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

I rise to contribute to the discussion and debate on this piece of legislation, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Reconsiderations) Bill 2025. It was introduced into the parliament only yesterday. It went through the House of Representatives yesterday afternoon, and it is now being rushed through this chamber today—no proper process, no proper scrutiny, no ability for the department or the minister's advisers to answer the right questions or to know exactly what the consequences will be of this particular piece of legislation. This is a stitch-up between the Labor government and Peter Dutton's Liberal Party to gut Australia's environment laws and to facilitate the continuation and expansion of an industry that is polluting the Macquarie Harbour and that is pushing the maugean skate, our wildlife, to the brink of extinction.

Yesterday, we asked the government why this legislation needed to be unprecedentedly rushed through the parliament, on the eve of the election. We heard from the representing minister that it was because there was a flaw in the environment laws. We asked what the flaw was. It was that the law, as it currently stands, allows for a reconsideration when the environment is being damaged—so the flaw is an inconvenience to the corporations. The flaw is an inconvenience to the industry who want to keep polluting, who want to keep destroying, who want to keep fishing the rotten salmon that is washing up on the beaches and the bays in Tasmania right now.

The Prime Minister promised the salmon industry some two months ago that he would give the salmon industry a carve-out from Australia's environmental protection laws. That is why this piece of legislation is now being rushed through. Rather than listening to the science or listening to the local community, who are concerned and increasingly worried about the toxic nature of this corporate salmon farming in Tasmania and what it is doing to the environment, the Prime Minister decided that the 22 jobs—I'll say that again: the 22 jobs—in Macquarie Harbour are more important than keeping people's beaches clean and pristine and protecting the environment. This is all about rank, raw politics. This is about the Labor Party desperate to win Lyons at the federal election and desperate to hold on to votes. Meanwhile, they're missing the fact that the community in Tasmania are increasingly outraged at the sludge and the rotten fish that are washing up on the shores.

This piece of legislation, which will now not go to a Senate inquiry—we will not hear from the experts and we won't understand the real legal implications of this—is a carve-out and an exemption for the salmon industry to deal with what the Prime Minister thought was a political problem, bowing to the pressure of the corporates rather than listening to the community. But, in the way this legislation has been drafted, there are unintended consequences that now give a free-for-all to corporations and industries across the board. This legislation opens the floodgates for companies that are trashing the environment to continue to trash the environment even when the environment is suffering immensely, even when our native species are facing extinction and even when science suggests that a particular activity is too damaging and should be stopped.

What this legislation means is that, if approval has been given for a particular activity, whether it's fishing, mining or a land clearing project, after five years, if the environment is suffering terribly and we have wildlife on the brink of extinction, the minister cannot press the pause button and say: 'Hang on a minute. We might need to rethink this, because what we thought was going to happen is now worse. What we thought would be okay is now not.' The minister will not be able to look after the environment, because the interests of the corporations will have been embedded into the law. That's what this piece of legislation does. This is about protecting those industries from environmental scrutiny and from being held up to the requirements of environmental protection law, and it allows a free-for-all for environmental destruction. This law passing today, being rushed through by the Labor Party, will mean that Australia's environmental laws are weaker than they were when the Labor Party came to power. What does that say about the Albanese government and Minister Plibersek's legacy?

Three years ago, when the Labor Party was elected to government, we heard promises from the environment minister that the environment was back, that this government would act on strengthening environmental protections, putting in place rules that would ensure we stop the extinction of our native species and that there would be accountability for the industries and corporations that have been doing the wrong thing. That was a promise. That promise was made to the Australian people at the last election and was reinforced once Labor came to power. The bill that is being rushed through the parliament today does the exact opposite. In fact, it doesn't just not deliver on that promise; it takes Australia backwards. It makes our environment laws weaker, more defunct, and less able to protect the environment and our native species than when the Prime Minister took office.

The election will be called sometime in the next four or five days and Anthony Albanese will leave the office of Prime Minister asking the Australian people to re-elect him after he has trashed Australia's environment laws. The Prime Minister and the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, will walk out of this building tomorrow with weaker environment laws than were here when they took office. If you need any other reason to question the Labor Party's commitment to the environment, this is it. The Labor Party cannot be trusted to do the right thing by nature. This bill proves it. They are doing this because Peter Dutton asked them to. They are doing this because the salmon corporations, the foreign owned salmon corporations that take all their profits overseas, asked the Prime Minister to do this. The salmon corporations asked the Prime Minister to weaken the laws because it was inconvenient for them that the laws might actually protect the environment. They wanted a carve-out, they wanted a workaround, they wanted an exemption, and the Prime Minister handed it to them on a platter.

This bill stinks as much as the rotten salmon that is washing up on the shores in Hobart and southern Tasmania. And, boy, I think the government has got this wrong, and I think the opposition has got this wrong. They are absolutely misreading the community outrage on this issue right now, and not just in Tasmania but across the rest of the country. Australians are looking for integrity in politics. They're looking for people and politicians who do what they say and say what they do. This bill is a rotten, stinking deal between the Labor Party and the Liberal Party to trash our environment and to weaken our laws rather than to do what was promised.

The truth is that, if Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party cannot stand up to the pressure of an industry that has rotten fish washing up on its shores right now, there is no way in hell you could trust them to stand up to any other industry that wants a carve-out and a special exemption when it comes to the environment. If the Labor Party can't stand up to the foreign owned salmon corporations that are allowing rotten fish to wash up on the shores in Hobart, do you really think they're going to stand up to Gina Rinehart and the gas and the coal industry? Weak. Gutless. Pathetic. They cannot be trusted to do the right thing when the time requires. It's all about bowing to the corporate pressure, bowing to the donors, hushing up the community concern and silencing the environment.

This industry has no social license left. Let's be clear here. Thousands of people are rallying in Tasmania because their beaches are polluted and are covered in rotten sludge, and the Prime Minister is backing the foreign corporation over the community. It's political suicide and it's madness, but it is at the cost of the environment.

I listened to the Minister for the Environment and Water's speech in the House on this bill yesterday. The minister was so desperate to get off this topic while introducing this bill that she went through a litany of other things to try and remind the Australian people about what this government has done on the environment in this term of government. The list isn't very long; the list is pretty limp.

This bill supercharges all of the weakness in the existing laws. This makes Australia's environment legislation and protection for the Australian environment weaker and more ineffective than ever under this government. This isn't slow progress. This is a huge step backwards for nature under the Labor Party at the behest of Peter Dutton. Let's not forget that Peter Dutton wants even less protection, and the Labor Party has now just delivered that on a platter of stinking, rotten salmon.