Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

As I was saying, the terrible record of the Newman government on environmental issues and, frankly, many other civil liberties issues—the list could go on—with regard to the Newman government's agenda in the last two years leads us to the inescapable conclusion that these are the last people that you would put in charge of internationally significant environmental icons that are not only beautiful, bring many tourists to our shores and make our hearts sing but also bring in an awful lot of economic support for our economy in Queensland. Every year reef tourism brings in $6 billion. This is why for the last two years we have been opposing the plan to put the state governments in charge of what is a national responsibility. They have demonstrated time and time again that they are not up to the job of protecting the environment, and why should they be responsible for carrying out international obligations? That is the national government's role. So we will be opposing this bill in absolutely every part. We have been holding discussions for the better part of those two years—and, obviously, in particular earnest in recent weeks with the crossbenchers about the need for them to vote to retain the federal government's ability to protect these beautiful and significant environmental icons.

There has been quite a lot of talk about whether we should just keep the water trigger. Of course the water trigger is very close to our hearts, being part of the engineering that resulted in that getting onto our law books, but it is not just water that is important. World Heritage is important. The Great Barrier Reef is important. Internationally significant wetlands are important. Nationally threatened species are important. We have these federal environmental laws because these things matter and they are too precious to lose to the wanton neglect and greed of state premiers. When it comes to the vote, I hope the crossbenchers bear that in mind and that we are able to keep all of our federal environment powers and not just the water trigger.

It is no surprise that we see this sort of nonsense from the Abbott government. From their short time in government I have a list of about 18 changes—and even that is already out of date—where they have wound back national environment protections. This one-stop shop has been the grossest one in my view, but getting rid of our science and climate change ministers is maybe not such a great idea when we are facing a climate crisis. Of course, there was defunding the EDO on top of those Queensland cuts, so the poor Queensland EDOs now have no public funding at all for the first time in more than 25 years.

They abolished our carbon price, to the great shame of future generations. They abolished the Climate Commission, tried to get rid of the CEFC and ARENA and approved the world's largest coal port in the Great Barrier Reef. That is on this government's hands as well. They cut the Reef Rescue funding and set up some dodgy offsets fund instead of actually supporting the current scheme that was working. They abolished the water commission, tried to delist the Tassie forest World Heritage listing, considered that we have too much forest locked up in national parks and said, 'The foresters are really the true conservationists.' If it were not so alarming, it would be incredibly amusing.

They are trying to get rid of our world-leading marine national parks and ticking off on all of these Galilee megamines that will single-handedly contribute enormously to worsening climate change—and for what? To make a few people a bit richer. That is not a good deal in my view. They are continuing to deny landholders the right to say no to risky coal seam gas and other unconventional gas on their land. Seriously: why should these people bear the risk and why should we trash our aquifers and groundwater—the most precious resource we have in the driest inhabited continent on the planet—for the sake of a few multinationals' bottom line? Again, not a good deal for Australia.

They are continuing attempts to repeal the mining tax, abolish the biodiversity fund, put a go-slow on the Cape York World Heritage nomination against the wishes of many of the traditional owners and cut Landcare funding. This government is set on destroying the environment, and this bill today is the latest instalment. I think it is one of the worst because it winds back 30 years of protection for the national environment wherein we say the states are not there to do the job of the national government. They should not have to care about international obligations; it is the national government's job to do that. We say that, actually, icons like the Great Barrier Reef and internationally significant wetlands, species and water are too important to simply wash your hands of them because you cannot be bothered having those responsibilities anymore.

I hope today we will see a vote that sees this bill consigned to the dustbin of history permanently.