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

In Queensland it seems that we are back to the Joh Bjelke-Petersen days. Here we 'Joh' again. I have said before in this place—and, no doubt, I will have cause to say it again—that the Queensland government has been on a brutal agenda of attacking the environment, public servants and civil liberties in Queensland. We have seen thousands of public servants sacked. We have seen more than 20 environmental laws overturned and an agenda of infringements—if I can be so polite about it—about civil liberties for Queenslanders. There is clearly an urgent need to look into this brutal agenda, which is why the Greens are, and always have been, supporting this inquiry.

On those environmental changes that the Newman government has rolled out, sadly there has been an absolute denigration of the environmental laws. There has been a tax on the native vegetation laws in winding back protections for riparian vegetation and regrowth vegetation. There have been repeals of coastal protection laws which will damage the Great Barrier Reef in completely overturning our state planning policy for coastal areas. The Wild Rivers legislation has been repealed and overturned, particularly for Cape rivers. There has been a program to allow grazing in national parks, which are supposed to be for the conservation of nature, and logging in areas that had been earmarked to become national parks. Just this month, as I mentioned last week, the Queensland government passed a bill through the state parliament at three minutes to midnight removing public objection rights to the biggest mines in Queensland. That is the biggest step backwards that we have seen in community rights to protect the environment and to uphold the law in living memory. It is pretty clear that the Queensland government are trying to silence Queenslanders in favour of letting the big mining companies run absolutely riot. They consistently put the big mining companies ahead of the people of Queensland.

That is precisely why it makes no sense at all that this state government be given more responsibility for the environment and to in fact be given, as this government intends, the responsibility for environmental approvals that the current federal environment minister has. The Abbott government has been set on turning us back by 30 years in giving away its environmental powers completely to the Queensland and other state governments.

Senator Brandis interjecting—

It is the foreign affairs power, Senator Brandis. Please, you of all people should know your Constitution. I am pleased that we have had discussions with the Palmer United Party along those lines.

Senator O'Sullivan interjecting—