Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

That was a long list of grievances which effectively come down to a set of questions around why the Labor Party and the Labor government won't apply the law in the way that the Greens political party assert it should be applied, which is essentially on the vibe of things. We take a very different approach. The approach taken by Minister Plibersek, as should be taken by all responsible parties of government, is to consider the matters placed before her, to consider the evidence associated with those issues and those decisions that are required and to then apply the law. That is the approach we take. It's not about considering the vibe of things and choosing projects that we like, people that we like or proponents that we like, as you would suggest and is so frequently and shamefully suggested by those sitting opposite us. It's about applying the law.

I'll tell you what: we are working incredibly hard to restore all of the damage and all of the destruction that has been wreaked upon our environment by the people opposite over the last decade. There was a wasted decade when so much could have happened and very little did, but we are working on it. We are seeking to set up our first environmental protection agency with strong powers, a new tough cop on the beat, and we would like the Greens party to support that. The Greens political party should support that legislation, because it would be good for the environment—and, incidentally, it would provide a great deal of certainty for the business community.

We have doubled funding to better look after national parks, including Kakadu and Uluru after the Liberals left them to fall apart. We are protecting Jabiluka from mining; we're adding it to the Kakadu National Park. We've protected an extra 40 million hectares of Australia's beautiful land and sea—an area bigger than Germany—and there's more to come. We've tripled the size of the Macquarie Island Marine Park. We've kept the Great Barrier Reef off the World Heritage in Danger list. That's a set of achievements, in a short time, to be proud of. (Time expired)