Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Siewert, if Senator Rice is moving to take note, she will need your assistance or the assistance of Senator Waters.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

) ( ): Thank you. I understand that Senator Rice would like to take note of the government response to the Environment and Communications References Committee interim report on Australia's faunal extinction crisis. I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] Yes, I do wish to speak to the government's response to the interim report of our Senate inquiry into Australia's faunal extinction crisis, because I am just so insulted and so disgusted by it. I speak on behalf of the hundreds of Australian animals, birds, fish, amphibian and reptile species whose very existence is hanging by a thread, and I speak on behalf of the more than 13,000 people and organisations who made submissions to this extinction inquiry. I will be their voice in this parliament when the government is ignoring them.

The government has chosen today, budget day, to reject the recommendations of the inquiry's interim report that I tabled 18 months ago in April last year. Our recommendations were very simple. We said that there should be new environmental legislation to replace the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, given how this legislation has so comprehensively failed to protect our wildlife, and that we should establish an independent environment protection authority with sufficient powers and funding to oversee compliance with Australia's environment laws.

The government in their response today merely noted the first of these recommendations and rejected the second. And in their response they have the audacity to talk about recommendations from Graeme Samuel's current review into our environment laws, while at the same time they are trying to ram legislation through this place before that review has even reported—legislation that is a carbon copy of the environment and climate destroying laws that Tony Abbott tried to introduce seven years ago. How insulting, how disgusting and how cynical of them to be tabling this response today, on budget day, when they are giving tax cuts to millionaires and giving yet more handouts to climate and environment-destroying multinational companies. They are doing this on budget day, when I can guarantee they will be announcing policies that are going to be turbocharging our extinction crisis and turbocharging our climate collapse, rather than taking action and investing the billions that they could be to address the existential threats to nature and to climate—and to create tens of thousands of jobs in doing so.

With regard to actions to protect our environment, I'm sure that the Treasurer tonight may throw a few crumbs to knock off a few feral cats, and achieve little else. Meanwhile, our precious wildlife will continue to hurtle towards extinction. It's not as if they don't know; they know that the actions of their government and governments before them are killing our wildlife—our koalas, our swift parrots, our Leadbeater's possum—and they do not care. They are in bed with their mates in the coal and gas industries and the mining companies and the native forest loggers, and they are wilfully ignoring the evidence that is laid out so clearly in front of their very eyes.

What's worse, this interim report that they are responding to today was written and tabled way back in April last year. It was before the election. It was before last summer's megafires—before the burning of a full fifth of our mainland forests and before the deaths of an estimated three billion animals in the fires. That's 120 animals for each and every one of us—each and every person in Australia. Imagine that every one of us had 120 dead animals around us in a circle to mourn for. And those deaths, of course, were on top of the existing crisis.

How does the government respond in the midst of this crisis? They want to make the crisis worse. The Tony Abbott legislation that they are trying to ram through, far from strengthening our environment laws, is going to hand over power to the states, unwinding federal responsibility that has existed for the last 30 years. Our two simple recommendations—for new laws and for an independent EPA, an environment watchdog with teeth—are backed by the overwhelming majority of people who have any insight or expertise in protecting our precious wildlife and who know what needs to happen to halt our extinction crisis.

Our report laid out, in heart-wrenching detail, the current state of our precious wildlife. Some quotes from the report make it clear that 'Australia has one of the world's worst records for the extinction of and lack of protection for threatened fauna and is ranked second in the world for ongoing biodiversity loss' and that eastern Australia is 'one of only 11 regions of the world undergoing high deforestation, and the only one in a developed country'. Australia is now a global deforestation hot spot, standing next to places like the Amazon and Indonesia for deforestation. The koala is now on the brink of extinction in many regions of Queensland and heading for extinction in New South Wales within decades. About a hundred million native birds, reptiles and animals were killed because of the destruction of their habitat in New South Wales in just seven years to 2005. This is a crisis that is unfolding before our very eyes, and it's not like the pressures that are driving these events are abating or diminishing. In fact, they're ramping up. What's even worse is that there are large numbers of other species, poorly known but imperilled, that are at risk of extinction but are not protected, because we know so little about them.

Our report said about our existing laws:

Extinction rates are accelerating because the underlying causes are not being addressed effectively by Australian governments, communities and industries, and laws and policies meant to protect against loss of species are not adequately implemented … or often subsidiary in decision-making to development legislation …

It also said:

Small initiatives and limited investment are insufficient to fully address a legacy of land clearing combined with growing pressure from population growth, expanding development, invasive species and climate change.

This matters. The report says:

… the 'loss and decline of threatened species … have potential ecological domino effects on other species and communities' …

They include:

…reduction in species for pollination and seed/fruit dispersal, and loss of environmental engineers, for example mammals that burrow and dig.

In WA, for example, 'the critically endangered woylie turns over large volumes of soil, dispersing seeds and fungi, improving water filtration and nutrient cycling and plant regeneration, and it reduces fire risk by lowering leaf litter loads'. Professor Wintle, from the Threatened Species Recovery Hub, put it beautifully:

Species have a right to exist, and the loss of species degrades our society. We have a responsibility to pass on to future generations the wondrous natural heritage that we've been so fortunate to inherit …

The ACF commented:

Extinction events can have profound cultural implications. There are deep connections between Indigenous culture and custom and Australia's wildlife. Extinction events break these connections.

The problem is stark, and the evidence of what we need to do to fix the problem is equally stark yet denied by this government.

The conclusions that we reached in our interim report after hearing all this heartbreaking evidence were clear. We need new, strong environment laws, or our extinction crisis is just going to get worse, and we need an independent watchdog with teeth, with sufficient power and funding to oversee compliance with stronger laws. Yet in the 18 months since we put these recommendations forward the government has just slapped us in the face. Prime Minister Morrison, you and your environment-and-wildlife-destroying government that gives tax cuts to millionaires, that props up coal and gas companies and that gives the green light to climate collapse are on notice. Australians care about our wildlife, and they will not take this lying down. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Siewert, was Senator Rice seeking leave to continue her remarks later?

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, she was.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.