Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The Albanese Government is fuelling the climate and extinction crises by approving three coal mines that will destroy hundreds of hectares of threatened species habitat and lock in 1.4 billion tonnes of climate pollution out until the 2060s.

I rise to speak in this debate. Of course, we've seen many promises made by the Albanese government in relation to things that they would do during their time in charge of this nation's laws and, time and time again, what we see is that, when it comes to the environment, when it comes to nature, when it comes to climate, they continue to break those promises over and over again.

Despite the fact that this government has promised to stop further extinctions of our precious wildlife and stop making the climate crisis worse, last week we saw this country's environment minister approve the expansion of coalmines, including a coalmine directly hosted on the land of critical koala habitat. Koalas in this country are facing extinction, and I say this very solemnly and very clearly on the same day that our environment minister is hosting a global summit here in Australia about the need to be nature positive.

Well, let me tell you that there is nothing nature positive about killing koalas. There is nothing nature positive about making the climate crisis worse by making more fossil fuel pollution. There is nothing nature positive when it comes to native forest logging. There is nothing nature positive about clearing and bulldozing hectare after hectare of critical koala habitat. It is an absolute international disgrace that this government has the gall to host a global summit called 'nature positive' while, in the same week, destroying and allowing the destruction of koala habitat and our environment.

The world loves Australia's koalas. The world knows that the koala is a symbol of the unique biodiversity of Australia. Koalas symbolise our forests, our coastline and our connection with land and country, yet we have the environment minister signing off on the destruction, because the laws don't stop her. The laws allow the environment minister to agree that a big coal company can come and bulldoze precious woodland and native forest to make way for more fossil fuels at the expense of our wildlife and our environment.

What on earth is going on in this government? On one hand you've got the environment minister saying that she wants Australia to be a leader when it comes to being nature positive; on the other hand you've got the Prime Minister, whenever he can get a chance, taking his jet over to WA to tell Gina Rinehart and the fossil fuel industry that they can keep going hell for leather. Dig more, burn more, make more profit—at the expense of our environment, at the expense of our climate, and at the expense of Australia's international reputation.

This nature positive summit should be called 'nature negative'. It's been a flop, and it's been a flop because this government does not have the courage of its convictions and won't do what is needed. Our environment laws are so terribly broken that they allow loggers to keep on logging native forest, despite the swift parrot. They allow loggers to keep logging, despite the danger to koalas. They allow coalmines and gas mines to open and expand at a time when world scientists say that we can't keep having more.

These laws allow big companies to ride roughshod over the rights of Indigenous and First Nations communities. (Time expired)