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

It's a delight to be able to speak in the Nature Repair Market Bill debate, which is something that has had a rather protracted examination through the Senate committee process. It has taken a few turns that I confess have surprised me, but let's take stock of where we're at with regard to this legislation: how we arrived at it, the perceived need for it and why the government is now apparently rushing this legislation through, despite only a few days ago having a further four months of consideration by a Senate committee to go.

Let's have a look at the history. The bill was referred to the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee on 30 March this year with a reporting date at that point in time of 1 August. An extension was granted to extend examination of that bill, given the frankly near universal condemnation of this legislation, to the beginning of November this year. Again it was extended, at the request of the government. It was the committee chair, Senator Grogan, who is a terrific chair I might add, who suggested that the minister may be very interested indeed in having the committee report extended. The minister was very keen to extend that date based on the comments of the chair of the committee on 30 June, when that extension was granted, through to 18 April, which was when the bill was supposed to be reporting as at the end of last week.

Then, out of nowhere, with just a couple of days notice, we get this indication from the government that legislation needed to be brought on urgently and the committee reporting date be brought forward by four months. It was rather a stunning move, I've got to say, when, as I said before, there was near universal condemnation for the way the government had constructed this legislation, how they had consulted on it and how, frankly, they had ignored many of the pleas from stakeholders to look at how best they could structure the legislation. I gather the government could see the writing on the wall, hence the extension, but somehow something has happened in recent days which has precipitated this expedited bringing on of the legislation.

The concerns of the stakeholders were many and varied. The most common theme threaded through all of these submissions by people from the environmental movement, the ENGOs through to the business community, was in fact that we should be dealing with the reforms to the EPBC Act, the national environmental approvals legislation, which has been reviewed by former director of the ACCC Professor Graeme Samuel. Deal with that first. Get the overarching framework legislation in place before we progress to dealing with all of the other bits of legislation. That was a view shared by the Australian Greens and many of the other members of the Senate crossbench. It's something that the government completely ignored, so here we are today rushing this through.

It was clear from the contributions by many in the Senate committee hearings and based on indications made publicly that the bill would be opposed. The Senate committee report was provided to senators at the end of last week, with roughly a day to respond. Interestingly, there are two dissenting reports: one from coalition senators which clearly indicates we will be opposing this legislation because it is bad legislation, and one from the Australian Greens political party. I'll be interested to see whether the Australian Greens stick to their dissenting report, or whether it was just words at a point in time which can be easily expunged from the record. We will see though.

But here we are today having this legislation rushed through. Four months of scrutiny has been cut off completely with no notice. A deal has been done—a deal, clearly, that was done on the same day these committee reports were tabled, including the dissenting reports. A deal has been done of which we do not have the details. A deal has been done which will receive no scrutiny, because, of course, the Australian Labor Party in partnership with the Australian Greens political party have decided to end scrutiny: 'We don't need to see anymore. We don't need to ask any more questions. It's not your business. Good luck.' And here we are having the bill rushed through.

Of course, I think it's important for us to examine some of the elements that have raised concern by way of evidence provided to the committee, which I'm sure other senators paid attention to. Professor Helene Marsh, Chair of the Threatened Species Scientific Committee, argued:

… we would agree that trying to harmonise this bill and the reforms in the EPBC legislation—and particularly the standards associated with subordinate legislation associated with those reforms will be very important. We'd like to see the whole package harmonised.

Again, it's about the EPBC Act coming through first and not rushing this. Kurt Winter, Director of Corporate Transition at the Carbon Market Institute, said:

… issues around how the market is used by the private sector and then demand driver really need to be clarified before this bill is progressed. We think that as a matter of priority clarity should be provided around reforms to the EPBC Act …

He also said:

… the EPBC Act reforms and, indeed, some of those critical Chubb review recommendations should be a matter of priorities, given that much of this market is premised on some of those underpinning legislative instruments.

Anna Vella, a committee member of the Australian environment and planning law group of the legal practice section at the Law Council of Australia, said:

The Nature Repair Market Bill, if passed, must work seamlessly with the EPBC Act going forward, which means we need to understand reforms being proposed to the latter act—

the latter act, I will point out to those listening, is something that will be sitting off in the never-never. This is legislation we were going to see by the end of the year. Well, here we are, with just a couple of sitting days left, and of course that legislation is nowhere to be seen. The consultation process took place with the Australian Labor Party's select group of supporters, who have been a part of this process all the way through. They were given something like 50 pages of a handful of high-level principles, which are supposed to replace the more than 1,000 pages of the EPBC Act. We're not going to see that legislation. Robyn Glindemann, Chair of the Australian Environment and Planning Law Group at the Law Council of Australia, said:

If there is a potential for projects that are created to be used as offsets under the EPBC Act, then I query how we can make the two pieces of legislation work when we haven't seen the second bit. … the sequencing is of concern when the fundamental piece of legislation that the Commonwealth has is the EPBC Act … the benchmark for the Commonwealth to achieve its international obligations—

which, of course, everyone is supportive of—

but it needs to work in concert with other legislation, and other legislation needs to work in concert with it.

The list goes on, right the way through to Lyndon Schneiders, Executive Director at the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation, which was reaffirmed in the content of their supplementary submission:

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—

again, we haven't seen them—

for environmental offsets, regional planning, and threatened species protection, to demonstrate that a rigorous and high integrity regulatory system will support the operation of a Nature Repair Market.

Well none of that has happened, but here we are actually debating this legislation.

I do want to turn to the Greens dissenting report. It's interesting to see what has been put on the table. At this point in time I'm not seeing any government or Greens amendments to this legislation. They may have been circulated while I've been on my feet, but as yet I'm not aware that they have been circulated. There was, of course, a motion moved yesterday, which I will come to in a moment, which is very nebulous in its construct. But the Greens talk about issues related to offsets. In fact, the dissenting report, signed by Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, the deputy chair of this committee—who, as I understood, was firmly opposed to this bill—goes on about: offsets being a major concern; nationwide offsets earlier this year; concerns around how offsets have not been working for years; 'these goals will not be met with a scheme that facilitates further destruction'; and 'to give any credibility to a potential biodiversity accreditation scheme, the use of offsets must be explicitly excluded'. Well, we will see whether there is an amendment to that effect, because that's what the Greens were calling for.

Indeed, I might just turn to some closing comments from Senator Hanson-Young in one of the hearings in the inquiry into this bill, where Senator Hanson-Young says:

Every expert we've had today, and the exact report that the minister has used to promote this policy—by PwC of all people!—suggests otherwise.

She goes on to say:

You can't point to any evidence that says this is going to be net positive. In fact, what does 'net positive' even mean when you're talking about biodiversity? It is clear that this bill is in absolute tatters. It has no friends. Even the people the minister had thought would back it have not backed it in. It's in tatters. I can see the looks on your faces—

Senator Hanson-Young says, referring to the departmental officials who were sitting at the table during this hearing—

It must be totally demoralising to have put in all this effort and then to have it put up in lights, given some scrutiny and be shown to be an absolute sham.

Anyway, I'm finished—

said Senator Hanson-Young.

Yet I have this sneaking suspicion that the Australian Greens are going to support this bill. For what? We don't know. What we have thus far is a motion relating to some further amendments to be made, extraneous to the bill, around the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, the EPBC Act, which is under reform and under review at the moment, which we haven't seen. These amendments will expand the circumstances in which certain petroleum mining developments must be assessed and approved by the minister administering the act. They're very nebulous—certain projects, unspecified at this point in time—and give us no clarity as to what backroom deal has been done between the Australian Greens political party and the government.

So how have we got there? What does it mean? The Greens have been able to secure, clearly, something they didn't ask for or expressed concern about during the committee process, during interrogation of the legislation that was before us, but, as far as I can tell today, nothing relating to what they actually did express concern about with regard to offsets. Now, that may change. As I say, here we are debating the legislation and I've not seen any further amendments; they might be running around the chamber here somewhere, but I've not yet got them. I've got amendments from Senator Thorpe and Senator Pocock, which I look forward to debating at a point in time. They've clearly stuck to their guns and seen what needed to be fixed. But, as for the Greens, I can't actually see where they're going with this. It's an interesting arrangement, isn't it? In the last week of parliament, a bill that had absolutely no support in this place has been rushed in, on the basis that they somehow thought they were going to get it through. I was in disbelief at the government's attempts to do this. I thought the Australian Greens political party would—with their virtue always on display—stick to their guns. You heard yourself what Senator Hanson-Young, the deputy chair of the committee, said, in reflecting on this legislation as it stood.