Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is for the Minister for the Environment and Water. On 21 May 2022, in his victory speech, the Prime Minister said, 'Together we can end the climate wars.' Yesterday, your government moved to drop the environmental protection agency off the Senate bill. I ask you, Minister: is this how the climate wars end?

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much to the member for Kooyong for her question and also to those other members that are on the crossbench today that actually supported our nature-positive laws when they passed through the House of Representatives. I think everybody agrees that our nature laws need reform. Unfortunately, the Liberals and the Nationals teamed up with the Greens political party to block that in the Senate, just as they teamed up to block the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, and that led to 80 million extra tonnes of carbon dioxide pollution entering our atmosphere.

I think Greens political party voters would be surprised to learn that the political party that purports to stand up for the environment wasn't prepared to vote for a strong new cop on the beat, an environmental protection agency with strong new powers and penalties. They weren't prepared to vote for better data, more transparency and a world-first definition of nature positive. And I think Liberal and Nationals voters would be surprised to know that those opposite voted against faster approvals for projects based on better data and more regional planning.

What is clear is that if people want real progress on nature law reform, then they have to vote Labor in the House of Representatives—and in the Senate as well. We know, on this side, that Australians love camping, they love fishing, they love bushwalking, they love boating and they love going for a swim. We need to preserve nature for the future. We want our kids and our grandkids to be able to see a koala in the wild. That's why we've got to act now.

The difference could not be starker. This side has added more ocean, an area larger than the size of Germany and Italy combined, to the waters under protection. Those opposite cut marine parks. We saved the Great Barrier Reef from an endangered listing. Those opposite have climate policies that put it in danger. We have doubled funding to national parks. Those opposite let our national parks fall into disrepair, to the extent that there were crocodile warning signs falling onto the ground and going missing—because those opposite let our national parks decline.

We've invested more than half a billion dollars to better protect our threatened species. Those opposite cut funding to the environment department by 40 per cent. We're increasing recycling by 1.3 million tonnes a year. Those opposite voted with the Greens to make it easier to export our garbage overseas. I really want to thank the member for her question, because she has shown that by working cooperatively we can make progress, instead of just blocking. (Time expired)