Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens will be supporting this contingency motion. The reason is that, if we are going to be voting and passing environmental legislation in this place, it should be environmental legislation that actually does something. Under the amendments that have been circulated by the Greens and the new set of amendments that has been circulated by the government to incorporate a water trigger into our nation's environmental laws, finally, this bill actually does something.

I will take Senator Duniam's point from his contribution just now that, when this bill was first tabled, it was a dog's breakfast. It didn't protect the environment, and all it did was provide offsets for corporations to destroy one piece of environment over here while pretending to protect something else over there. 'Destroy a koala habitat here, and, hopefully, look after some Tassie devil habitat there—I am offsetting the environment against itself.' That is what a dog of a bill this was. With the amendments that have been tabled and circulated today, this bill will now be a bill that protects the environment and puts in place environmental assessments particularly in relation to fracking projects. It is absolutely bonkers that in 2023 we have environmental laws in this country that do not require any type of environmental assessment for big gas corporations to frack. Zilch. Zero. It's time that was fixed. That is why this amendment is important. That is why this contingency motion is essential.

I spend a lot of time talking to traditional owners in the Northern Territory. I spend a lot of time talking to farmers in the Northern Territory. They tell me, over and over again, that they want proper process. They want due process for these projects. They want to know that there will be a proper assessment, that someone is looking at what is being proposed, that someone is looking at the facts, that someone is thinking about the consequences and that there is some national oversight of this. That is what this motion before us now will allow to happen. It will amend our environment laws to give a proper overview before any big fracking projects are just ticked off.

I will speak further in the committee stage in relation to the Greens amendments to remove and scrap all of the offsets in this Nature Repair Market Bill. I will also speak to amendments that change the name of the bill. That's because no longer is this the Nature Repair Market Bill this government brought forward; it is essentially a new bill that, if it gets through this place, passed by the Senate, will establish proper protection for the environment, establish proper protection for our precious water resources and ensure that big corporations can't continue to greenwash. That is what this amended bill will deliver if we can get it done. I urge every member of this place to take the opportunity to do it. We are about to leave parliament at the end of the week. Wouldn't it be good to give the environment a Christmas present it deserves?