Perin Davey (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to participate in this debate on this very important bill, the Nature Repair Market Bill 2023. As Senator Grogan correctly identified, the intention of this bill was first proposed by the Liberals and Nationals in government. We were absolutely not opposed in principle to the creation of a biodiversity market, and we actually pioneered work in this very important area of policy in Australia. We undertook comprehensive work, including a significant level of stakeholder consultation and engagement, on creating a voluntary national market in biodiversity certificates. We worked extensively with the Australian National University to actually develop a world-first accreditation scheme for biodiversity credits. But this bill, the bill that is now before us today, and its related amendments are not as we proposed.

This bill has all the hallmarks of the pig-headed ignorance of this government that they continue to demonstrate through how they go forward and implement. Their lack of consultation and their ability to take a good idea and absolutely destroy it are becoming a standard mode of operation by this government. We saw it last week with the passage of the restoring our rivers amendments through this place, and we see it again today. Another key hallmark of the way they operate is their claims of consultation: 'We've put something online. The department accepts submissions. We got 180 submissions; look how well we've consulted. We've held a Senate inquiry. We took written submissions. We held two public hearings.' Where were those public hearings? This government is almost allergic to holding public hearings outside of Canberra, because where were the two public hearings for this bill that impacts rural and regional Australians more so than anyone else held? Here in Canberra; what a surprise!

Let me be clear: the original purpose of the bill that the coalition presented was to create the biodiversity credits along similar lines—robust and measurable credits through our work with the ANU—to the energy-generating credits which would allow a landholder to obtain tradeable certificates that could be used in a similar way to carbon offsets. The bill we are presented with today is far more complex, is less understood and creates unknown risks. Senator Grogan just said it herself: 'There is still so much work to be done on the design and methodologies.' It's typical of this government with their 'trust us' approach: 'Trust us; she'll be right. We'll work out the actual implementation phase later.'

One of the risks that this bill presents is the decision to extend the parameters of the market. The bill presented by the coalition was limited to agricultural land, but Labor's bill goes far wider and proposes to include all types of land tenure, including territorial waters, regardless of ownership or legal right. It includes all native title land, all Crown land and all Torrens system land titles. This means that the agriculture, mining, resources, forestry and fishing sectors could possibly all be forced for economic reasons to take up biodiversity credits which are of no overall benefit to the Australian economy.

The coalition did a considerable amount of work on our legislation, particularly with the ANU. It was based strictly on the application to potential projects and the specialised carbon and biodiversity and enhancing remnant vegetation assessment models. But Labor has veered away from that robust methodology. They're proposing to employ a very different way of legislating and regulating, by allowing potential participants in the market to define and apply their own idiosyncratic methodologies to the projects. This just adds to the confusion, the unknown implications and the limits of this legislation. 'But trust us.' they say. It's also not clear how Labor's work on new arrangements for offsets as part of the changes to the EPBC Act will interact with this legislation. There are a lot of unknowns here, which brings into question: what deal have they done with the Greens in order to bring forward this legislation and cut short their own request for an extension to the committee process?

I refer to what Greens spokeswoman, Senator Hanson-Young, said on Sunday. When asked about this legislation on Insiders, Senator Hanson-Young said: 'The idea of allowing the protection of one part of nature, a particular area of koala habitat, to be saved, in order to justify the destruction of nature somewhere else—I mean, that's bonkers. That's not environmental protection.' She went on to say: 'That's a red line for us. I want to see the offsets gone. If the offsets go, then I'm happy to sit down with the government and talk about where we go next.' If that was the position of the Greens on Sunday, given that we have not seen such amendments circulated as yet today, what deal has been done? What have the Greens traded off in order to bring forward this legislation?

There are grave concerns about offsets right through our communities. I have to quote my colleague from the other place, the member for Flynn, Colin Boyce, when he spoke on this bill. He had such a turn of phrase when talking about offsets:

The wealthy virtue-signalling elite want to invest billions of dollars in Australian agricultural land, lock it up and forget about it to appease their own self-loathing of their irresponsible lifestyles while they continue their jet-setting, latte-sipping affluence …

That is such an accurate description of the approach to offsets that is taken by sections of corporate Australia. Given this government's track record in the environment space and the lack of understanding by the minister of so much of what she's been pushing through this place, I would have thought it better governance to wait and allow the Senate committee to complete its work, as per the government's own request for an extension until April. Then they could've taken the time to consider all the implications of what is being proposed and come back to this place for a sensible and informed debate, as recommended by my colleague Senator Thorpe, who supported the full completion of the Senate inquiry and the full and informed consideration of this bill. That responsible approach is clearly not one favoured by the Greens or Labor. It's not one they want to see, so they're pushing through the bills, which few understand and even they haven't finalised. They haven't worked out how the bill will apply. The similarities and potentially disastrous consequences of this bill remind me of last week's debate on water.

I really want to be clear here: it was the government that requested the extension of the reporting time lines of the Senate committee and proposed April next year. How disingenuous! We were happy to support it because we believed that this bill needed thorough investigation and needed to hear from all stakeholders. We would've supported the committee going out into regional areas to hear from stakeholders. But, no, the government only wanted to hear evidence here in Canberra. We would've supported that, but what we are now finding out is that the government just wanted more time to negotiate a dodgy deal with the Greens. We have no idea what the deal is or what it means and we are still waiting to see what it is. What 30 pieces of silver have been traded off today with this legislation? It's unfortunate that yet again in this place we find ourselves, as senators, unable to do our duty of scrutinising and testing the legislation comprehensively through the committee process. We are unable to listen to affected community groups and stakeholders, unable to go out on ground and talk to people on ground and hear their concerns and their evidence.

During the now curtailed work of the Senate legislation committee on this bill, there was frequent evidence from stakeholders about and frequent reference from stakeholders to concerns about this bill and its intended impacts, particularly concerns about offsets. There were concerns about putting this bill up before the proposed changes to the EPBC Act, and Senator Thorpe referenced that earlier. We've heard at length from this government of their desires and of their review of the EPBC Act and of the fact that they want to establish an environmental protection authority at a federal level, which raises all sorts of concerns. It flies in the face of less government and smaller government and creates concerns about duplication, but they want to put this bill up first. How is it going to interact with any proposed new authority? What will the governance arrangements be? But trust us; we'll get there!

I understand, and I take Senator Grogan's point, that the NFF has made some welcoming noises about the bill and about the intention of the bill. As I said, from the outset we supported the intention of the bill, but in the way this bill is drafted it has far too many red flags, far too many concerns and certainly not enough clarity about how it actually will be implemented, how it will operate and how robust the assessment and accreditation scheme will be. As I said before, despite the very good work the coalition did with the ANU and the robust, world-leading accreditation proposal that we had put forward, Labor have gone off on their own track: 'We know better. We just don't know how we know better, because we haven't got there yet. There's still work to be done on design and methodology, and we'll duck-shove that to delegated legislation. Trust us—it'll all be okay.' Well, I can tell you regional Australia doesn't trust this government, agricultural industries don't trust this government, the mining sector doesn't trust this government and I don't think the Senate should trust this government. I do not think we should be supporting this bill.