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

I rise to contribute to the debate on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Reconsideration of Decisions) Bill 2024. Let me say straight up that this bill is a bad bill. It's a political stunt from the coalition. It says everything about what the coalition think about the environment, and that is that they hate it. They hate the environment. They hate any moves to protect the environment. They resist any regulation that protects the environment, and they'll do anything they can to weaken environmental protections.

This is one of these issues where the coalition, refusing to listen to the scientists, refusing to listen to independent advice and refusing to listen to the cries and concerns in their local community for the survival of our native species and our ecosystems, are all too obsessed with digging, drilling and polluting. In this case, when we look at the salmon industry's devastation of waterways in Tasmania, the coalition don't give two hoots about the pollution and the damage that the corporate—foreign, I might add—salmon industry is doing to beautiful Tasmania.

We are on the cusp of a biodiversity crisis. We have ecosystems in collapse. We have our beautiful native species—species after species—being acknowledged as in serious danger of extinction, and in this case it's the maugean skate, an animal that has been around for hundreds of thousands of years, facing extinction. The Liberal Party and the National Party don't care about protecting Australia's environment. They don't care about the impact that industry, at all costs, has on ecosystems. I do wonder just how much money and support is flowing from the big salmon corporations to the Liberal Party. Why otherwise would you, day after day after day, ignore the very real threats to Tasmania's environment and waterways so these foreign salmon corporations can make profits? We've been told over and over again that the expansion of the salmon industry in Tasmania will push our native species and our biodiversity to extinction. But the Liberal Party in Tasmania do not care. That's what this bill is all about.

But of course it's not just in relation to the toxic salmon industry in Tasmania. This is emblematic of the coalition under Peter Dutton's rule. It is emblematic of Mr Dutton's attitude to the environment and to nature full stop. Do you know who is, more than anyone else, helping Mr Dutton at this coming election? That of course is Gina Rinehart. Gina Rinehart openly denounces the protection of Australia's environment and seems to have total disdain for Australia's unique and beautiful wildlife. If anyone hasn't seen it, you should look up the crazy, unhinged speech that Gina Rinehart gave last year as part of the Bush Summit. In the list of random points that Gina Rinehart was making, chief among them was that we couldn't possibly have laws that protect Australia's endangered wildlife, because—you know what?—27 of them might kill you.

That is the kind of logic that this unhinged, power-hungry individual has. Of course, we know where Gina Rinehart is putting her money this election. She is funding the Liberal Party. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are being handed over to Mr Dutton to do Gina Rinehart's bidding. Chief among her demands is the trashing of Australia's environmental regulation, the winding back of laws that protect our native species, all in the name of profit for the big mining corporations and Gina Rinehart herself—unhinged, un-Australian and damaging to our precious biodiversity.

The Liberal Party are going to run around this election saying listen to them because they will wind back environmental protection. They will stand in the way of and stare down the advice of scientists and experts about what is best for the sustainability of our natural world, and they will do the bidding of those who want to just keep logging, digging, bulldozing and polluting—and it doesn't matter whether it's the coal companies, the gas corporations, the logging lobby or, indeed, the big, foreign salmon corporations.

This position is not in the interests of local communities here, in Australia. This is in the interests of the profits of these big corporations and at the expense of our environment and the sustainability of jobs in our communities. If you pollute our waterways to a point where nothing can survive, there'll be no jobs in that area anyway. If you continue to log our native forests into extinction, there'll be no jobs there anyway. There are no jobs on a dead planet. That is a very clear, simple fact that is lost day after day on the likes of Mr Dutton, the Liberal Party and the National Party. But it seems that, if you are rich enough, like Gina Rinehart—if you've got billions of dollars yourself—then you don't care about what is being left behind for any future generation, and you don't care about the impacts on jobs in local communities or the health and protection of our environment.

Let's not forget Gina Rinehart was praising the ridiculously low, almost slave-labour wages of overseas workers because that's what she thinks workers should be paid here. She doesn't care about people's jobs. She only cares about her own money, and she only cares about whether Mr Dutton will be elected so that he can implement what she wants.

This bill is a political stunt from the Liberal Party, but it is a dangerous warning sign of what is to come under a Dutton government: the trashing of common sense, the overriding of independent expert advice because they don't like its inconvenient truth and the doing the bidding of the industries that only make their money and profit because they continue to pollute, destroy and bulldoze. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about the interests of the foreign owned salmon corporations, foreign owned logging companies, foreign owned mining corporations or foreign owned big ag.

This is a warning of what is to come from Peter Dutton's government if he were to be elected. They would do the bidding of big corporations at the expense of Australians, Australian jobs and our environment. When we stand up and say, 'Well, these corporations should have to pay their fair share of tax,' who does the squealing and the bidding and the defending of these big corporations? Of course, it's the Liberal Party and the National Party, the coalition who think their job and our job here in the parliament is to pave the way for these big corporations to run riot over our environment, over workers' rights and over Australia. But as soon as you say, 'Maybe you should pay something for that,' the Liberal Party say, 'Oh, no, no, no, you don't have to pay anything.' You don't have to pay anything—unless, of course, it comes in the form of a political donation, and then they'll have their hand out. They're happy to take money for themselves as donations but they don't want money being paid back in tax to the Australian taxpayer.

The beautiful waterways and rivers of Tasmania deserve to be protected for everybody—not just for the survival of the maugean skate and not just for fishermen in the area and the sustainable fishing industry. They deserve to be protected in the public interest because nature needs our help and we are part of the environment. When we come into this place and see pathetic pieces of legislation designed to ignore expert advice and overrule the protection of our endangered species and our environment, you've got to be very wary. Why would the Liberal Party want these rules and this advice ignored and overturned? It's not because they're doing it in the best interests of the Australian people. They are doing it because the corporations who are polluting, logging, digging and burning want to keep making massive profits. Mr Dutton is doing the bidding of the big corporations because he wants them to be able to keep making profits. He wants to be mates with them, like he is with Gina Rinehart, at the expense of what is good for our communities and our environment and at the expense of the survival of some of our most unique and oldest living creatures.

Australia is a beautiful, beautiful country. We have some of the most unique species in the world. But, rather than taking pride in that and having a sense of national pride about how beautiful our country is, the Liberal Party want to sell it for cheap. The Liberal Party want to sell it off to the big corporations at a cheap price with very little regulation and no respect for or understanding of expert advice. Who would you believe—the scientists or Peter Dutton's Liberal Party? Do you take your advice from the Tasmanian Liberals? Or do you take your advice from the environmental scientists and climate experts? I know who I would choose, and I know who most Australians would choose. This bill is a bad bill for Australia and for our environment, and it should be rejected.