Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to rise in support of the Nature Repair Market Bill 2023 and the associated bill, particularly after the completely nonsensical contribution from a senator who claims to stand up for regional Queensland. I live in regional Queensland, and this is something that people there are calling for. We know how important it is, and we know that there are three things that will get lost in this debate when senators, particularly those of the Liberal and National parties, come into this chamber. These are three really important things that I need people to understand and consider while these post-fact contributions are happening.

Firstly, there is a crucial need to repair our natural environment right now. We can't wait. We've lost a decade to bickering, politics and negativity from the Liberal-National coalition. We've lost a decade. We have lost time and we need to make it up urgently. That is what everyone is telling us, particularly when it comes to the environment. The Australia state of the environment report, which I'll speak about shortly, confirms that.

Secondly, the things that are being lost in this debate are the very real and exciting opportunities that this scheme could unlock. They get lost by those opposite—they don't want to see those opportunities—but I see those opportunities firsthand in the work of nature repair happening in catchments around Queensland, all the way up the coast. I'm really proud see the work that's been going on. Just imagine the possibility if those small-scale projects that have had such a crucial environmental impact were given the ability to go full-scale. There would be so many jobs and so many partnerships supported. Those very real opportunities won't be spoken about by those opposite, but they are what we on this side of the chamber know will result from this bill.

The last thing that anyone in this chamber or outside this chamber should ever forget is that the Liberal and National parties will stand in the way of environmental reform every day of the week. It doesn't matter what type of reform it is. It wouldn't matter if they had actually drafted this bill themselves—which they did; they had a version of this bill and a version of this scheme. It doesn't matter what's in this bill; it's for the environment and it's for working alongside people to make sure we can repair our environment, so they're against it. Their arguments and the debate they want to have aren't about improving the environment or creating more jobs; they are just dead against any environmental reform. Anyone who lines up with them also lines up with their decades-long record on environmental destruction, vandalism and complete disregard for how important our environment actually is for our economy.

Labor today, in supporting this bill's passage through the Senate, is creating a world-first nature repair market. The Nature Repair Market Bill will see the introduction of a world-leading voluntary market framework to support landholders in protecting and restoring nature. This will make it easier for businesses, organisations, governments and individuals to invest in projects to protect and repair nature, because we don't want just to stop environmental decline; we want to repair it. We must. We need to right now.

It's about bringing people together on this journey. We talk about that a lot—not just in this chamber; I talk about it a lot in my work as this Special Envoy for the Great Barrier Reef. For so long when it came to these debates, and it continues today through this discussion, the Liberals and Nationals would have you believe that we need to fit people, particularly people from regional Australia, into boxes, into a binary situation where it's farmers versus scientists, landowners versus conservationists, agriculture versus traditional owners, environment versus the economy, or farming jobs versus jobs on the reef. Respectfully, I'd argue that sometimes those from the Greens Party fall into that trap as well. But that's not how you deliver reform, and it's not how you deliver outcomes in regional Australia. Actually getting farmers, scientists, landowners, conservationists and First Nations people to sit down, partner and find the way that we can work together is how you get results. That's what the Nature Repair Market Bill 2023 identifies: that there's an opportunity here if we bring people together instead of saying that you must always be on opposite sides of this debate.

That's why Labor bring people together in this space. It's what we've continued to do in the work that we've done for the environment, and for very good reasons. You don't have to delve too far into the State of the environment report to understand the seriousness of the task that we have at hand: one of environmental degradation, loss and inaction. We want to see our environment protected. Australians love the outdoors. We're so lucky to have such a diverse range of incredible landscapes, waterways, and ecosystems around us in our country. Maybe this is something that people like me who live in regional Australia take for granted sometimes, that we can just drive 45 minutes up the tablelands and jump into a waterfall and that we've got these pristine environments that are so beautiful. But, if we lose them, we lose so much about what makes Australia special. A healthy environment is important to communities, economies and our First Nations culture—our way of life. It impacts everything that we do. Just last week we saw an intense debate in this place and right around the country about protecting the mighty Murray-Darling, another critical environment asset. It's so important to our country, our regions and the people that live there. It's a river system that we want to ensure becomes healthier and more sustainable and one that we want to protect from future droughts.

The Nature Repair Market Bill represents another important, pivotal moment for our environment. This is, despite what those opposite will have you believe, what the bill will do. The Nature Repair Market Bill, together with the Nature Repair Market (Consequential Amendments) Bill, aims to establish a world-first nature repair market. The bills provide the legislative framework for a voluntary national market in biodiversity certificates to enable private investment in high-integrity projects to protect, manage, and restore nature. The market will be open to landholders, farmers, First Nations people, conservation groups and businesses. The market will enable project proponents to undertake projects that protect the environment and protect and enhance biodiversity on a range of land tenures, including the aquatic environment and the ocean to the extent of Australia's territorial sea. Project proponents will be able to apply to the Clean Energy Regulator for a unique biodiversity certificate that could then be sold to interested persons in the market, very simply being rewarded for the hard work that you put into the environment. They will be able to monetise this really important work that's already happening and be able to lift the scale of these projects from small-scale and admirable projects to big-change projects that make a huge difference to our environment.

The bill is framework legislation, and there will be rules and biodiversity assessment instruments introduced so we can get the methodology right. These legal instruments will be subject to consultation. It's really significant, I think, that what we are talking about is a market that will include tradeable biodiversity certificates, insurance and compliance arrangements, a public register and a nationally consistent approach for measuring biodiversity outcomes, because we know around Australia there are different credit schemes in place. People are talking about the opportunity that this could capture—