us for it.

Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to today to speak to the Albanese Labor government's approach to making our nation nature positive. The Nature Repair Market Bill is a bill that will benefit the environment and everyone that interacts with it. This bill will contribute to that vision, and the people of Boothby will benefit from this. My electorate is one of the most environmentally diverse in the state. Boothby spans the southern suburbs of Adelaide and, while an urban environment, has an ecosystem and biota representations spanning from coastal and marine ecosystems through to urban wetlands and rivers right up to the hills to the beautiful Belair National Park.

The Belair National Park, which is just 25 minutes from the Adelaide CBD, is South Australia's oldest and most accessible national park, spanning over eight square kilometres. It has amazing fauna, like bandicoots, echidnas, kangaroos, emus and the brown butterfly, as well as beautiful flora, like spider orchids, scented sundews and blue devil flowers. Down on the plains of my electorate, we have some of the best urban wetlands Adelaide has to offer. The Warraparinga Wetland along the Sturt River is a rich piece of biodiversity in my electorate, as well as such an important and sacred site to the local Kaurna people in Boothby. It's looked after by the Friends of Warriparinga.

A little further downstream on the Sturt River, we also have a more recently established Oaklands Park Wetland. It's another pit stop for species of birds travelling up from the river and cared for by the Friends of Sturt River. If you follow the river downstream, you reach the ocean and the beaches, like Glenelg and Brighton, which have beautiful marine environments.

I am very proud to be part of a government that is serious about being nature positive. To be nature positive is such a simple concept, yet it's something that we struggle with. Nature positive is more than just no more decline to nature. The government is not only stopping decline; we actually want to repair the damage and finally give back to the environment. We have taken from the environment for far too long. This government wants to give back, repair the natural environment and rebuild. The Albanese Labor government has taken this philosophy to all of its environmental commitments. This ambitious plan sees the environment put back front and centre, where it belongs. The Australian government has committed to protecting 30 per cent of Australia's land and seas by 2030, a commitment that recognises that the environment has been in decline and sets out to reverse this.

The same goals have been adopted globally under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. Biodiversity loss and nature decline is not an issue facing just Australia. It is a global issue, and one that we must all act upon. These goals reinforce the findings of the 2021 State of the environment report and its story of environmental degradation, loss and inaction. The report is a sobering read that shows the reality of where we are with environmental decline in this country, and I'm proud that this government has reviewed the science and is acting accordingly.

My home state of South Australia is well positioned for protecting 30 per cent land and sea by 2030. In fact, we have achieved such a goal already. It is more about the quality of such areas, helping communities look after them and valuing these areas. That's why we need a nature repair market. This legislation allows for investment in the environment for a nature-positive future and to protect these precious areas, empowering community groups as well as business and private sector investment. This approach to investment was highlighted in the findings of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act review by Professor Graeme Samuel AC. We know private companies, conservation groups and farmers and other landholders are eager for ways to achieve positive outcomes for nature. We need to bring all people that interact with the environment along with us on this journey.

This is not just good environmentally, it's also good from a financial perspective. It's estimated that the market for biodiversity in Australia could unlock $137 billion in financial flows by 2050. We are responding to that demand. We can bring together these groups that want to look after the environment and empower them to consider the environment in their business models. We want to build a system that is self-reinforcing so it has a future that isn't dependent on a government pushing it all the time but has momentum and drives itself.

The bill is designed to enable the Clean Energy Regulator, an independent statutory authority that has significant experience in regulating environmental markets, to issue Australian landholders with tradeable biodiversity certificates. These certificates can then be onsold to businesses, organisations, governments and individuals. The market is designed to be accessible to all landholders, including Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders, conservation groups and farmers. It is designed for long-term nature-positive outcomes achieved through activities such as weed reduction, planting native species and pest control. These activities can be undertaken on land or water, including in lakes and rivers, as well as in marine and coastal environments.

The market will also operate in parallel with the carbon market, facilitated by having the same regulator, the Clean Energy Regulator. Not only should Australians have confidence in this bill, as these markets exist in similar areas, but the scheme will also partner with these other markets, strengthening and complementing each other. The alignment will encourage carbon farming projects that also deliver benefits for biodiversity. There will be administrative efficiencies in this approach and, more importantly, clear and accurate oversight of claims made in both markets. The government acknowledges our recent review of carbon crediting, led by Professor Ian Chubb. Lessons learnt from the carbon market have informed the bill and will continue to be reflected upon as environmental markets develop.

Establishing the market in legislation will ensure its ongoing integrity, encourage investment in nature and drive environmental improvements across Australia. This will build confidence in the market for buyers to invest. The bill provides for biodiversity certificates to have integrity and represent an actual environmental improvement. A key integrity measure is an independent expert committee responsible for ensuring projects deliver high-quality nature-positive outcomes underpinned by a consistent approach to the measurement, assessment and verification of biodiversity. The integrity of environmental outcomes is also enabled through assurance and compliance requirements. These include monitoring, reporting and notification on the delivery of project activities and progress on an environmental outcome. The regulator will have monitoring and enforcement powers to ensure that projects are conducted in accordance with the rules.

The Nature Positive Plan reflects our commitment to restoring public accountability and trust. Transparency will be a core element of the scheme. Comprehensive information about projects and certificates will be available on a public register. Additional information will be regularly published by the regulator, and there will be an active release of relevant data by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. This will enable parliament and the public to monitor the scheme and provide an opportunity for citizen oversight. It will provide certainty and value to the market. The department is committed to working with the ACCC and ASIC to ensure that certificates issued in the nature repair market are not victims of greenwashing, that the statements made about certificates accurately reflect the projects and investment that they represent, and that projects in the carbon and biodiversity markets are not affected by misleading claims

The nature repair market will enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to promote their unique knowledge, on their terms. It will enable participation and create employment and economic opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It will promote and enable free, prior and informed consent for projects on their waters and lands. There will be opportunities to design projects that reflect the knowledge and connection to country of our First Nations people and to utilise their skills and knowledge for a nature-positive future. South Australia already has fantastic work being conducted in Indigenous protected areas, in co-managed parks and in landscape board regions, more broadly known as natural resource management boards. Indigenous rangers have been hired in these areas to facilitate this work and the unique knowledge. The nature repair market is also designed to support regional Australians, with open participation and extensive opportunities for project locations, creating jobs and nature-positive economic activity.

In conclusion, this bill will not only benefit the environment; it will benefit all of those who have a relationship with the environment. This bill is designed to leave nature better off for our kids and grandkids. The Albanese Labor government knows what it means to be nature positive. Let's help Australians achieve this too.

Colin Boyce (Flynn, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Nature Repair Market Bill 2023. I declare that I am a landholder. I have interests in both freehold and leasehold land in Central Queensland, and the details of my landholdings can be found on my statement of interests.

The purpose of this bill is to create biodiversity credits, along similar lines to energy generating credits, which will enable landholders to obtain tradeable certificates to be used in a similar way to carbon offsets. These proposed certificates would be administered by the Clean Energy Regulator, and they would be a national voluntary market incentive. There are issues which have substantial ramifications for the agriculture, mining and resources, forestry and fishing that could last for generations if these voluntary agreements are made. While this was originally an initiative of the previous government, it has been substantially widened in scope, and as such the future ramifications will not be fully understood by those taking up these agreements or by the general public. The biodiversity agreements will last for periods of 25 years or up to 100 years in duration. Such long periods of time do not allow for the ever-changing political climate, both domestic and international, nor do they consider fluctuating economic demand and supply, which change with time and which are a complete unknown 100 years from today. There is no allowance to adjust or change these commitments should the need arise. Furthermore, the agriculture, mining and resources, forestry and fishing sectors could possibly be forced to take up these biodiversity credits for economic reasons which do not help the future overall economy of Australia

The government is literally proposing to legally lock up land so that it will see no production for generations. The bill proposes to include virtually all types of land tenure, including the territorial waters of Australia, regardless of ownership or legal right. This would include all native title areas, including exclusive-possession native title. It would include all Crown land and Australian waters, irrespective of whether that land or those waters are subject to lease or licence, including whether the land or water is subject to native title agreement or application. The bill would include all Torrens system land title, which is basically all freehold land. In effect, what the government is proposing is that it would be possible to commit vast areas of Australian land and waters to a zero production scenario to help achieve the commitment to net zero by 2050. Paragraph 69 on page 23 of the explanatory memorandum says that 'native title land will be either Crown land or Torrens system land'. This would include all grazing homestead perpetual lease, forestry grazing lease and freehold agricultural land. At paragraph 77, the EM states:

In practice, this means that all biodiversity projects to be carried out on native title land or waters would need either to be undertaken by the relevant native title holders, or would require the consent of the relevant native title holders before the project could be registered. This would ensure that native title holders have the final say—

have the final say—

on whether, and what kind of, biodiversity projects are carried out on or in native title areas.

In other words, the native title holders would have control over much of agricultural Australia, should people wish to take up these biodiversity agreements.

The minister's explanatory notes say that the bill would enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to 'promote their unique knowledge on their terms'. What exactly does that mean? Is the minister suggesting in this statement that, if you are of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent, by birthright, you are automatically gifted some sort of knowledge that enables you to better manage land and have better outcomes than anybody else? This is just absurd. Define 'unique knowledge on their terms'. Are we supposed to surrender to this unsubstantiated knowledge, which could encapsulate anything, with no boundaries or parameters? I have no issue at all with Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people having an input, but giving this group of people exclusive right of veto or approval over a proposed agreement is something I take great exception to. This is specifically eroding the rights of everybody else and legally legislating the final say to Aboriginal corporations.

Furthermore, to be given the ability to impose requirements, as well as prohibiting specific activities, is outrageous. Recently, we have seen several instances of this sort of thing happening. The beach at Burrum Heads in Queensland is now closed to all those except native titleholders. No longer can you climb Mount Warning apparently because of some cultural heritage claim, which in my view is totally unsubstantiated. We have seen name changes at Fraser Island, for example. What's next—no tourists, no fishing, no camping? Is that where we're going with this?

The bill is proposing to allow a small group of Australians the ability to impose requirements on all others and prohibit activities with respect to biodiversity credit agreements. Where does this take us as a nation? Is this what Australians want? I think not. As a matter of fact, I think there are a large number of Australians who would vehemently disagree with this. This, in effect, is legislating certain control to a specific group of Australians. Where have we heard that one before? The Voice. Is this where we're going? Are we legislating principles of the Voice? This warrants an explanation by the minister. The Australian people want to know, and I would like to know.

Let's assume that a company has a mining lease on a piece of Crown land, and they want to make a biodiversity agreement on that land—on the mining lease—and claim credits. They would then have to seek approval from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who would now have the power to approve or disapprove the biodiversity agreement and, therefore, the potential to stop the mining development altogether, unless the rent-seeking agendum is adhered to. I have no doubt the Greens and the radical Left will love this, as they want to stop all gas and coal production in Australia. In the explanatory memorandum, on page 5, under the heading 'Registration of biodiversity projects', the notes say:

… the registered native title body corporate would be able to consent to another person being the project proponent and carrying out the project in or on the native title area.

The way I read that is that an environmental group or any other particular group could make an agreement with an Aboriginal body, make a biodiversity project agreement, take over vast areas of land and lock it up for possibly a hundred years.

This will affect agriculture, mining, resources, forestry and fisheries—the very industries that are the basic economic generators of wealth in this country. It would be locking up land for possibly a hundred years that would become a haven for any number of feral pests and invasive and noxious weed species. To make a comparison, our national parks are already overrun with any number of these feral and invasive noxious weed species. They are mismanaged, become firetraps and, ultimately, destroy more nature than what they save.

The very title of the bill—nature repair bill—has inference. It is saying that nature is broken. Nature is not broken. In fact, it is alive and well. Mother Nature is relentless, unforgiving, cruel and heartless, and, at the same time, beautiful, bountiful, nurturing and loving. Above all, nature is adaptive, flexible and changing. One rule applies: survival of the fittest, and it gives no quarter to the weak. I would argue that there are very few places left in Australia that you could call 'pristine'. The Australian ecosystem has changed, and it will not be undone. There are donkeys, horses, camels, pigs, rabbits, cats, dogs, cane toads, fire ants, carp and any number of weed species—rubber vine, lantana, mother-of-millions, parthenium, lovegrass, giant rat's-tail grass and parkinsonia, just to name a few. The point is that, if we lock up vast areas of Australia for biosecurity credits with no management, Mother Nature will ensure the survival of the fittest to the detriment of the native flora and fauna of Australia.

We struggle to manage our feral pests and invasive species now, and by locking more of Australia up this problem will get worse. Up in the hills here, south and west of Canberra, we can't even control the feral horse population, causing enormous environmental damage, all because of some bleeding-heart 'Man from Snowy River'mentality. What guarantees are there that biodiversity credits will provide better environmental outcomes? Page 3 of the explanatory notes says:

Buyers are expecting to be able to invest in nature to achieve philanthropic objectives, meet their social and environmental responsibilities, compensate for their impacts on nature and manage risks associated with their dependencies on nature.

I'll translate that statement. The wealthy virtue-signalling elite want to invest billions of dollars in Australian agricultural land, lock it up and forget about it to appease their own self-loathing of their irresponsible lifestyles while they continue their jet-setting, latte-sipping affluence, whilst priorly declaring they're environmentally aware. This is just some more of the monumental hypocrisy we hear from metropolitan Australia.

To sum this bill up, the government is proposing to create a system of voluntary biodiversity credits on Australian agricultural land that could possibly see it locked up for 100 years. This, in theory, will help big industry and the wealthy achieve the government's 43 per cent emissions reduction target by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050. The bill also gives right of veto or consent to a small group of Australians, eroding the rights of others. In effect, agricultural Australia, if they choose to take up these biodiversity agreements, will, in some cases, be in the position of having to pay rent to Aboriginal land councils. Once again, it's agriculture, mining, resources, fisheries and forestry that will pay the cost of zero net carbon policy, which, in terms of the rest of the world, is achieving absolutely nothing. It's for these reasons that I oppose the bill.

Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Albanese Labor government is committed to leaving a better world for future generations. We want to ensure that our kids, grandkids and each generation that comes after that inherit a planet that is healthy, vibrant and sustainable. We know that repairing our environment is not easy, but it will be a collective effort. That's why we're proposing to work with landholders, including farmers and First Nations communities, to take action on creating a more sustainable Australia. Whether it's through planting native species, repairing damaged riverbeds or removing invasive species, we want to do the work to restore and retain the natural beauty and wonder of our great country. That's why the Nature Repair Market Bill is a groundbreaking piece of legislation that will make it easier for people to invest in activities that will help repair our country and our planet.

By creating a market for nature repair we're providing an opportunity for those who care about the environment and the longevity of our planet to collaborate and contribute to its restoration and preservation. The purpose of the Nature Repair Market Bill 2023 is to provide a framework to establish a voluntary national market in biodiversity certificates. The bill will allow for project proponents to undertake projects to enhance and protect Australia's biodiversity. They can then apply to the Clean Energy Regulator, where one can obtain a biodiversity certificate.

Australia is one of 17 megadiverse countries with a disproportionate political responsibility for conservation and biodiversity management. Even though Australia occupies just five per cent of the world's landmass, we support almost 12.5 per cent of vertebrate animals—that is, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals—and eight per cent of all described plant, animal and fungal species. In addition, 85 per cent of Australia's plants, animals, reptiles and amphibians are endemic—that is, they are found nowhere else.

The most recent state of the environment report, 2021, released by the Minister for the Environment and Water in July 2022—it was held back and hidden by the former government but rightfully released by the minister for the environment soon after our election in May 2022—found that Australia's native plant and animal species are in a poor or very poor and deteriorating state. Our aquatic ecosystems are also in a poor state, with the aquatic ecosystem condition in southern, eastern and south-western Australia in a very poor state. Marine habitats, species and ecosystem processes are in a predominantly good and stable condition; however, reefs and reef associated species are in a poor condition and deteriorating.

What the state of the environment report brings to light is the mounting cumulative impacts of a multitude of poorly addressed threats to biodiversity, including climate change, habitat disturbance and land clearing, invasive species, fishing, extractive industries and pollution—threats that were ignored and, in the case of this report, hidden by the former Liberal government. Leading Australian scientists have identified 19 Australian ecosystems that are already collapsing, and these include the Murray-Darling river basin and the Great Barrier Reef, which have until now underpinned significant sectors of the Australian economy.

There have been many studies that have explored the adequacy of funding for biodiversity conservation in Australia, the funding need and the direct value of ecosystem services provided by nature. These studies found that Australia spends just 15 per cent of what is needed to avoid extinctions and recover threatened species. By spending approximately $2 billion annually for 30 years, we could restore 13 million hectares of degraded land without affecting intensive agriculture or urban areas.

On top of this, approximately half of Australia's GDP has a moderate to very high direct dependence on ecosystem services provided by nature. In the last quarter of 2022, the minister for the environment formally presented the Albanese government's response to both the state of the environment report and the Samuel review. This includes the 2022-2032 Threatened species action plan: towards zero extinctions. The revision of the former government's threatened species action plan includes new objectives preventing new extinctions and a commitment to conserving and protecting at least 30 per cent of Australia's landmass. If you look at the state of the environment report, that's the very least that we can do.

The minister has put forward the Nature Positive Plan, which is better for the environment and better for business. Now that commitments made in the lead-up to the election have been formalised and the government has responded to the Samuel review, the Nature Positive Plan brings forward reforms including reform of the EPBC Act, centred on national environment standards; the creation of an independent environmental protection agency; greater use of regional planning and improved conservation planning arrangements; reform of environmental offsets; the creation of a nature repair market; increased access to environmental data information; and better working relationships with our First Nations people.

The minister described the Nature Positive Plan as the biggest environmental reform agenda in a generation. The minister has indicated that legislation to implement reforms to the EPBC Act would be released as an exposure draft before the end of this year, and I look forward to contributing on that bill. The NRM bills we're discussing today are timely and will empower the minister to make biodiversity assessment instruments and methodology determinations setting out specific requirements for how distinct types of biodiversity projects may be implemented. They will establish the important Nature Repair Market Committee to advise the minister, including on whether biodiversity assessment instruments are appropriate and whether determinations are consistent with the standards. They will require the CER to maintain an online platform to facilitate trading in these biodiversity certificates. We know that biodiversity and nature are greatly important to Australia, not only to underpin cultural and spiritual systems but to provide educational and scientific opportunities and a critical ecosystem for services which underpin our economic and social systems, not only here in Australia but the world over.

The efforts of parties under the biodiversity convention, which is an international agreement, have largely failed, which has led to the establishment of further biodiversity frameworks. This framework outlines four high-level goals to be achieved by 2050 and 23 action oriented targets to be achieved by 2030, including at least 30 per cent of areas of degraded terrestrial land to be restored. This is an incredibly important step. Prior to the development of that framework, it was determined that more funding needed to be put towards this. This bill will help establish markets to provide a mechanism to do that. The Nature Repair Market Bill is a way for the Albanese Labor government to deliver on its plan through establishment of this market. It will make it easier for businesses and individuals to protect nature through investing in projects. In a world where we know climate change is having a real impact on the day to day and on our economy, we are working very hard to ensure Australia is habitable and safe for generations to come.

Investment in conservation and restoration is imperative for a nature-positive future, and it's important that businesses have the opportunity to prevent environmental decline by investing in the very environment they benefit from. We know that greenwashing is a problem and something that our regulators are actively investigating. Through this bill, we will provide a mechanism for businesses to have the opportunity to invest in something that will really make a difference, something that will be regulated and above board.

We also know that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples will be able to promote their unique knowledge in establishing the market. Establishing the market in legislation will ensure its integrity, ensure investment in nature and create environmental improvements across Australia. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples will also have greater employment and economic opportunities, as they will be able to design projects on their land and waters that reflect the connection they have to the country.

This market will operate in parallel with the carbon market in order to encourage carbon farming projects that deliver benefits for biodiversity. The approach will be efficient and draw upon lessons learnt from prior involvements in the carbon market reflected continuously throughout the development of the environmental market.

Transparency is so important as part of this bill. Detailed information about projects and certificates will be available to be accessed by the public. Information will be consistently published by a regulator, and the relevant data will be released by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. This will allow the parliament and, importantly, the public to monitor the scheme, to provide feedback and to have confidence in the scheme. The department is committed to working with the ACCC and ASIC to prevent greenwashing claims from certificates used in the nature repair market. It's important that the statements made about certificates are accurate and that they reflect the projects they represent rather than being misleading.

In prior decades, successive governments have failed to address the key drivers of a cumulative loss in biodiversity, such as land clearing, intensive agriculture and intensive resource projects. It's imperative these issues are addressed as soon as possible in order to prevent the consequences they bring about. That's what the repair market bills and the establishment of this market are all about. The issue of comprehensive reform of our national environmental laws in order to adequately protect Australia's unique biodiversity remains high on the Albanese Labor government's agenda. These bills provide an outline for the creation of a market in biodiversity certificates, allowing the private sector to price something that's invaluable for the purposes of their claim. It's a good way for our good corporate citizens to get involved in repairing our environment.

The key elements of this repair market bill will be provided in subordinate legislation, including rules, biodiversity assessment instruments and methodology determinations. The bill and explanatory memorandum will allow the development of methodologies to focus on the restoration and protection of habitat that's critical for threatened species and ecological communities. This bill will address the need to live on a more sustainable planet that can be enjoyed by us and future generations to come. I commend these bills to the House.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Nature Repair Market Bill 2023. We wouldn't leave the minimum wage of some of our most vulnerable workers up to the market. It's accepted, including, I think, by this government that we need regulation to step in because there's a power imbalance. And if we don't put things in law to protect people then the market, which very often means big corporations having more power than others, gets its way. And that would mean wages go down. That's why we have minimum wages and award wages putting in more.

In aged care, we wouldn't say, 'Well, we'll just leave it all up to the market.' It's because we know that if for-profit providers come in and decide to make a profit out of aged care and there are no minimum standards in law then they will drive the standard of care into the ground just to make a quick buck. That's why we have laws in place which are meant to protect people, because we know that corporations will do what corporations do: seek to make a profit. That's what they're there for. Government needs to step in and provide protections in law because the market won't do it. We know that with wages and we know that with care for looking after people. But when it comes to protecting the environment from greedy developers who are destroying habitat right across this country and contributing to the extinction crisis, this government says: 'We'll leave all that up to the market. Let's turn that over to the market and leave it up to them.'

The first significant environment bill that they have brought in here doesn't put in place strong standards to protect the environment and doesn't deal with the climate crisis, the biggest threat to our precious environment according to the State of the environment report. What do they do? They bring a bill into this place that says, 'Let's turn nature into a market.' It's in the title of the bill! The minister went on to say, 'We want to have a green Wall Street.' Well, Wall Street crashed, Minister Plibersek! Why do you want to put protection of our environment into the hands of the stock market? Into the hands of speculators? Into the hands of people who only exist to make a buck? This is critical when it comes to protecting our precious environment—it's as critical there just as much as it is with wages or aged care, where the government is willing, rightly, to step in and regulate.

Why is that? Because we know that some of the biggest threats—for example, to koala species—and one of the biggest threats, driving the extinction crisis in this country, are developers coming in and destroying land that's currently habitat and environment. That's what developers do. Instead of putting in place strong protections, the government says: 'Let's turn it into a market,' and there are no protections in this bill; so much is left up to the minister, 'Let's make it so that developers can come and say, 'We're going to destroy that koala habitat, but it's okay because we're going to pay to protect a little piece over here that was probably never going to be under threat anyway and we'll call it an offset. So we can go ahead with destroying the environment here because we've bought an offset somewhere else over there.' That's not protection of nature. That is handing the fate of our precious environment over to the market when we should be protecting the environment from the ravages of big corporations. I heard the previous speaker say that the government has got a comprehensive agenda that involves responding to the previous Samuel review that said there are many holes in our environment laws. I agree. But the first bill that the government brings in isn't to close those holes. It isn't to implement the Samuel review—and there are lots of good bits about that and some bits that need to be thought about further.

The government doesn't rush in here and say, 'We've got to put in place legislation to protect the environment.' No—they bring this in instead. Where did this idea come from? It didn't come from the groups who've said, 'We've got to stop destroying our environment if we want to make sure we've got places not only for animals and wildlife, but if we want to protect our country for our kids and our grandkids, because we know that one of the best ways of tackling climate change is to stop chopping down trees—let the trees stay where they are.' The government doesn't come in and say, 'We're going to do that.' The government scrapes around for ideas from someone else. In this case, they picked up this idea from the coalition. The government beat its chest when it came in here and said, 'The coalition should support it because it was their idea.' My goodness, Labor! You're in government. You've got a Senate with which you could pass strong action to protect the environment and the climate, and what do you do? You pick up an idea that the coalition chucked around when they were last in government. The last coalition government does not have a pretty record when it comes to protecting our environment. Why would you want to copy them? Why would you want to come in here and boast, 'We've picked up an idea and a bill that were previously floated by some of the very same people that just got turfed out by the Australian people at the election'?

You know the government is not serious about protecting the environment because they won't even follow the advice that has been presented to them. The last government—as I said, a terrible government for the environment and the climate—hid a very key report. They sat on it. They didn't want to release the State of the environment report. Why? It's because the report said the No. 1 threat to our environment is climate change. The minister rightly released that report and rightly pointed out the fact that the previous government was trying to hide it because they weren't interested in taking action on climate. We know that the biggest threat to Australia's environment—to our precious places, our biodiversity and our wildlife—is climate change. So you would think that the first piece of environmental protection legislation that the government would want to bring in would tackle that and say, 'We need to close the gaping loophole in Australia's environment laws that says you don't have to take into account climate change when the minister decides whether to approve a project.'

Just think about that for a moment. Climate change is the biggest threat to Australia's environment, and our environment laws are meant to protect the environment, but the environment laws don't need you to take climate change into account. Perhaps that's why this minister is approving new coal and gas projects when we know that coal and gas are the main cause of the climate crisis. This minister and this government are backing projects that will destroy our environment. If you were serious, you would do what everyone who wants to protect our environment has called for, and that is to put what's called a climate trigger into our environment laws. That is how you protect our environment. That is how you protect nature. You say, 'You can't keep opening up coal and gas projects in the middle of a climate crisis.' You can't do things that will make the climate crisis worse, because that will fast track the extinction crisis that we're in and will also fast track climate collapse.

The government's not doing that. The government's not saying that they want to stop projects that are going to make climate change worse. They're coming in here, instead, and saying, 'Let's let developers and others make a buck, even as we continue to destroy our environment, as long as they don't buy some offsets somewhere else.' If the government were serious about protecting Australia's environment they would put a climate trigger into our environment laws, and that should be their first order of business.

Do you know who else used to think that a climate trigger was a good idea, as well as the scientists, as well as all of the groups who are fighting to protect the environment, as well as the Greens? The Prime Minister. When he was in opposition, he introduced a bill to insert a climate trigger into our environment laws. He made a very eloquent speech and said that one of the biggest problems in Australia's environment laws is that you don't have to take into account climate change, which leads ministers to start approving projects like coal and gas projects that will make it worse. It was the Prime Minister who came into this place years ago and said it.

It's even more true now. The fix that's needed to our environment laws to protect nature is not to hand it over further to developers, like Labor wants to do, and let them buy their way out of the destruction of this bit of environment because you're protecting another bit over there that was probably never under threat anyway; it's to stop opening new coal and gas projects. That is what we need to do.

The UN Secretary-General, the International Energy Agency, the world's scientists and our Pacific island neighbours have all said, 'If Australia keeps opening coal and gas projects we will fast track climate collapse.' There can be no new coal and gas projects opened if we're to meet even the government's net zero by 2050 targets. That's what the conservative International Energy Agency is saying.

During the safeguard debate, the Greens managed to stop about half of the 116 new coal and gas projects in the pipeline or the equivalent thereof. But we know that Labor wants to open the rest. Labor is out, at the moment, in Western Australia and Queensland saying that they want to keep opening new gas projects. In the Northern Territory, we're seeing the Middle Arm project proceed with public money. That's public money at a time that they say they can't find a bit of extra money to fund some more affordable housing in the country and fund the rent freeze. They can find $1½ million though to fund the Middle Arm project in the Northern Territory. Down in Victoria, they're wanting to go ahead and drill near the 12 Apostles.

When everyone is telling us the best thing you can do to stop the climate crisis and the threat to the environment is stop opening coal and gas, Labor wants to keep opening more. This bill, that attempts to allow developers and others to make some money out of some offsets, that allows the destruction of the environment to continue, does not put in place the protections that are needed.

If the government were serious, and if the government wanted to do more than just be a pale imitation of the opposition, they would stop picking up the bills that were discarded from Liberals and Nationals when they were in government and start legislating to protect the environment. They would not say the answer is a green Wall Street, when we all know what happens when stock markets crash. They would say the answer to protecting nature is not to open it up to the speculators. The answer to protecting nature is to do what we do when it comes to protecting people and put in place protections in law. Just as we wouldn't say we're going to leave the minimum wage up to the market or we're going to leave the standard of aged care up to the market, we shouldn't leave protection of the environment up to the market either, because that means those with the most money win. And the environment loses.

Now is the time for strong protections in law to stop opening new coal and gas projects, because that is the single biggest and most effective thing that we can do to stop the climate collapse and protect Australia's environment and biodiversity.

Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I'll open with images of a drone flying over the Kanpa community.

As I soar through the sky above the vast expanse of the Gibson Desert, a mesmerising tapestry of nature unfolds beneath me. The rugged desert landscape stretches endlessly, adorned with ancient red sand dunes that rise and fall like waves frozen in time. The resilient vegetation of the region has adapted to the harshest desert conditions, painting the land with hues of green, brown and silver.

From above I witness the majestic presence of the iconic desert oak trees, their tall trunks and slender branches reaching towards the heavens, providing shade and shelter to life that thrives below it. The spinifex grass with its sharp blades and golden inflorescence creates a textured carpet across the desert, a testament to its ability to withstand the arid climate.

I gaze further and catch glimpses of wildlife that calls this arid oasis home. Kangaroos and emus roam the land, their large frames and distinct feathers blending seamlessly with the surrounds. A flock of zebra finches flutter and chirp and their vibrant plumage adds a splash of colour to the landscape.

In the distance I catch sight of the Kanpa community, a town serving as testament to the resilience, adaptability and connection to the land of the Ngaanyatjarra people who have called this place home for tens of thousands of years.

The sheer magnitude of this pristine desert landscape is a testament to the incredible diversity and resilience of unique life in this place. Following this, our sunburnt country has a natural beauty that is spectacular. And this is something that we must absolutely preserve for future generations.

Today, I'm proud to speak on a bill that will be transformative in addressing conservation issues in Australia. I remember speaking to a girlfriend who's a passionate economist. I complained about how we don't value our environment enough and that we have progressed at the expense of our planet. She pointed out that what it really means is that the economists haven't priced the externalities correctly. In many ways, this bill is doing exactly that.

The Nature Repair Market Bill creates a framework for a voluntary national market that delivers improved biodiversity outcomes through tradeable certificates. They're generated by landowners engaging in projects that embrace or protect biodiversity. I'm particularly excited by the potential for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to engage in this market, using the knowledge of their land embedded in their culture.

The Nature Repair Market Bill, in some ways, reminds me of the creation of a carbon trading market, which we had done under a former Labor government. In fact, this new bill will be overseen by the same regulator. From humble beginnings carbon markets are now worth over $1.3 trillion and they are the primary driver of emissions reductions in the world and are part of the world's largest shares in the EU.

I think it's amusing that the Leader of the Greens is comfortable with carbon markets but not on nature repair bill markets. The truth is, the way that I like to think about it is, our national parks are like our minimum wage policy, but what this bill does is add value to what we're doing in the environment.

The Albanese Labor government has set an ambitious target to protect 30 per cent of Australia's land and seas by 2030. This commitment reflects the recognition of the urgent need to preserve and safeguard the nation's natural ecosystem. By aiming to conserve such a significant portion of Australia's territory, the government demonstrates its dedication to ensuring the long-term health and resilience of our unique landscapes.

Achieving this goal will involve expanding and establishing national parks, conservation reserves and marine protected areas, while actively engaging with Indigenous communities and environmental organisations. This is something the Albanese government has already been doing. Today, in question time in this place, the minister for the environment discussed how the Albanese government has tripled the size of the Macquarie Island Marine Park.

The Albanese Labor government's commitment to align with the 30 per cent UN target adopted through the Convention on Biological Diversity and other geological initiatives to conserve and restore nature, sets an example for other nations. Through this ambitious endeavour, the Albanese government aims to foster a sustainable and harmonious coexistence between humans and our environment to preserve Australia's remarkable ecosystems for our children and grandchildren.

But it's more than just maintaining or mandating existing ecosystems. The conflict at the heart of conservation policy is a natural desire to hold matters of the environment as separate from world markets and economic development. This is not the world that we live in. Land is often touched by economic development, and we need smart ways to think about how we repair this land. Australia has some of the best regulations of reserves and national parks of any country in the world, but it's not enough. It isn't enough to deal with the crisis of habitat loss in Australia, it isn't enough to deal with the looming crisis of species extinctions of our unique wildlife, and it isn't enough to address the climate crisis, which, as we know, is affected by the destruction of complex and diverse carbon sinks. To properly protect our environment, we need to properly price the positive economic externalities that biodiversity gifts us, to incentivise the conservation of biodiversity on privately owned land and native title land. This requires putting a value on biodiversity and nature. This is an essential part of unlocking capital investment in conservation projects. We have international examples such as REDD+, the UN program to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries. Currently, this covers over 1.35 billion hectares of forest area in countries collectively responsible for 75 per cent of forest under threat of deforestation.

I grew up in Kambalda, a nickel-mining town, and one of the interesting things about growing up in that mining town is that, as students, we recognised that the land needed to be rehabilitated, and so one of the things that we would do was to go out to an old mine and then plant seeds and basically watch that land be rehabilitated. The truth is that we were also paid in cash, which helped pay for school camp. It was an example of a market and a way that we could repair the earth. So the truth is that it's been proven that we can unleash financial markets to incentivise conservation and thereby find innovative ways to monitor and conserve our lands.

There's a great example of conservation from WA. A Western Australian Aboriginal owned business called Marlee Djinda recently won grants from the department of infrastructure's Emerging Aviation Technology Partnerships Program. Basically, it aimed to promote Australia's unmanned aviation industry, also known as drones. A lot of Australian drone technology specialises in flying beyond line of sight in remote locations. With the support of this technology grant, Marlee Djinda have acquired cutting-edge spectral imaging systems and are now global leaders in integrating these capabilities. Marlee Djinda was formed to provide advanced drones and data services for Landcare projects. This enabled First Nations land corporations to access some of the most advanced airborne sensor technology in the world to assist with the conservation of biodiversity in country.

Marlee Djinda has several case studies directly applicable to the proposed nature repair market. One case involved the use of range sensors fitted to a long-range drone shell designed and manufactured in WA by a company called Innovaero. They basically mapped out the Ngaanyatjarra Council lands in the Kanpa community as part of a pilot land management program. The drone sensors were able to pick up signs of contamination from old mining exploration and detect invasive species and their density, as well as mapping areas of cultural significance that local elders have an interest in monitoring. Following on from the opening part of my speech, the images were stunning, and it's really important that we think about how we preserve that for future generations.

Another example of their work is happening near Esperance, which is in the member for O'Connor's seat. I had the pleasure of spending time with the member for O'Connor yesterday when we welcomed students from John Paul College—my old high school.

Out near Esperance, the Tjaltjraak Aboriginal Corporation's lands, Marlee Djinda has been using drones to monitor and control a highly invasive species called African boxthorn. It has done this by identifying its signature from the sky, both as mature plants but also as regrowth. This gives rangers a heads up when it's best to apply control methods and when they should work more efficiently. In partnership with Dr David Blake from Edith Cowan University, Marlee Djinda have recently taken up the crucial mission of addressing buyer diversity challenges in WA's Walpole-Nornalup National Park. This collaborative effort aims to protect the region's vulnerable peatlands, which are greatly impacted by climate change. Despite only accounting for three per cent of the world's terrestrial surface, peatlands store more carbon than any other ecosystem found on land, including in rainforests. By their leveraging technologies and capabilities, Marlee Djinda are working with other research and data collaborators to safeguard species that are critical to the healthy functioning of the Walpole peatlands. This focus extends beyond mitigating rising temperatures by also striving to shield these crucial species from uncontrolled bushfires and damage from feral pigs. I was so pleased to hear the member for Lyne's contribution to this debate and that he supports the removal of feral animals from wilderness and agricultural areas. I hope to see his support for this measure in the future, to use the amazing technological approaches we have available to remove harmful feral animals in Western Australia. Best of all would be to support this bill.

Through their work, Marlee Djinda is part of a group of collaborators, Aboriginal and land councils, dedicated to preserving biodiversity in WA. Drone technologies, paired with existing programs like Aboriginal ranger programs and financial incentives using the proposed nature repair bill, will help to empower Indigenous landowners to manage country, and will generate culturally sensitive economic development in some of the most remote and economically deprived communities in WA. This is an environmental program, but this program will also provide great opportunities to close the gap through environment led economic development. This means, potentially, better health outcomes for Aboriginal people in remote towns, more job opportunities and more hands-on land to help manage the country.

The other reason why it's really important that we protect biodiversity is because often we think that scientists have all the answers when it comes to our world's problems. The truth is that nature is really complex and has existed for tens of thousands of years. Often, the answers we're looking for in our modern life today are found in nature. That's whether it relates to medicines, aerodynamics or efficiency. So it's important that we protect it, not just for future generations but also for knowledge and scientific endeavour. If this bill unlocks even a fraction of the estimated $137 billion in potential finance available for investment in conservation between now and 2050, then it will have had a truly transformational impact on our nation by helping ranger programs, farmers and landholders to maintain our incredible and unique biodiverse Australian land.