Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The government today seeks to reform our environment laws by amending the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, not for the stronger protection of our natural world but to make it even more difficult for projects that impact our environment to be properly assessed. Australia is in the grip of a biodiversity and climate crisis. This has been clearly evidenced by researchers, experts and academics across the country. Yet today this parliament has before it legislation, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Reconsiderations) Bill 2025, that will further undermine our hope of protecting our environment. The major parties in this Senate are satisfied with rushing through this legislation this evening. They are not following the usual process of the Senate and they are not following the process usually taken after a Senate inquiry, leaving no way for a genuine opportunity to assess the impacts of these changes.

How can we trust this government when we consider the history of failed environmental protections in Australia? In the last two centuries, Australia has lost more mammal species than has any other continent. Our biodiversity rate—the rate at which that biodiversity is lost—is considered the second worst in the world. Let me frame that for you again: Australia's environmental protection laws are so weak that we are now a world leader in biodiversity loss. From 2000 to 2017, 7.7 million hectares of native habitat were cleared. Ninety-three per cent of this was cleared without any assessment under our environment laws. Beyond this, billions of animals have been lost to us forever through wildfires. Nineteen irreplaceable marine and land ecosystems around Australia have collapsed. The government cannot say that the cost of this biodiversity loss is unknown. Experts predict that it will quicken the collective collapse of our climate. Our food, our water resources, our economy, our human spaces and our beloved natural world teeter on the very brink.

The protective steps, as this government is framing them today, are far from that. The actual protective steps that we need to take today to conscientiously conserve our environment for future generations tomorrow should be the priority of the Senate this evening. The Labor government made a commitment in 2022 to the Australian community to actually reform our environment laws. Not only did they abandon this commitment but the Labor government are now rushing to intervene in a legal process and legislate the exact opposite, against the fulsome assessment of projects under our environmental laws. This is an absurd use of our parliament—to ram through significantly important policy and to gut our environmental laws in less than 48 hours without proper scrutiny or assessment. Australians expect better of their representatives than this. Australians who voted for this government with the assurance that it would strengthen our environmental laws have every right to feel angry and disturbed by what is happening here today.

Strong environmental laws are essential to safeguarding our precious lands and our native wildlife and to ensuring the resilience of our food and water resources and of our very communities. We rely on Australia's biodiversity to keep our ecosystems going. It is absolutely astounding that the basic protection of natural ecosystems is being overtly undermined and exploited for the benefit of industries and corporations. What is the point of the EPA and the minister for the environment if genuine challenges and appeals to environmental protections are being shut down by this Labor government?

The impact of the Labor government failing to take climate action and environmental commitment seriously is known to our community. Right now in WA, at the end of March, we are experiencing yet another heatwave. At 7 pm on Monday night, Perth was still sweltering through temperatures of 38 degrees. Yet we have the Labor government again siding with the coalition, whose leader has explicitly stated that he would speed through the approvals of Woodside's Burrup Hub, regardless. Just think about it. This is a man who has said he will speed up the approvals of Woodside's Burrup Hub in the full knowledge of the havoc that it will wreak on our climate and vulnerable ecosystems like Scott Reef.

It is sadly very simple. If we do not understand and prioritise the rebuilding of a healthy natural world, if we do not make sure that precious places like Scott Reef are preserved, then we will face the consequences in every shape and form in our society. We hear from community members who are doing all they can to decarbonise, to recycle, to manage their waste and to be sustainable in their lives. On the opposing side, we have new gas developments greenlit in New South Wales, for example. New South Wales is home to a community—