Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is the amendment moved by the honourable member for Goldstein to the amendment moved by the honourable member for Wentworth be disagreed.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I was interrupted in the course of having started my contribution to this debate, I was just making the point that the world-wide Rotary organisation has added the environment as the seventh pillar of Rotary service, in recognition of the importance of environmental sustainability to human wellbeing. In my local area, only last month, I attended the official opening of an environmental restoration project in the Cobbler Creek Recreation Park. The project was a joint effort of the Salisbury Rotary Club, Friends of Cobbler Creek Recreation Park, Trees for Life and the South Australian government Department of Environment and Water. Throughout the Makin electorate, the Friends of Cobbler Creek Recreation Park, Friends of Dry Creek Trail and Friends of Anstey Hill Recreation Park, working together with local councils, local schools, Trees for Life, Rotary and Lions Clubs, and the Department of Environment and Water, have for years taken a lead in environmental restoration and preservation projects. I commend all of them for their efforts.

There is no single solution or response to the scale of environmental degradation. It will take a collective of different actions. Even in Australia, where I believe there is much goodwill and understanding across all sectors of society about the importance of environmental sustainability, the biodiversity losses are very concerning, as the 2021 State of the environment report makes absolutely clear. This legislation provides for biodiversity protection and restoration by rewarding environmental preservation projects. In summary, the Nature Repair Market Bill 2023 establishes a framework for a voluntary national biodiversity market, where landholders who participate in projects that enhance or protect biodiversity may be eligible to receive a tradeable certificate that will be tracked through a national register. The proposal provides an incentive for investments in nature. It is the first of its kind here in Australia.

The legislation includes several provisions, including the establishment of an independent expert Nature Repair Market Committee to ensure both integrity and public confidence in the process. That is absolutely vital, because if there is no integrity and there is no public confidence in the process then people will not participate. Importantly, the same integrity measures will contribute to a better understanding and more accurate data on biodiversity. That is one of the areas that I have a personal concern with—that sometimes the data we rely on is itself inaccurate. Having this process in place means that you have to have accurate monitoring in order to assess the viability and the outcomes of the different programs. That in itself is a good thing because it will enable all of us to better understand the biodiversity losses and the gains, or the regains, once a project has been in place.

Additionally, biodiversity restoration is also expected to create economic and employment opportunities for participants. That too is a good thing, because having more people embark on economic activities that in turn sustain our environment will start to also build up a level of expertise and understanding that will also be beneficial well into the future.

Consistent with the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity goals, Australia has committed to protecting 30 per cent of Australia's land and seas by 2030. Obviously, to do that will require a range of measures, but the very fact that we have committed to those goals means that we have now made a decision that programs and projects will be looked at in order to get there. That commitment alone, I believe, is going to begin the path and the roadway back to rebuilding our biodiversity.

Caring for country requires the collective efforts of every sector of society, and this legislation rewards those who do that, rather than simply relying, as we have done in the past, on punitive measures against those who engage in destructive environmental activities. The reality is, and history will show, that punitive measures alone have simply not worked. If they had, we probably wouldn't be in the situation that we are in today with the loss of biodiversity, and there probably wouldn't be the need for this kind of legislation. The reality is that we need both punitive measures and measures that reward those who do the right thing, and, again, this legislation, in my view, sets out to do just that.

I have listened to much of the debate on this legislation and noted the extraordinary claims made by some members of the coalition and the Greens. To me, that suggests, as I said from the outset, that this legislation strikes the right balance. I'm not surprised to hear the coalition attack the program because of its focus on Indigenous contributions to the schemes; likewise, I'm not surprised to hear the Greens attacking the corporate interests that will probably want to participate. The reality is that everyone who can make a contribution should. With respect to the corporates, it is not just the corporates who are responsible for the environmental damage that we have seen across this country; a lot of it has come from a whole range of other sources. This legislation is consistent with proposals already in place and being trialled in other countries. Whilst it might be new to Australia, the concept is not new to the world, and I note that some countries have been participating in similar schemes for many years.

Just as importantly, there are several safeguards in the bill, which I referred to earlier, particularly the establishment of the independent expert Nature Repair Market Committee. That committee will be made up of people who understand—experts—and it will ensure the transparency, accountability and integrity of the scheme. Furthermore, the scheme will result in better monitoring and understanding of biodiversity, as I emphasised in my remarks earlier on, and that can only be a good thing. I accept that quantifying biodiversity is difficult. It is something that we need to do much better. However, the fact that it is difficult should never be a barrier to a proposal which does good for our environment. In my view, the fact that it's difficult should simply be viewed as another challenge that we need to overcome. If we're committed to doing that, I believe we can overcome that challenge.

As with climate change, where crossing tipping points becomes disastrous, so too is crossing environmental tipping points disastrous—a warning well made by the United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres. This legislation is not the sole solution to biodiversity loss, and it may not be perfect. However, it will make a worthwhile difference. Once it is in place, any flaws that arise will be exposed and can then be rectified, but if we don't trial something, if we don't start somewhere, how will we know what impact it will have? How will we know what needs to be changed? How will we know how it can be improved?

There is no good reason for delaying this legislation. On the contrary, the sooner it is passed the sooner we can get on with the task of biodiversity repair. I'm pleased to see that so many other countries and so many community groups are now on board with not only this type of program but doing something about restoring our environmental losses. It is one of the areas I have pick up on when out in the community. From school children through to adults, people are concerned about the state of the world we live in and the damage that is being done to the environment. As former Bolivian President Evo Morales said—and I think this sums it up beautifully—'Humans cannot live without Mother Earth, but the planet can live without humans.' That quotation sums up the importance of protecting the world we live in. We cannot continue to expand our population and our footprint on the world without at the same time understanding the impact that has on our earth and on our marine environment. We need to start responding with more than just lip service and tokenistic schemes. We need to start responding in a way that will truly make a difference. I believe this legislation is part of the solution—not the sole solution—and we should get on with it as soon as possible.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you want biodiversity, if you want the trees back—and I live in the area—it's really simple: just take the stock out and leave it alone, and the trees will come back. I remember a former Prime Minister saying: 'This is marvellous. Who planted these trees?' I said, 'They just grow back.' I'll tell you what else will come if you just shut up areas. You'll not only get trees but also get blackberries, briars, pigs, goats, dears, parkinsonia, prickly acacia, parthenium weed, rubber vine, camels, donkeys, Indian minor birds—you'll get the whole gamut. Basically, the evil arc of pests and vermin also come into the land. What we've seen in so many of these areas—and I live in the area, unlike the honourable member's smiling. I bet London to a brick they don't live in a regional area. But what they never do is actually look after the area after the person's handed it over.

National parks are a curse to live next door to, and I live next door to one, because what happens is there's just a removal of any responsibility to do with it. But, you get, in an urban environment, the virtue. They get the virtue. They feel good about it: 'I've saved New South Wales!' There's a new line on a map, a new National Park. Do you go there? Rarely or probably never. Do you understand that, now you've locked this land up, apart from a line on the map, it's not really managed? Do you realise that the rating base of that town, of that shire, now has to be massively reduced? Do you realise that the people who were formerly employed on those properties as fencers, contract musterers and shearers are no longer there, therefore their kids are no longer in the school, therefore they're no longer buying at the shop, therefore there is no longer the requirement for the medical facilities in the area? Do you realise the economic changes that you foist on an area when you start this sort of virtue chasing of shutting down areas?

With this bill, there was also substantive change in the whole nature of tenure, which is so important. What we believe in on this side of the chamber is the primacy of private ownership. If you lose that, you lose your security, because it means that you don't really own title.

Why that's important—and I take the interjection from the honourable member opposite—is this also has an intrusion into so many other titles, whether it's freehold, whether it's leasehold, whether it's grazing homestead perpetual lease. There is an undertaking when you sign these up that there becomes an intrusion into this title. Within the intrusion into this title, you also have to comb back other things like cultural agreement, which comes into where Indigenous rights, therefore, come onto the land. And we're seeing this right now in places like Fraser Island and what people are allowed to do and not allowed to. We've seen this on beaches that have been closed off. This is not the Australia we want. In Western Australia right now, if you dig a hole more than 50 centimetres down, you have to get cultural approval.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, Member for Hasluck! The member for New England has the call. You'll have your opportunity another time.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What we're getting now is, if you have a fence line—two foot six is how far you dig a fencepost down—you literally have to get cultural approval to put in a fence. We are seeing this now in other areas. What we have in regional areas and why we take so much of an affront to this is that we are always foisted with the requirements of the inner suburbs; these are requirements that they see as a virtue, when they're in the area which is the most environmentally changed in Australia—covered with concrete houses, tenements, high-rises and roads. Their lives don't change. Their lives stay exactly the same, but we get the wind factories. We get the solar panels. We get the cobwebs of filth going all over our land, which are the transmission lines. We have the poorer people who pay for the power prices that they cannot afford. As you bring this forward, you say to the people in our towns, in our weatherboard and iron: 'You deserve to be poor so that we can feel good. You deserve to have power prices you can't afford. The power goes onto the production of processing food, and that's all right. You can go through your shopping trolley and get rid of the meat. If you can't afford the mince, go to the pasta. We can do that to you because we're virtue signalling down here. It feels so good in here because we're on $200,000 a year plus. We can do this sort of stuff.'

But the lady who can't afford the petrol even to get to town now or who can't afford her power bill and so has to turn off the power, or pensioners who stay in bed because they can't afford their power—they're not worried about your 82 per cent renewable target by 2030. They're worried about the next power bill that's turning up on their table. When we see that smug look from Minister Bowen as he goes to the dispatch box and smugly turns around and gleams at the Labor Party—hasn't he done something clever? The clever cat! He's done something really clever: he's made life virtually impossible for people who cannot afford the basics of dignity in their lives.

Then we go to a macro sense and we see the virtue signalling. 'We don't really believe in coal. We don't really believe in gas. We've sort of got problems with sections of farming. We need transmission lines everywhere.' However, when they get a surplus: 'Oh, aren't we clever? Aren't we just the cleverest people on earth?' Where'd your surplus come from? There were three main things: coal, gas and low unemployment. Where did low unemployment come from? It was one of the legacies of the coalition government.

If you don't believe in coal, you don't believe in gas and you don't believe in surpluses, and when you stand idly by while they sat down Liddell—the government in Victoria shut down Hazelwood. You sit idly by. You don't even go up to AGL and say, 'If you don't keep that open and refurbish it, we're going to divest you of it.' No, you just sit idly by. Now you're part of this almost pathological religion. If you're not part of the 2030 82 per cent zeitgeist, you're somehow inferior. You're not wise. You're not part of the enlightened.

We're saying to the Australian people—and they are wising up to it—'If you've got a problem with your power bill, they're the people to blame over there. And them too—the Greens and the Labor Party are your two groups. Go have a yarn with them about the power bill you can't pay for. If you're a farmer in New England, in my area, actually in my district, or in the Upper Hunter, or the Wimmera, or if you go up to the back of Mackay, where they're going to basically knock the top off a hill—you know, we get knocked around if there's run-off from a sugarcane field into the Great Barrier Reef. That apparently is a great evil. However, the Greens can knock the top of a hill and put in wind towers, and that's not a problem. They can put a dam in and flood a rainforest, and that's not a problem, because it's the great god Gaea clause, which means that, if it comes with a wind tower, a solar panel or transmission lines, it's virtuous and to be allowed.

We're seeing now what're going to do, and the people out there have to get organised. The people in the Wimmera have to talk to the people in New England, the Upper Hunter and the back of Rockhampton and Mackay. They all have to start talking to one another and coordinating. These people, the virtuous here, are not going to listen to you until you do one thing: you turn up out on that lawn. That makes a change. That certainly changes things. When we hear that from here and the people are upset because they can't afford their power prices, they can't afford their food prices, they can no longer afford their rent, they're getting absolutely infected with transmission lines and wind towers in the whole structure of regional areas—

I put this to her, because I hear the member for Hasluck interjecting. You will propose wind towers for your electorate, will you, Member for Hasluck?

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

Yes, they're fully on board. They support the science—

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There you go. I say to the people of Hasluck: she supports wind towers in her electorate. There are wind towers coming to Hasluck because she wants them. There will be a park there where we can put them in, and the transmission lines for the people of Hasluck will go over their houses. Aren't they lucky to have such a great representative? She's doing it for you, so that's good. And while we're at it, we can put a couple on Middle Head.

Governm ent members interjecting—

What's your seat? What's your seat? He doesn't want to mention his seat because he doesn't want them.

Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for New England will resume his seat. I ask the House to be a bit more respectful. There's plenty of opportunity for other members to speak in this place.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member opposite has become mute about his seat because he doesn't want it mentioned on record, because he does not want wind towers and new solar farms in his electorate.

What about the people in Middle Head? There's a great site there. You could have a few wind towers, just a few—three or four—and maybe three or four at North Head down in Sydney, and we'd just run a few transmission lines across Mosman. It's alright—it's showing your virtue! It's being authentic about your virtue. Quite obviously, and I understand, that would be an abhorrence. But why do you think we would want them? Why do you think we would want them in our electorates, if you don't want to be staring at one for the rest of your life?

It's something that will ultimately be out of date. It's static technology in a dynamic environment, and, ultimately, static technology goes out of date. And then you're stuck with them. You're stuck with this filth. It just sits there and, like in other countries—in California and other parts of the world—they just rust. It costs about $350,000 to put one up and about $750,000 to pull one down. When you've got something that's out of date, do you need transmission lines to something that's out of date? No. This is the problem that we're creating in this sort of Wizard of Oz 'wear green glasses' environment which we've created.

I believe that we will look back at this time in about—it won't even take that long—five years and say: 'They were proposing 82 per cent renewables by 2030? They never got there; it was ridiculous.' I'm not saying for one second that renewables are not part of the plan, not for one second, but there's a difference between saying, 'I need carrots for dinner,' and, 'I'm going to live on a diet of carrots.' It's an entirely different concept. There's a difference between saying, 'I like sugar in my tea,' and saying, 'I want to drink a cup full of sugar.' This is the sort of logic that we've got from the Labor Party and the Greens.

Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is our logic—a spoonful of sugar?

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Good honourable member, you won't even tell me where your seat is, so I know how much you believe in your side's position! You are mute about the seat that you live in, the seat that you represent. You are totally silent. I'll give you another chance to interject. What's your seat?

Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's Macnamara.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Macnamara! Do the people of Macnamara want wind towers?

Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for New England will keep his remarks through the chair.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Chair, do you believe the people of Macnamara want wind towers?

Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You're not questioning me.

Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, they do!

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They do! There we have it. To the people of Macnamara: you are getting wind towers and transmission lines. Your member is standing up for you. He's doing a marvellous job! Here they come, a few transmission lines, buzzing all night over your house—a bit of a bee field happening there—and you're going to have your wind towers. Once they start rusting, they'll be squeaking for the rest of your life, or they'll be struck by lightning. Member for Macnamara, I don't know how you're going to go at the next election after that, mate, but it's not going to be as good as you thought.

So we've got this perverse world where we have a side of politics that does not believe in coal, does not believe in gas, is shutting down farming and believes in transmission lines—filling the place up with wind towers and solar panels and believing that there's some virtue in it, then claiming responsibility for a surplus that actually came from fossil fuels. When you decide that that is the crowd that you want to run the country, what you'll have is power prices that go through the roof, reliability that goes through the floor and the companies that own them sending the money overseas. It's a trifecta of virtue: power prices through the roof, reliability through the floor and the overseas companies taking these silly taxpayers' money overseas.

We don't make these wind towers in Australia. We don't make the solar panels in Australia. The money goes overseas. You're the suckers. You, the public, are the suckers. This is why we've got to make sure that we actually have an epiphany so that people have a capacity to basically understand where the problems in their lives have emanated from and to make certain that after that epiphany that we get some logic that comes in. Moving against this is part of that statement of moving towards logic. (Time expired)

Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We can all take a deep breath and remind ourselves we're in the House of Representatives having a debate on the Nature Repair Market Bill 2023—not that you could elicit that from the previous contribution. I thank the member for New England for a minute of extraordinary sounds and squeaks and buzzing; that will be very handy for a campaign ad, maybe, later on! The member for New England came in here and demonstrated the calibre of the Dutton opposition and their attention to the complex way in which we need to manage our natural habitat and ecosystems as well as our transition towards low-emissions technology. If you ever wanted to see why the Liberal Party and the National Party are not respected and not trusted on this important task, I think anyone who watched the last 15 minutes of screaming, of ranting and of a lack of cohesion or sense would understand why.

Not only that; it's also worth mentioning the fact that, in the previous government, environmental management was not only extremely problematic and avoided but also undemocratic. In the previous term of parliament the Morrison government underwent a process through which environmental management and the protection of our environment through the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act was reviewed by Professor Graeme Samuel. This was a process whereby the former government, under their own appointed specialist, said, 'What do we need to do to improve the environmental standards in this country?' Professor Samuel went away and did a huge piece of work, and came back to this place and said that one of the things the federal government must have is federal environmental standards—that this place, the House of Representatives, and the federal parliament cannot absolve itself of responsibility when managing the environment. The federal government needs to lead. It also needs to work with the states and territories.

But that was not the approach of the then environment minister, now the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. The then environment minister sought to basically take the federal government out of decision-making around environmental approvals and hand over all responsibility to the states and territories. It was a complete cave-in to the recommendations of their own review. They refused to support Professor Samuel's key recommendation that this parliament and the federal government should have standards of environmental approval and environmental management. So, instead of coming to this place and setting out those standards and improving the way in which we look after our biodiversity, our ecosystems and our precious natural environment, the federal government came into this place and said: 'We are not interested. We're not even going to listen to our own review. We're going to give it all to the states.'

But, to make it even worse—and all those who were members of the previous parliament will remember this well. I was sitting on the other side of the chamber. I had given a contribution, and all of a sudden the speaking list was cut and the Morrison government then used their numbers in the House of Representatives to cut off debate and ram through an environmental EPBC reform. They refused to allow the opposition to speak on the bill. They refused to allow full, proper engagement and debate on the bill. Not only were the Morrison government willing to trash their own report and the recommendations of their own engaged expert on environmental management; they were willing to come in here and trash the democratic conventions of this place in order to ram the bill through the parliament. That is the legacy of the former government when it comes to environmental management. That is the legacy of the member for New England and his friends and colleagues who came into this place and refused to lift the standard of environmental management, who refused to try and engage in a way in which this parliament can help safeguard our natural wonders, our habitats and our wildlife for future generations. So proud of their own reform were they that not one member of their team actually spoke on the bill. Not one member of their team was willing to stand up in this place and talk about the work of trashing environmental standards and then trashing the democratic conventions of this place.

That was the legacy of those opposite. We have a very different idea of what it is to be responsible environmental managers, to hand over the absolutely precious gift that we have on this vast continent of ours and to protect the wildlife, to protect the indigenous flora and fauna, that we are custodians of for this brief period of time. That's what the work we have done since coming into government, including in this important piece of legislation, is all about. It's about putting the federal government at the absolute front and centre of environmental management, ensuring that there are further environmental standards that we are all adhering to. That is going to be a key part of the EPBC Act reform that the minister for the environment will bring in at some point in coming months, complementing bills such as this.

The Nature Repair Market Bill is an essential part of environmental management because it is all about putting an intrinsic value on our environment and putting an intrinsic value on our biodiversity—putting a value on the precious parts of our Australian wildlife and ecosystems that is essential to protecting them and preserving them for future generations. With this bill, there are a number of components that the minister has introduced. The first thing is that it's voluntary. If a farmer or if a landowner wishes to participate in this framework, they will be able to preserve and to get credits for doing the right thing by the environment that they are custodians of. They will be able to have a certificate that then will be able to be sold on to a third party. This is a way of saying: if you are a farmer who wants another form of income, and you are passionate and you are willing and able to protect and improve and get credit for the work that you are probably in many cases already doing on your piece of land, then there will be an extra value put on that. Far from the ranting that we heard for the member for New England, this is about encouraging farmers to have an extra form of income.

I know the member for New England spoke about windfarms. I have spoken to farmers who have windfarms and wind turbines on their properties, and, depending on the size of the turbine, you can be talking about thousands and thousands of dollars of annual rental fees being paid directly into the farmer's hands for the use of their land for windfarms. It is a very, very handsome business if you are a landowner in an area where there is a good supply of wind. So this, quite frankly, pretty loose scare campaign being run by those opposite actually has no reflection on truth or reality—something that we have come to expect from the member for New England.

It's worth mentioning that only 15 per cent of land in Australia is publicly owned. Most of that publicly owned land is owned by state and territory governments. The largest single group of landholders are the holders of pastoral leases, who control 44 per cent of the Australian land mass. It is therefore extremely important that landowners, whether they're farmers who own their land freehold, pastoralists, Indigenous communities, corporations, local governments or not-for-profit groups, they are all required to be part of the national efforts to protect and preserve our environmental heritage. That is the objective of the bill here today.

I will quote the minister's second reading speech, because I think it sums up the bill nicely:

We need to start restoring the places that we've damaged in the past. We need to start healing the land and the water.

And that's what this legislation is designed to do—not to replace government effort, but to reinforce it; to add private money to the stream of investment our government is already making in nature protection and restoration.

The Nature Repair Market Bill is designed to create incentive for landholders of all kinds to undertake biodiversity on the land that they own or control. The bill provides that, when a landholder conducts an approved project to repair or protect nature, they will be issued with a certificate which will certify that the regulator has agreed to the project and that it meets the requirements laid down for biodiversity projects. Once that project is approved, the certificates can then be sold on to a third party. This will give the landholder extra income and thus a financial incentive to undertake the project and more like it in the future. It will also show the landholder's neighbours that they can make money by undertaking biodiversity projects on their land.

Who is going to buy the certificates? Anyone can do so—an individual, a corporation, a state, territory or local government or a non-government organisation. However, it is likely that most of the buyers will be one of two types. The first type will be individuals or NGOs who want to advance the cause of biodiversity. Let me take a moment here to give a shout-out to the incredible activists and the incredible people in the electorate that I'm proud to represent who are deeply passionate and deeply committed to protecting our environment—people who are members of groups such as the Australian Conservation Foundation in Macnamara and many others. They come and meet with me on a regular basis. My door is always open to them, and I will always have time for those people in my electorate who give up their time to try and do more for our environment and for future generations. Since the certificates will contain standardised information about the project, and since their accuracy will have been certified by the regulator, people can invest in these certificates with confidence that their money will actually go towards improving environmental standards and furthering biodiversity projects.

The second type will be corporations who want to buy certificates to offset the effects of their activities on biodiversity elsewhere. If a corporation is building a shopping centre or building a road and thereby having an unavoidable impact on the environment in that particular location, they will be able to offset that negative effect by investing in biodiversity elsewhere, through the purchase of certificates. I know that that concept does make people a little bit nervous, and there are legitimate reasons why that needs to be done in a way that is extremely regulated and controlled, but this specific arrangement is carefully constructed and it will be vigilantly policed. Governments or corporations will not be allowed to get away with causing more damage just by purchasing offsets.

However, in saying all of that, I do think that the principle of offsets, and creating that intrinsic value, is something that we need to balance. There will be further work about how that is managed under the rewrite of the EPBC Act and the new nature bill that the environment minister is going to be bringing forward. I have already been meeting with environmental groups and environmental legal organisations, and I appreciate their advocacy on this. I think this is something that we will continue to monitor and continue to work through as we go through those environmental purposes. But underpinning that is creating an intrinsic value for creating biodiversity and protecting nature, something that fundamentally is an important reform.

We do not want greenwashing. We do not want corporations using this mechanism to damage the environment in other parts. What we want is a well-regulated system, one where nature has an important price, where nature has an important value, where we encourage and create more protection and more certainty for biodiversity, where we are able to protect more of the precious environment that we are all custodians of, but in a way where it is managed and controlled. I have full confidence in the Minister for the Environment and Water overseeing the introduction of this program. There is a 12-month lead-in time so that we can get the details right around how this is going to be regulated, how this is going to affect not only the landholders who can voluntarily participate in this program but also those who wish to purchase credits and purchase certificates.

In summary of my contribution on the Nature Repair Market Bill, let me say this. The previous government came into this place and completely threw away any attempt at improving environmental standards and environment management. That is not our approach. We are systematically leaving a legacy of raising environmental standards, of putting a greater value on our environment and protecting it for generations to come.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am proud to rise to say some words on the Nature Repair Market Bill 2023 and how it relates to my electorate. My electorate will be one of the big winners if this bill goes through. I want to outline why. Being a regional electorate, an electorate with quite a significant history of agriculture but also of gold mining, there is a lot of repair work that needs to be done to our natural environment. If I can just take people back to the gold rush, back then they didn't know a lot about the environment, and practically every tree was felled in Greater Bendigo. You can go on bushwalks or on forest walks now where local Landcare groups will point to the one tree that survived the gold rushes, the beautiful iron barks. There are a few of them still around, but not many that survived the goldrush period.

The legacy of gold mining is long scars on electorates like my electorate. There was a period where they kind of locked up the areas and hoped that they would restore themselves but they didn't. We have a thing called tooth picking, where iron barks have grown back, but there are so many of them that they actually need to be thinned. It has been a bit contentious between local First Nations groups and local environmental groups about the best way to do that. I raise that because, in a lot of our regional electorates like mine, which is a very old region of Australia, there is a lot of history in what has happened to our land. In the early days of agriculture, we farmed very differently to how we farm today. New farmers are adapting, are restoring land. They get the importance of having that biodiversity on their land to improve the soil, to improve the experience of livestock.

New farmers are adapting to those ways. But there is a lot of disused farmland out there that is being bought up by people who are now wanting to restore country. They are doing the lifestyle change and wanting to restore land but are trying to find out how. In parts of regional Australia, particularly regional Victoria, this bill, for the first time in a long time, puts a real opportunity on the table to reward those who do engage in that work. I am talking about our farmers and our First Nations people.

This bill will make it easier for people to invest in activities that help repair our natural environment. It will help create those linkages between our national parks and state parks. There is a great organisation in my electorate called Biolinks that is working with landholders, working with business owners, working with corporations, working with First Nations people on how we can create those links between state parks and national parks to help our flora and fauna survive, basically. Because a possum or a protected species doesn't know that they're walking onto private property, and we do have linkages issues. Landowners talk me quite regularly about no lack of wanting to tap in and do work to restore country, to build those biolinks. They know it isn't their entire farm or their entire property, but they want to create those links so that we do have those nature corridors. They want to know how and they want to know the cost. We now know this bill is a way that can really incentivise getting on top of those costs and rewarding those who do step up and do something to improve our environment.

We want to leave nature better for our kids and grandkids than it is today. That is why this government is supporting landholders, including farmers and First Nations communities, to do things like plant native species, repair damaged riverbeds and remove invasive species. There is an organisation in my electorate in Maldon, the Tarrangower cactus wheel club. The members literally get out once a month to help poison cacti wheel, which is a big problem in the Maldon and Tarrangower area. So committed are local people that they actually go out there each and every month to help kill this introduced species that does create such a problem for us. They're one of many groups in my electorate where people just get on with helping private landowners to stop the spread of these invasive species.

What we hope to see is this bill helping people to repair damaged riverbeds, which is another big problem, the legacy of goldmining and the way in which natural riverbanks dried up. Take a five-minute walk off a major road between Bendigo and Heathcote and you'll hit a gully. First Nations people will tell you that there shouldn't be a gully there. There shouldn't be a riverbank there, but because of what has happened through erosion, the legacy that landowners have inherited, we have a very unnatural way in which water runs into our major rivers.

This bill will help local people who are already doing good work. It will reward those who want to do more. The Labor government is delivering on its Nature Positive Plan and will establish the Nature Repair Market in this bill. The market will make it easier for businesses, organisations and individuals to invest in projects that protect and repair nature. Our government is committed to protecting 30 per cent of Australia's lands and seas by 2030. It's an ambitious target, but with good partners we can do it. The same goal has been adopted globally under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. These goals reinforce the findings of the State of the environment 2021 report and its story of environmental degradation, loss and inaction.

We need significant investment in conservation to help restore nature for a positive, natural future. Businesses and private sector investment can contribute by reversing environmental decline. This was highlighted in the findings of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act review that was handed down. Private companies and conservation groups, farmers and other landholders are increasingly looking for ways to achieve positive outcomes for nature, and this bill helps to deliver that. The Nature Repair Market will be based on science and will enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to promote their unique knowledge in their terms. It establishes a market in legislation which will help ensure ongoing integrity and encourage investment in nature. It will drive environmental improvements across Australia.

This bill will enable the Clean Energy Regulator, an independent statutory authority with significant experience in regulating environmental markets, to issue Australian landholders with tradable biodiversity certificates. These certificates can then be sold to businesses, organisations, governments and individuals, and that's the incentive that is so important. It puts on the table reward for our farmers, reward for First Nations, reward for individuals and corporations that want to do right by our environment. And we know that they will. This will encourage a new market, a positive market. It will help to give the opportunity to those who want to do the right thing to create those biolinks that I referred to in my earlier remarks.

Locally, the Dja Dja Wurrung, the Jaara people, have already started to do this work. I was privileged to be at their version of a sod turning on Friday for their new headquarters, which will be at the old Golden Square high school site. In our part of the world, they have had settlement with the state government for almost a decade. What that has brought in the decade that they've had is a level of experience and a level of knowledge and opportunity, and they're starting to share with the rest of us how we can restore country to what it was like for their ancestors. Their plans for the Bendigo Creek and the lands around the Bendigo Creek are absolutely phenomenal. But the Bendigo Creek doesn't run through just state forests. There's a lot of work that needs to be done with private landowners, and this bill could create an opportunity to do joint work that will see the Bendigo Creek restored, in line with the vision of our First Nations people.

The nature repair market will enable participation and create employment and economic opportunities for First Nations people. That's what the people in my electorate are looking forward to—the economic opportunity of earning credits by restoring country and teaching others how to do the same. It will promote and enable free and informed consent on land and water projects.

I just want to say this to the opposition. In my experience, from talking to farmers in my local area, farmers really want to embrace this. The next generation of farmers coming through gets the importance of land restoration. They get the importance of having these biolinks through their properties, connecting one another. The livestock opportunity—how it keeps their farms cooler—is critical, as is having natural water resources, whether it be the Campaspe River, catchments or the Bendigo Creek. For a lot of people who have bought big chunks of land and are trying to restore it back to nature, this bill provides the opportunity to work within this market and to help their neighbours.

We have a very mixed land ownership in my electorate. There are tree changers, who see this as an opportunity to restore country. There are the now significant holdings of our First Nations people. There are big farmers, including many of the next generation coming through, who will see this bill as a real opportunity to set up an alternative income stream at the same time as restoring biolinks. Then there are the not-for-profit organisations that will see this as an opportunity to partner with and help landholders. There is a lot of good work already going on in so many of our electorates, and this bill will enhance that work. It will supersize what we're already doing. It will unlock so much opportunity and incentivise what we're already doing. I note, also, that the role of local government is critically important. The City of Greater Bendigo owns a significant amount of land in my electorate, as does the Mount Alexander Shire Council and the Macedon Ranges Shire Council. Their ability to tap into this market will help them with their own offsets work that they're doing.

The bill provides for biodiversity certificates to ensure integrity and actual environmental improvements. That is a critical point that I want to end on. Integrity is key to environmental outcomes. Australians want us to do more to protect our natural environment; they want to see its restoration. When we talk about being in a climate change emergency, we also need to talk about being in an environmental emergency. We really are playing catch-up in restoring country, restoring land, going back beyond what it looked like before the gold rushes, in my part of the world, and before we had settlement in this country.

We need to look at better ways to partner with the people that are willing, and that is the other critical point: this is optional. This is about those who want to get involved in being part of a positive solution. This is about having integrity in a carbon credit system, making sure that we repair nature in a positive way. This bill will reward those who are doing the right thing by nature. I know that groups in my electorate are really keen to see this bill passed and the scheme established. Whether it's the biolinks, which will be able to help to co-ordinate the work, First Nations people, building on the work they're already doing, or the many farmers who are already trying to do this work and tapping into the expanded program, the Nature Repair Market Bill will help incentivise that work and ensure it continues. It demonstrates how we as a government are supporting landholders, farmers, First Nations people and communities to do the right thing by our natural environment—plant the species that we need, repair the riverbeds and the lands that need it, and remove the invasive species. It's a good bill, and I can't wait to see it pass the parliament so it can help people in our communities do more of the good work they're already doing.

Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my electorate of Paterson we are privileged to be surrounded by some of the best natural assets that nature can provide. We have the magnificent rolling hills, mountains and ranges of the Hunter Valley, and we have the beautiful sand and beaches of Port Stephens. We've always been aware of our environment and put value in it. We know that under those opposite, sadly, our environment was allowed to deteriorate. They received report after report providing evidence of its deterioration but chose to not do enough and, in some cases, even tried to cover that up, which is just not good enough. But I don't want to talk about what has gone by; I want to talk about the future. I don't want to talk about blatant disregard for things like climate change and its effects; I want to remain positive and talk about what we are doing, and what we can do, on the ground.

A future that respects our world, and understands that simple and effective changes by the Australian government now, can help in so many ways, not only at a hyper-local level or a national level but also by helping our Pacific neighbours that are being terribly affected by climate change on their lands as well. The Albanese Labor government is delivering on its NaturePositive Plan with the establishment of the nature repair market. For all intents and purposes we're putting in place a market that puts value on nature.

The Australian government has committed to protecting 30 per cent of Australia's land and sea by 2030. It's a shared goal in lock step with the UN Convention on Biodiversity, and it's great news for my electorate—a community that relies on farming and agriculture. It relies on sea farming, like oysters, and fishing. It relies on tourism from the thousands of people who come to Port Stephens and the surrounding areas to enjoy the beauty of the land and the wonder of the sea, including getting up close to those majestic whales that are currently making their way up the Australian east coast. It is a sight to behold, to stand on a cliff to watch a humpback breach, but if you're lucky enough to be in a boat just out of Nelson Bay it's just incredible. It really puts everything in your life in perspective when you see those enormous creatures very close by.

But this nature repair market is not only about the environment. It's also about the positive economic impact it's going to have on our local businesses and the way it's going to help out our local farmers as well. As someone who has a few acres, I know how soul-crushing it can be to try and stay on top of things like lantana and blackberry. Not particularly on my place, but on neighbours' properties and throughout the broader Hunter region, I know that if you're dealing with incredibly invasive species, whether they be weed, wild boars, rabbits or foxes, they can have a terrible, terrible impact on your land, and that's what this bill is really about. It is about helping Australians, whether they're environmental people who might be involved in land care, local community groups or farmers who just want to get a bit of a hand, a bit of a clear run, on trying to restore their properties, trying to create some biodiversity and trying to create some corridors for nature, which we know is so important. This bill is a critical part of that plan to deliver.

Our government will make it easier for people to invest in activities that help reverse environmental decline and ensure nature repair. It simply won't be enough to stem the tide. We must start reversing the decline and ensuring positive repair to our environment. Every one of us should want to leave the environment in a better place for our next generation than it was when we inherited it. The Nature Repair Market Bill will make it easier for businesses, organisations and individuals to invest in projects to protect and also repair and reinstate nature. This is a significant opportunity, and I'm so pleased to be speaking on it today.

The nature repair market is going to be based on science—it won't be some sort of feelgood weeding group. It is really going to be important that we base it on science. Establishing the market in legislation will ensure its ongoing integrity, encourage investment and drive environmental improvements across the country. We need significant investments in conservation and restoration to reverse the environmental decline we've watched over the past years. We need to really be encouraging people—farmers, landholder groups and businesses—to get involved in this market, because it is going to make a massive difference. All landholders, including First Nations and Torres Strait Islander peoples, conservation groups, and farmers—if you're out there listening to this speech, you can be involved in the nature repair market. There is going to be support and funding involved to restore your properties and areas that you may have a deep interest in locally. Projects will deliver long-term, nature-positive outcomes through activities such as weeding, planting and pest control, including for feral pests. It includes our lakes and rivers as well as the land. Groups like the Slow Food Market in my electorate: g'day Amarell and all the wonderful slow foodies that get along to the market, including the farmers; the Anna Bay Landcare Group in Birubi, a terrific group doing an amazing job up there over those rolling sands, keeping those dunes going well; Shoal Bay Beach Preservation Committee; Tilligerry Habitat—what a magical place that is, if you ever get a chance to go. These are magnificent parts of Australia. Community groups like these in my electorate work tirelessly. They literally work their fingers to the bone caring for our environment. I want to send a shoutout to the men's sheds who build habitat boxes and bird-breeding boxes that are often installed in these habitats to help native birds in particular breed and continue life. It's so important.

I also want to give a shoutout to local councils, who work really hard to do their part to ensure a sustainable future and the nature reserves that we have across the electorate. It is important work, and this is a really important bill. For the first time, I'm just so happy to be seeing that we are creating a market for nature. I know it's so important because, in recent times, as chair of the agriculture committee, I've spent a lot of time talking not only to my local farmers and landholders but also to farmers and landholders right across the country, particularly people conducting a lot of cutting-edge research in this field. We're now talking about a thing called natural capital. It is where we place value on nature on our properties, as well as on things like the soil and the biodiversity in soil. It's not just about the idea of fertilising all the time but also about building capacity and carbon capture in the soil. Soil is one of the most incredible things. I'm delighted to be a co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Soil, and I want to give a big shoutout to Penny Wensley, who does an amazing job as the National Soils Advocate. It's things like this that are so important. That's where this bill will come in. We're going to be increasing the value of our soil not just in monetary terms but also in terms of farming, nature and biodiversity. There's a lot of work to do, but at least we're making a start on it.

This bill is going to support landholders, especially farmers. I know how hard it is for farmers to try to stay on top of invasive species like blackberry and lantana—the array of weeds! You've only got to go down to your local DPI and get one of those amazing brochures to see what you're up against if you have a few acres and you're trying to keep the place weed-free. There's fireweed—a whole range of things that just take over pastures before you can blink an eye. This is where people locally say to me: 'We just need a hand with this stuff. We need to be able to get some support.' That's what this bill is going to do.

It also supports collaboration for the environmental entrepreneurs and passionate conservationists. I think it's a good thing to make investments with confidence in these shared efforts. We know that there are a lot of who have philanthropic desires around nature and want to contribute to something like this, so we're providing a legitimate pathway for those people to do that. We understand that around 60 per cent of our country's landmass is privately owned and the key majority of this is controlled by farmers and our First Nations communities. We know that they're already magnificent custodians of the land. You won't get anyone working harder and loving the land more than our farmers and our First Nations people, and this is really going to be a key change for them.

The data shows that a large percentage of critically endangered habitats rest on privately owned land or occupied land as well. You cannot successfully reverse decline in our environment without investments in private land rehabilitation, and that's what this market is about. Transparency is going to be core to the scheme because we don't want people ripping it off and rorting it. It's got to be found to be legitimate. There will be comprehensive information available for projects. There will be certificates and a public register. It will be above board. It will be effective. It will be all the things that people want to be able to have faith in, restoring nature whilst having a properly functioning market as well. It's going to enable parliament and the public to monitor the scheme too. This is really where the rubber hits the road.

Drawing from last month's budget, we're delighted to have secured crucial funding to preserve the exquisite natural treasures of Australia along with their devoted custodians. We've allocated $262.3 million to support our majestic Commonwealth national parks. That's all part of this as well. This new funding will go towards refurbishment or substitution of worn-out infrastructure and it will also ensure our devoted staff have the resources to enact threatened species protection, amplifying opportunities for our First Nations community in both employment and business, amongst other benefits. We're also investing $163.4 million towards the Australian Institute of Marine Science. This funding will ensure that continued contribution is made to providing world-class scientific research for our oceans, including, of course, the big jewel in the crown: the Great Barrier Reef.

These are just a number of gestures showing our unwavering commitment to preserving the splendour of the Australian environment, whether it be the world-renowned Great Barrier Reef, Wallis Creek in the Hunter, the Broken Back Range or those magnificent dunes that just go on and on when you drive to Birubi. The local legend was that we used to sell that sand to Hawaii. I'm not quite sure if we still do, but I tell you it's absolutely well worth bottling that beautiful sand at Birubi. I know how many people want to go there and enjoy it. That's why bills like this are going to be helping to preserve that beautiful local ecosystem.

On top of all of this, we've put $45.2 million aside for the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust. I think that's pretty important too because we know how many people go to Sydney from across the world. We have to address the pressing backlog of maintenance needs around Sydney Harbour such as deteriorating sandstone walls and docks and the stabilisation of sea walls. Although this is not directly in my electorate, I can see the benefit in this because Sydney is obviously the entry point for a lot of people who come up to Port Stephens to look at our beautiful waterways up there and who come to the Hunter more generally. So I think that's very happy news.

In another significant move, we're investing a substantial $236 million to establish a comprehensive and dependable natural flood warning system. This is not just a line item in the budget.

In closing, I want to say this resonates deeply with all of us from the Hunter region. In my electorate of Paterson, in cities like Maitland, we've had increased challenges with flooding. We are going to facilitate, purchase and upgrade essential monitoring equipment, ensuring that our communities in flood-prone areas are better prepared and supported in the face of potential natural disasters. I'm really excited about this. We're going to improve those flood gauges. There will be more of them in areas like Maitland, Dungog and further afield, where people have had terrible consequences because of flooding. This is another fantastic initiative. I'm so excited. I want to thank Minister Plibersek and the experts involved. I commend this bill to the House.

Dan Repacholi (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Nature Repair Market Bill 2023 and the Nature Repair Market (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2023. The Hunter electorate is lucky to be filled with beautiful nature. We have dense bush and native plants and animals, including rare native birds, and we have the largest saltwater lake in the Southern Hemisphere. As a father of two young girls, I want to make sure that we leave our land and nature, as a whole, better off for them and for their children. To achieve this, nature needs to be looked after, and, where it is damaged, we must try and repair it. This is why this government is making it easier for people to invest in activities that help repair nature.

We're supporting landholders, including farmers and First Nations communities, to do practical things that will make a real difference in the preservation of our natural world, things like plant native species, repair damaged riverbeds or remove invasive species. We're also making it easier for businesses and philanthropists to invest in those efforts, because anyone who wants to help the environment should, and now they will have more ways to make a difference through these simple, achievable measures.

The establishment of the Nature Repair Market is all part of this government's commitment to delivering on our Nature Positive Plan. We've committed to protecting 30 per cent of Australian land and seas by 2030. This is in line with what has been adopted globally under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. These goals further reinforce the findings of the 2021 Australia:State of the Environment report, which told a devastating story of environmental loss and inaction. We are the government who released this report. Those opposite hid it, and it's easy to see why. It didn't make those opposite look good at all when it comes to looking after the environment. It painted a crystal-clear picture of exactly how much damage that lot, over a decade of neglect towards the environment, did.

The results are damning. Australia has lost more mammal species to extension than any other continent, and, for the first time, Australia has more foreign plant species than native, largely due to the fact that in between the years 2000 and 2017 habitat the size of Tasmania was cleared. Our waterways were hurting too. Water is the single most important element for human existence, and the continued survival of the human race is not considered to be worth time or attention to those opposite. Our oceans are full of plastic. Up to 80,000 pieces of plastic are found per square kilometre, and flow in most Murray-Darling rivers has reached record-low levels.

We know those opposite never cared. It was made clear by their actions and their inactions. They axed climate laws, failed to land a single one of their 22 different energy policies and failed to fix Australia's broken environment laws, despite having a widely supported blueprint to do so. They promise $40 million for Indigenous water but never delivered a drop. They cut highly protected areas of marine parks in half and cut billions from our environment department. They also did some things just to make themselves look good—like setting recycling targets with no plan to actually deliver them. The recycling target was 70 per cent, but it didn't even get passed 16 per cent for four years. It was one of either two things: incompetence or inaction. I'll let you decide which one, Deputy Speaker Claydon.

We all know that our neighbours, the Pacific islanders, are under serious threat by rising sea levels. This is understandably one of the most important issues for Pacific governments, so important that, because of the inaction of the previous government, a wedge between us and our important friends in the Pacific was formed. The now Leader of the Opposition doesn't care. He laughed about our Pacific island neighbours going underwater. This just tops off the carelessness of those opposite. You'd think the election would have been a wake-up call, but they're no better in opposition than they were in government before they lost their prized blue-ribbon traditional coalition-supportive seats.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The debate is now interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour, and the member will be granted leave to continue once the debate is resumed.