Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

In this context of a mass extension event that is unfolding around the world, in the way that scientists identify such things, EO Wilson in 2002 calculated that:

If the current rate of human disruption of the biosphere continues, one-half of Earth's higher lifeforms will be extinct by 2100.

This is a very live area in earth system science and biology. Nonetheless, this is the context in which the Australian Greens frame this debate in this place. It is not an issue that we in Australia are alone in needing to grapple with and confront, but these are issues that are global in scope and have been unfolding for decades.

In my own home town of Western Australia, we live within what is called the 'Southwest Botanical Province' and it is one of only 25 biodiversity hotspots in the world. To qualify as a biodiversity hotspot, globally and internationally, an area needs to be acknowledged as a significant reservoir of biodiversity. It needs to have at least 1,500 endemic species—species of plant life and animal life that do not exist anywhere else—and needs to have lost at least 70 per cent of its primary vegetation. The Perth metropolitan area is one of those places. Impacts from bulldozing and clearing for the suburban expansion of one of the lowest density and most car dependent cities in the world, from agriculture and from water draw-down; climate change; changing coastal dynamics resulting from construction on the coastline; damage from eutrophication in the Swan River from various chemicals that have been poured in on top of the catchment—all of these things, land clearing in particular, have led to an extraordinary extinction cascade on the Swan Coastal Plain. Perth being the only city in the world based in a natural landscape and dominated by banksia woodlands, we call it a place that is too precious to lose. It is a place that is very precious to Western Australia and to those who live there.

As Senator Siewert quite rightly pointed out, why would you hand back these decision-making powers on individual clearing proposals when the state is the proponent and they are proposing it? You are asking these people to regulate themselves. They are out there demanding that this happen, that this land clearing occur and that these developments to go ahead. To then expect the EPA to come out with some backbone and say 'no' is extremely optimistic. That is why environmental campaigners in Perth know EPA as an acronym that stands for 'every project approved'. That is not strictly correct. When you go back and look at the record of the EPA, every now and again they do knock one back—and then it is promptly overridden by the state government. That has happened a couple of times, including on Barrow Island, where Gorgon proposes and is now undertaking the process of smothering hectares and hectares of that landscape with concrete for the Gorgon gas development.

I will give two quick examples, both very close to home, of where the state government is a proponent of a project that Mr Abbott thinks they will be perfectly qualified to assess themselves. One is Point Peron—a legallyquestionable and deeply unpopular land grabby Cedar Woods and LandCorp that proposes to flatten nearly 70 hectares of urban bushland. There will be dredging impacts and there will be seagrass impacts in Cockburn Sound. The decision is before the Commonwealth minister as we speak because federally listed species are potentially impacted, including nearly 30 migratory birds and a very rare form of freshwater lake with a community of thrombolites—very ancient communities in that freshwater lake. It is one of the oldest living species on the planet. These are legitimate issues of national environmental concern. That is why the act was drafted to allow the Commonwealth to take an interest in such matters. It is extraordinary to see the coalition lining up today to hand those powers back to the very same authorities who are proposing the project in the first place.

The second example is in another part of town that is very close to my heart—the Roe Highway Extension. Again it is a state government proposal. They have come up with it. The land is vested in Main Roads Western Australia until we can get it off the planning scheme. As at the last estimates hearings, they were proposing to blow nearly $900 million. It would be the most expensive segment of freeway that has ever been built in Western Australia—for no purpose, because the Fremantle Eastern Bypass no longer exists. So it is a freeway to nowhere and the state is the proponent.

I look forward to putting this legislation to a vote and to maybe serving another one back up to the Abbott government—it is a bad idea that should not be passed into law—to, in the hope that we prevail, acknowledge all of those in Western Australia who stand up for our precious environment, whether it be those communities at Point Peron in the Beeliar Wetlands who are stepping up to protect it, those in the south-west who are protecting the magnificent tall forests of that area, those who stood at Camp Walmadan at James Price Point, or those who are fighting to protect Western Australia from its first commercial uranium mine, the nuclear trigger. No matter what you might think of the handback of powers, there was a black-and-white commitment made before the election by the Abbott opposition that the nuclear trigger would stay in Commonwealth hands. That has now been washed out into the rest of this legislation as well.

This is fundamentally untrustworthy and misguided decision making. Whether it is communities in the midwest or the Kimberley standing up against fracking or neighbourhood groups who simply want to protect their area of urban bushland from the bulldozers, the Greens are in here to represent you today and to stand with those in the Labor Party and on the crossbench who do not want to see this reckless, so-called handback of powers to the state governments who have shown themselves, year after year, to be unable to protect the environment that we depend upon.