Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

As is often the case, it's always a good thing to sit in this chamber and listen to the contributions of other senators. In terms of Senator Pocock's last contribution, I think there is enormous scope for agreement on the fundamental questions that lie before us on the Nature Repair Market Bill 2023 but also more broadly. He is right to point to all of the concerns that should mobilise this Senate, which are much broader than a narrowly constructed environmental one. They go to ethical, aesthetic, economic and legal questions that ought to mobilise our thinking. I want to come to those issues in substance. I also listened to the contributions by Senator Davey and Senator Grogan. They both pointed to the fact that the genesis of this framework lay in the three previous terms of coalition government, and Mr Littleproud was an early advocate for this kind of framework. In the previous nine years of coalition government, this was viewed as a good idea.

It's not the whole answer to the biodiversity challenge, and it's wrong to identify one measure and insist that that one measure cover the field of what is required in this area of policy. There are other things that must be attended to. It is just one of the tools. Reservation of marine and terrestrial environments is one of the tools that the government has. Getting the approvals process right so the EPBC Act meets the public policy grounds upon which it should properly be founded is one of the tools. Support for good practice from the Commonwealth, in cooperation with the states, is one of the tools that should be employed when protecting biodiversity. I single out Indigenous ranger programs and what might be contemplated in terms of extending that important work to country towns and, yes, to First Nations communities but also broadening the scope of that kind of caring for country work, which is of enormous benefit to protecting biodiversity. The range of programs that the Commonwealth funds, some of it in cooperation with the states, is another vector of activity, as is supporting our science and research communities and making sure that our science and research programs meet the biodiversity challenge as well as the other big challenges that they are required to meet. All of these are vectors for activity. This is just one program or one legislated measure that should assist. I want to come to the substance of that in a moment.

The position of the coalition is, of course, what's interesting here. They say this was their idea, but they didn't legislate it. It reminds me of Saint Augustine's prayer: 'Lord, make me pure, but just not quite yet.' They say, 'We were going to do it, but we just didn't.' They extend that incapacity for action to: 'We were going to do it. We didn't. Now you're doing it, we're bitterly opposed to it. ' That is why nothing happened over the course of the last nine years, not just in this important area of reform but also in others. They, in government, didn't want anything to happen then, and they don't want anything to happen now. If we followed Mr Dutton and the coalition's prescription, there would be no progress. Nothing would ever get done. That is the case of so many areas of public policy reforms that are necessary for the country and in the national interest: climate, housing, energy policy, industrial policy, Australia's place in the region, and our environmental objectives more broadly. The coalition were determined to achieve no progress then, and, even in areas where they talked a good game in government but delivered nothing, they are determined that their successes in government should not proceed with any reform at all. It's a confluence of ineptitude in government with a backward-looking culture-wars bigotry against reform and action, a bias for inaction, an easy recourse to saying no, a determination to plumb the depths of public debate on these questions, and a refusal to accept, whether it's founded on a sense of entitlement or not, that anybody but them could form a proper government.

Well, in this area of world-leading reform, we are determined to get on with it. We are a government that will work across the chamber to deliver this package of legislation. It is world-leading. It will, in my view, require administrative action and adjustment over time as we make sure that this works effectively. In the end, what will it do? It will provide, particularly for our agriculture sector, a set of incentives to encourage actions that support biodiversity on farms, on leaseholds and on native title land. We will do it collectively with the agriculture sector. We will work with farmers to deliver these kinds of projects. I know from my own background that, on almost every farm in the country, there is land that is productive and there is what we used to call scrub country that is unproductive. This legislation would give most farmers a more diverse income base and a capacity to use the land, which was not productive land before, in a way that's in the public interest and that will improve the quality of their property and, over time, improve the public good that their private holdings can support.

Will it achieve all of the objectives that we need to achieve in reform in terms of biodiversity? Absolutely not. It does not claim to do that. All of the issues that Senator Pocock went to require attention. But, in this area of reform, this will represent significant progress and a way of engaging the private sector and privately held land in a constructive way in biodiversity efforts. Consider the natural diversity of the Australian continent at colonisation. And consider what it was when the original occupants of this country had it in their hands. Consider the diversity of the continent at colonisation. Consider what it looked like then. Consider it a hundred or so years ago. Consider the impact that economic and agricultural development and industrial development have had on the landscape, on habitat and on species diversity. Think about biodiversity as we were growing up. For me, it was on farms and in country towns in northern New South Wales in the 1970s and 1980s. Think about the access to biodiversity that we had around our farms and our properties, and then have a look at what it is now. There is a retreat measured not just in terms of species extinction, the reduction of habitat and the reduction of infrastructure that is critical for nature—such as streams, creeks, rivers and billabongs that support species diversity—but also in terms of the access our kids have to experiences in nature.

It has more than an economic dimension. I think that's what Senator Pocock was talking about: the cultural and aesthetic issues that are fundamental. This government is determined to take action in the areas that I pointed to, including by means of this bill, because, if that trajectory just continues uninterrupted, the experience of our kids, our grandkids and our greatgrandchildren will continue to be constrained and to diminish. Aside from all of the economic, agricultural and environmental questions that the scientific community might point us to—where areas like the Murray-Darling system reach a tipping point and where the drivers of habitat reduction mean that you reach a tipping point in biodiversity terms—actually, there are national identity, cultural and aesthetic community questions in terms of maintaining species diversity that are critical. This bill is just another measure of us saying that strengthening the national estate here is government's core responsibility.

This does mean that, on private land, there will be stronger incentives for property owners to take action. I was recently on a relative's property near Hillston, with my son that was founded under the old Soldier Settlement Scheme. The family built a remarkable sheep and grain property. There are native grasses all over it. One of the things that that family has done—and it's often a thing that farmers do as they get a bit older and when they've been on that land for a long time and know that country really well—is identify areas for natural development. In that old cypress pine country that used to exist there, they have found some sections of that farm and, at their own expense, done a remarkable job of replanting the original vegetation. The species diversity that they have been able to re-establish in that bit of country is remarkable. In fact, it's very interesting. I could bore you for hours, but I only have a minute to go.

The First Nations artefacts that they have discovered there and worked with local land councils and others to make sure they are protected and maintained in that country—let's find a way of the whole country doing this work. Let's find a way of engaging and providing incentives so it's not just a matter of charity or a sense of what is in the interests of future generations that mobilises it but a set of economic incentives that support that kind of development.

That is part of the way forward here. I stress that it's not the only measure that the government is undertaking. Minister Plibersek, as Minister for the Environment and Water, and the other ministers in the government who are engaged in this work, will continue to outline and deliver areas of reform. I look forward to the amendments and to working across the chamber to make sure that this piece of legislation is passed. I hope that we will continue to watch its progress closely and make sure it delivers in the national interest in the way that it should.