Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

This document is a performance audit by the Auditor-General into funding models for threatened species management. When you open up an Auditor-General's report, you do not usually expect to immediately be reminded of Australia's globally distinct ecosystems, our immensely diverse flora and fauna and the richness of biodiversity that means Australia is recognised as one of the world's mega-diverse countries. Something that we often forget in Australia, whilst we recognise our magnificent natural environment and our wildlife, is just how incredibly diverse and unique it is, and how crucial that fact is to the long-term health not just of our environment but of all of the social and economic services that depend on a healthy, diverse environment. Approximately 85 per cent of our flowering plants, 84 per cent of our mammals, 45 per cent of our birds and 89 per cent of our reptiles occur only in Australia. Unfortunately, in the last couple of hundred years, more than 130 of Australia's known species have become extinct, three of those just since 2009.

What this audit report does is look at the funding models for the management of threatened species, because at the core of maintaining biodiversity is ensuring the diversity and the survival of all of those species—all of those different types of life. We are doing more and more poorly. Whilst this Auditor-General's report goes to the funding models and the way that they are being managed, at its core is a recognition that we are failing to deliver our obligations under the federal environment law. This government is failing to deliver. There is no doubt that our federal environment laws need a significant overhaul. There are gaps that need to be plugged. But what this government is doing is failing its obligations under the existing law by failing to properly fund what is required.

This report goes to the fact that this government has basically tried to contract out its obligations to the private sector. We've just had a debate in this place about the failure of the neoliberal model, the failure of the economic model that both the established parties of the political establishment have taken on board as a matter of political faith for the last few decades—that somehow or other government is better done by contracting it out to the private sector. This report shows that you cannot do that in an effective way and expect governments to meet their legal and, clearly, ethical obligations to the Australian community to prevent further extinction and to properly manage and address endangered species. You cannot contract that out to the private sector. But that's what we've seen with this government adopting the approach of free-market fundamentalism gone wild.

This Auditor-General's report explicitly goes to the so-called Threatened species prospectus that this government put forward just over a year ago. The audit assesses the effectiveness of the design of that Threatened species prospectus. It's couched in the usual Auditor-General's language, but it clearly identifies that there is a lack of a fit-for-purpose performance framework. There's an inability to properly assess adequacy, even on its own merits—and, let me be clear: this proposal, this policy approach from the government, is grossly flawed. It is a piecemeal approach. It is contracting out the core, central role of the government, to ensure that the legal obligations are properly fulfilled in a systemic way. You don't just protect the threatened species that you can manage to find some funding for, the ones that are most easy to market. It's not a competitive arrangement amongst the threatened species of our country, to try to compete to see who can attract private sector funding to make sure that their habitat is not destroyed. There are no mechanisms in this approach to prevent the ongoing destruction of habitat, whether it's by logging, mining or all of those things that are destroying economic opportunities as well as destroying the biodiversity opportunities and the biodiversity heritage of this country.

I think this Auditor-General's report, couched, as it is, in its own dry economic language, is actually good reading for people who want to get a grip on the economic irresponsibility of trying to apply a market based approach, a neoliberal approach, to a fundamental aspect of environmental management and, let's be clear, the legal obligations of this federal government, under our federal environment law, to properly manage and address threatened species. (Time expired)