Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased that at least we can now be honest—because there you have it. That contribution by the Greens' environment spokesperson actually laid out clearly exactly what has been going on here. It was a contribution given with a high degree of certainty which, to my mind, didn't exist until very recently. It sounds to me, as described by Senator Hanson-Young, that this has been in the making for quite some time. I commend the Greens for being the green tail that wags the Labor dog—again—and for being able to achieve these outcomes which, frankly, I feel are going to have a disastrous impact on the Australian economy and the cost of living. For all the things that have been said, this is not going to end well for Australians.

In the last answer that was given to me by the minister, it was put to me that a range of entities, individuals and organisations were consulted—no names. I'd appreciated it if there were names provided. I'd also be interested to know whether a regulatory impact statement was undertaken by the government in preparing these last-minute amendments. I'd also be interested to know exactly when these amendments were finalised—the date and time they were finalised—because, as I've already put on the record number of times in this debate, we received these amendments at 5.52, with the supplementary explanatory memorandum.

There are big changes afoot. They're going to have a significant impact. I think we're going to see a huge amount of duplication. These changes, I believe, will just pave another road for green lawfare to occur. That's great news for the environmental defenders office and bad news for gas consumers, bad news for the economy and bad news for the cost of living. But, I tell you what, that is exactly what certain people in this place proudly fight for, and good on them. That is something that they can stand up for. But I just have to reflect, in asking these questions, on the shambolic nature of where we are today. Just a day and a half away from this place rising for the summer break, from people going back to their electorates, we are rushing this legislation through as if it is going to change the world.

Just last Friday, contributions were sought from senators in relation to the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee inquiry into this bill. There was the majority senators report, which of course told us the bill was amazing and needed no change whatsoever and recommended that the Senate pass the bill as drafted. There was the coalition dissenting report. Our position remains the same on this piece of legislation. We still think it's terrible. We still think it's bad. We still think it's unnecessary to go down this path for all of the reasons I've already outlined—all of the uncertainty it's going to bring about.

We can go through the various contributions to the committee inquiry. Lyndon Schneiders is the executive director of the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation. There was a big element of the debate that took place in relation to these bills during the committee process, and that was a fundamental principle that I thought everyone—or at least non-government senators—shared and stuck to. That was the need to deal with the EPBC Act first, to be able to get a framework legislation around national environmental approval laws in place, have the national environmental standards bedded down and have all of the other relevant elements put in place so we knew exactly what the landscape was going to be. That suddenly isn't a problem anymore. I will quote Lyndon Schneiders again, someone I probably won't quote too many times in this place. The executive director of the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation said:

We recommend that the NRM (Nature Repair Market) Bill be delayed until Parliament has been presented with key EPBC reforms, including proposed National Environmental Standards for environmental offsets, regional planning, and threatened species protection, to demonstrate that a rigorous and high integrity regulatory system will support the operation of the Nature Repair Market.

Those concerns appear to have fallen on deaf ears tonight because we are wading into this area of legislative change, which is going to have significant impacts—and I do dispute what the minister said in the claim that this will have zero impact on the cost of gas because it won't affect existing projects. Sadly, supply is a key element to being able to meet demand and therefore has an impact on gas prices. So I don't buy that, and I think you will rue the day that you made those comments.

Given the concerns around that—and, in one of the hearings, Senator Hanson-Young herself made those very comments to departmental officials about this bill being in tatters and it being an absolute sham. But suddenly now it's okay to support it because of some amendments that appeared out of nowhere on the day we're debating this legislation. It just smacks of a Labor-Greens stitch-up, something we should have come to expect in this place. It's something that, sadly, is becoming a hallmark of this government in this term of parliament, where it looks like there's a proper fight on and that there's going to be some consistency and integrity shown by political parties, who go into a process saying, 'You know what? These are our red-line issues and we're not going to budge,' until they budge and they get a deal done behind closed doors, where there is no scrutiny and where there is no regulatory assessment of the impact that these new laws and regulations will have.

There is no modelling done on what cost implications there will be for individuals or entities seeking to commence a new project. We don't know how many organisations will be caught up in this, with projects that are planned. Surely the government, who work with entities out there, have some understanding of exactly what is in the offing. I haven't got an answer to that and I suspect we won't have one because there is no modelling and there is no concern for what this might mean for the economy, for the community and for the cost of living. It is, as I said before, simply about getting a deal done so that they can claim they have a win at the end of the year in order to try and cover over what has been one of the most shambolic fortnights in parliament, where we have seen terrible things happening and the government trying to pretend there are no issues at all.

More broadly, against the backdrop of a government that can't get its act together when it comes to environmental policy, we were promised that the national environmental law replacement, the replacement for the EPBC Act, would be in this place before the end of this year. We have a couple of days left, and there is nothing—not a thing to be seen with regard to that promise that was made by the government. And I wonder why. Why have they done the go-slow on that? Again, it points to the need for this government and this minister, Minister Plibersek, to get a win. And today she gets a win and the Australian Greens get a win. The people of Australia are the ones who are going to pay for the deal.

But, again, I'd love to know exactly who was consulted in the preparation of these additional consequential amendments that we're discussing right now. Was a regulatory impact statement done, and when, precisely, were these amendments finalised with the Greens given, as I said before, they were tabled at 5.52 this evening?