Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

But the matter is too important to be left with a one-word answer like that. What Senator Siewert’s amendments do, on behalf of the Australian Greens, is require the basin plan to abide by international agreements—that includes the Ramsar agreement, to which we are signatories, as prescribed in section 335 of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Then there is the  follow-through under that act for other treaties, including those with China and Japan for migratory birds. I might add here that, even though a promise was made back at the turn of the century by the minister for the environment at the time, Mr Kemp, that there would be a migratory bird agreement struck with South Korea, we still have to see that one in evidence.

This amendment is very critical. It says that we should abide by the nation’s one major environmental law, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, that we should take it into account in drawing up the Basin Plan. There can be no worry with the government if it intends to do that. But this government’s performance is not one of abiding by the EPBC Act. It is not one of implementing its intent or even the letter of its outcome. Just this week a motion before the Senate calling for the environmental laws to be upheld with regard to protecting the habitat of rare and endangered species in this country was voted against by both the major parties, extraordinarily enough.

This is a crucial amendment and the Greens are very strong that the strictures of environmental law in this country be applied to the Murray-Darling Basin. That is what it is about. The practice so far is to ignore the environment and put it last. We are saying here: simply abide by the relevant international agreements we have signed and this nation’s single major environmental law. Surely the government—or the opposition, for that matter—cannot cavil with that.