Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I have been looking forward to dealing with this issue for quite some time now, although one has to question what we are actually doing here, given it is well past the eleventh hour for this Senate to be dealing with something that could have, and should have, been dealt with a long time ago. What is this bill here for? It is a political fix the government have brought in as a result of a minister in their own cabinet refusing to do the job asked of her. That is what the government have been forced to do in order to resolve a situation that, as I say, could have been dealt with a long time before now.

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Reconsiderations) Bill 2025 amends the EPBC Act, a piece of law in this country that everyone in this chamber seems to agree is beyond fit-for-purpose, is broken. Indeed, it's interesting to note that they're words even the minister uttered earlier this week in debating this very legislation in the other place. We all agree the act needs reform. We all agree something should happen. In fact, the Australian Labor Party, now the government, promised us before the last election that they would reform this legislation in response to the Samuel review. They promised that they would fix this broken and outdated legislation. They haven't. They promised us we'd have new, fit-for-purpose laws that would be better for business and better for the environment. We don't have them. Instead, we've had a government mired in bureaucracy and led by bureaucracy in how it handles reforms to our critical national environmental approval laws. It has not progressed anything. No stakeholder anywhere on the spectrum is happy with the government's handling of any matter related to federal environmental approvals. From green groups right through to business lobby groups, everyone says the government have stuffed it royally. I think their record, the history of the last two years, very much speaks to that fact. Here we are perpetuating the problems with this legislation by doing another little patch-up job because the government have left us with no choice but to do this.

When the green groups lodged the request for a reconsideration of salmon farms in Tasmania, which have been granted permits to operate since 2012—which was under the last Labor government, with the then environment minister, Tony Burke, granting those permits—it was our view that this decision should be made urgently to resolve this issue one way or the other. That is, indeed, what industry, as recently as the end of last week and over the weekend, were saying as well: 'Just get the government to do their job and make a decision relating to the permits, and the question that hangs above them, for salmon farming within Macquarie Harbour.' Would you believe, though, that for nearly 18 months this government has been sitting on this request from the Bob Brown Foundation, the taxpayer funded EDO and others? It has failed to make a decision. I find it astounding that this request for reconsideration is still a live question before the government. So, because the minister hasn't made a decision, hasn't done her job and hasn't assessed the evidence before her to the extent that she can make a decision, the government have been left with no choice but to legislate to work around this minister and end the uncertainty that has dogged this government.

Who's running the show? The Prime Minister has said countless times he backs the salmon industry. He has been down in Tasmania telling salmon workers: 'I've got your back. Don't worry. I'm with you all the way.' But he's done nothing during his term in government until now. Let's not forget that this is a sitting week that we weren't supposed to have. But for the unfortunate events in South-East Queensland and northern New South Wales with Tropical Cyclone Alfred, which pushed back the election date, we wouldn't be here. So the government was left with no choice but to do this legislation. On 15 February, a letter was sent from the Prime Minister to the salmon industry. On that day, I wrote to the Prime Minister. We rang his office, and I said: 'We want to see this legislation. It is urgent. You have left this industry hanging for 18 months. You've promised us reforms to the laws, and you haven't delivered.' Do you think I got a reply to that letter? Well, no, I did not. We wrote again—no reply. We wrote to other ministers in the government. We rang their offices—nothing. There was nothing until the Monday of this week, when draft laws were offered to us, with a briefing, at short notice on Monday afternoon, about their political fix to an issue they could have resolved if this government were actually on top of its brief and doing its job properly.

So here we are—this eleventh-hour fix to try and get an issue off the political agenda and make it not an election issue so that they can go down to the West Coast of Tasmania and say, 'We've fixed it; we've saved your jobs.' Well, why was it not done before now? I'll tell you why: because the minister did not want to. Indeed, as late as Monday, the minister still did not want to. The minister was not even slated to introduce the legislation in the other place, according to the information provided to us in a briefing. It was, indeed, the Prime Minister who was supposed to introduce this legislation. As it turns out, Minister Plibersek did introduce it, so something changed. I think they realised it was a pretty bad look to have someone other than the environment minister introducing legislation into the House to amend an act she administers—one she administers woefully. As stated, it took 18 months to get nowhere in the decision-making process relating to such a critical industry in Tasmania.

In addressing the issue that she's now been forced to address, the minister—let's make no mistake about it—was not excited about this. She was not a fan of this legislation. She was certainly not the driving force behind it. But in addressing this legislation, as I alluded to before, the minister was able to concede that the laws are broken and are no longer fit for purpose and that this is an important issue that needs to be dealt with. Well, yes, by gum, it does, and it needed to be dealt with 18 months ago, as soon as these green groups got in the way and started doing what they did. But instead of acting when they could have and should have to end the uncertainty and allow salmon workers to have Christmas in peace, knowing that their jobs would be safe, the government have left it until now. If it was important, why on earth did we have to wait until a handful of weeks, if that, before the election? Perhaps the election will be called as soon as Friday this week, or perhaps Sunday. The reason was that they wanted to kill off this political issue.

The coalition have called for this for 18 months and said multiple times, 'Let's recall parliament to deal with this issue, prior to all the big holidays, when families want to know their parents are going to have jobs afterwards and when people, including salmon workers, will be stressing about how they're going to pay their bills, including mortgage repayments and power bills.' We've said: 'Bring it on. We'll come back to parliament and fix it.' We've been doing that for 18 months. Instead, here we are, as I said, dealing with this political fix rather than having a proper decision made by the minister.

We will support the legislation. There are amendments, which I'll come to in a moment, to ensure that this bill is as good as it possibly can be—noting that, as I said before, we were given this legislation on Monday. We had just a day or so to consider it, to understand whether it works; we hope it does. We are proposing amendments that will strengthen the legislation, and of course there will be second reading amendments that go to some of the other issues related to this government's poor administration of the environment portfolio and their blatant disregard for job-creating industries in regional Australia, be they salmon farming, forestry, mining or whatever else. We are committed to passing these laws through the parliament this week, although the appalling handling of this situation cannot go without remark, and the political and cynical approach taken by this government in getting to this point.

When we asked the officials at Senate estimates just a couple of weeks ago where the draft legislation was—more than 10 days after this letter had been issued and I'd responded to the Prime Minister saying, 'Give us the legislation'—we found that they hadn't even picked up the phone to the industry to convene a meeting to discuss the legislation. At Senate estimates they told me it was their 'intention' to have a meeting to discuss this. So urgent was this that it hadn't even been on their radar, even after the Prime Minister had dispatched this letter to industry! I think we can see this for what it is.

What's more, this party—the Labor Party, the party in government at the moment, who are about to take us to an election—are very vexed on this issue. If anyone wanted to try to convince the Senate and the people of Australia that this is a settled matter inside their party room, they'd be kidding themselves. There is a very vast divergence between the opinions of some in the Australian Labor Party about how this issue should be sorted. There are some who are very uncomfortable with the idea of this legislation—and of course, as you would assume, they come from the Left side of the party, and there are certain groupings within the Labor Party, such as the Labor Environment Action Network and others, who are not big fans of doing anything that would support primary and productive extractive industries in this country and having environmental laws that facilitate investment, create jobs and grow the economy while protecting the environment.

We heard about the Labor Party caucus meeting that occurred earlier this week. It went longer than usual, because, as has been put to the media, there was a quite heated debate about what the government was doing at this last minute—hoping it would hide, it would disappear under the cover of a budget with a few little tricks and treats in it for the people of Australia, it would sink without a trace. Well, of course our friends from, I gather, the Bob Brown Foundation were certain to ensure yesterday that it didn't sink without a trace. And while I don't support their actions, it was rather a sight to behold—people gluing themselves to the steps and handrails of the Marble Foyer of Parliament House for their cause—again demonstrating the vexed nature of the political debate here, which has not escaped the Labor party room. They are just as split as are some others in the community.

That's why, alarmingly, the Prime Minister—having gone over to Western Australia with his entire cabinet and told the mining industry of Western Australia, the backbone of our economy, the generator of royalty revenue for our country, which pays for schools, hospitals, roads, the NDIS and all sorts of other essential services: 'Hey, mining industry, don't worry: we've got your back; we are going to ensure that this EPA never sees the light of day. There is no deal to be done. We will never, ever allow this legislation to come in'—had to promise his party room that it's on its way back, as has been reported. A re-elected Albanese government, perhaps in partnership with the Australian Greens, if the pollsters are to be believed, will establish a new giant green bureaucracy here in Canberra—forgetting the fact that we already have seven EPAs across state and territory governments in this country. Why not have another one? But that was the sweetener for this bitter pill that they were going to have to swallow in supporting and waving through this legislative fix.

We know the government was always going to do this. I have to revisit these heavily redacted documents that were the basis of a deal between the Australian Greens and the Australian Labor Party. When I asked for the details of the deal on these laws to establish a new EPA, they gave me these blacked-out documents; I'd love to know the detail of them. But that will have to wait until after the election because that is the basis of a Labor-Green deal, which is bad news for Western Australia and bad news for the mining industry. This EPA is going to be disastrous but it is now part of what has been agreed to in the Labor caucus to get this bill through today.

We want to see a few changes here. There will be a second reading amendment, I can foreshadow, relating to the funding of the Environmental Defenders Office. Let's not forget this group was one of the instigators of the terrible situation Tasmanian salmon workers have found themselves in for the last 18 months. Why this government continue to fund that organisation to the tune of $2½ million every year, I do not know. It's the kind of thing that should stop, and that's one of the things we'll be calling on the government to do. We'd also love to see them rule out the establishment of a new green bureaucracy that will destroy jobs and erode economic confidence.

More substantive amendments will be dealt with in the committee stage in this 11th-hour debate that we have no choice but to have because this government haven't done their job, as they should have. They will relate to the expansion of the projects that are caught in this relating to reconsideration requests from not just non-controlled actions but controlled actions; bringing the period of time under which an exemption would apply from five years down to 12 months; and the minister, instead of making her decision as soon as practically possible, making her decision within a 12-month period of a reconsideration being received—something we've well exceeded now.

At the end of the day, we shouldn't be here but we are. We need to find a solution to this, and it has to be a permanent, lasting solution that supports these jobs in Tasmania while having an impact which sees the maugean skate survive. We want to make sure these laws do this. We are disappointed the government have been dragged kicking and screaming here; it's not like it's a new issue, which is why I am befuddled by the minister's comments that she is so surprised about the need to do this and her unwillingness to act in this area. We will move our amendments at the appropriate time, and I move my second reading amendment now:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate notes that:

(a) on the eve of a federal election, the Albanese Government has been forced to work around their own Environment Minister in an attempt to fix a political mess of their own making—and that they should instead simply have ended the Environment Minister's disastrous review of the future of salmon farming at Macquarie Harbour;

(b) the Government—and particularly the Environment Minister—must guarantee that they will not instigate other forms of legislation or regulations that will impose new controls or reviews on the salmon industry, including through the return of their Nature Positive legislation, Federal EPA or use of other mechanisms in the EPBC Act, such as directed environmental audits;

(c) the changes to the reconsiderations regime in the bill should be substantially strengthened to ensure that all assessments of all projects, across all industries, do not remain subject to the open-ended review processes that currently exist; and

(d) the Government must immediately end the millions of dollars of taxpayer funding to the Environmental Defenders Office which, amongst many of its other actions deliberately targeted at thwarting and stopping business activity, investment and job creation for Australians, was one of the three organisations that initiated the reconsideration request against the salmon industry."