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

and I am not getting the link. I take those interjections from the charming Senator O'Sullivan and the equally charming Senator Abetz. I put to the Attorney-General: are you really the first Attorney who wants to see laws less enforced? Has there ever been an Attorney-General who has advocated for less enforcement of the law, rather than more? It is a very confusing situation for the Attorney and, indeed, for anyone trying to make sense of his position.

We know that this is the latest in a long line of attacks on dissenting voices against this government and against the environment as well. They have axed the funding for the Environmental Defenders Office. They have launched a witch-hunt going after the tax-deductible donations to environment groups. They have slashed funding to community conservation groups and, of course, they have passed a motion at their party conference to go after environmental boycotts against harmful products like palm oil. Now they have made it clear that they want coal to be above the law.

It was very interesting to hear Senator Brandis describe the laws as poorly drafted when in fact it was his government that drafted them. These are John Howard's environment laws. It worries me greatly when I see the Abbott government now wanting to weaken those already weak laws, which have presided over huge declines in species health. We have lost about 10 per cent of our mammals; in fact, 35 per cent of the world's mammalian extinctions are occurring here in Australia. We know that our environmental laws are already too weak, but now we have the Abbott government saying, 'No, they are not weak enough—we don't want anyone to enforce our law; we'd rather just let the coalminers write their own laws and steamroll ahead,' even though the minister forgot to consider a conservation advice not once but twice. This is the second time this error has been made, and it is the second time it has taken a community group to go to court and say, 'Minister, you forgot about this key consideration again. What are you doing?'

So I welcome the fact that a community group, the Mackay Conservation Group, took that challenge. The minister admitted that he had made a fatal flaw in his decision making, and yet now we see Senator Brandis wanting to further silence the Australian community. I hope that no-one will give him truck in that regard. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.