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

Madam Acting Deputy President Polley, it's great to be back and great to see you in the chair. Today I want to take the brief opportunity that I have to speak about the environment. It is something that is centrally important to the future of this nation and to the capacity of many parts of our economy to function and it is something we all treasure. Despite some of the rhetoric that we often hear in this place, it is something we all regard at the highest level and with extreme importance, and to that end I think that there is a chance, now that the parliament has returned and as each party and individual senator in this place forms their views on the best way forward when it comes to policy, to draw breath, examine facts and find a way forward that is actually in the interests of the community we represent.

We have a new government and it is time for that government to start telling us what it is it intends to do. We heard from the minister for the environment, Tanya Plibersek, when she released the Australia State of the Environment 2021 report, what the government would do, outlining the new government's plans in the environment portfolio. Some of those elements of the announcement were announced during the election campaign, and I'll come to those in moment, but there were a range that weren't part of the pre-election announcements.

Just on that, I want to touch on the state of the environment report. I have had the opportunity to read the 270-page overview cover to cover to understand exactly what the about 30 contributing authors, I think it was, had to say, and there are some very important points in there. I should also indicate it is the first of many speeches I'm going to be giving on this particular report and what it means and how we should respond. But, as I said before, what the government does in response to this report or any other report that it receives is where the rubber hits the road on what is important for the Australian community.

Reports are something that a government takes by way of advice; the decision-making function is that of government. Any decision that the minister and the government make should be commensurate with the issue they are dealing with. If it's a problem they need to solve or if it is a pathway they need to beat in order to create economic growth or some other opportunity for a part of our community, the policy decision taken and all the supports in and around it should be commensurate with the issue they are dealing with. That is an important point when it comes to the Australian government's response to the state of the environment report, and one I will continue to underscore.

Being commensurate, balanced and reasonable is central to good outcomes. We know that the environment is fragile and requires care. We also know that our economy is fragile. The statistics that are at hand—the announcement today around inflation—does make that very, very clear. We are in perilous times when it comes to our global economy—things that are well beyond our control—and the decisions that are made here by this government, and indeed by overseas governments, will have an impact on that. And when it comes to the environment, decisions made in the sphere of environmental policy have far-reaching impacts. That is something the government needs to consider and the minister needs to consider as she brings forward policies for consideration.

I was listening to the tail end of Senator Pocock's contribution earlier. He paid tribute to and acknowledged, I think quite rightly, some of our best land managers—farmers—and the role they play as custodians of the land that they live and work on, because they rely on it. So, on that basis, it is important to remember, when a government makes decisions around land management and environmental policy, that land users don't seek to trash the land. They know they will rely on it into the future, be they farmers, foresters or any other users. We need to make sure that we take into account that these people realise they are reliant on this resource.

It is on that point, farming, that I have a range of questions around the new government's policies in the environment space. One that was foreshadowed or flagged at the state of the environment report release address that the minister gave last week is around the national estate, the 30 per cent of land and sea that will be set aside as the national estate. Now, I do wonder how as a country we will be able to, in a sense, lock up 30 per cent of our landmass without impacting on our farmers. It is those sorts of questions, that sort of certainty, we need to work with those custodians of our land, not to attack them and make their lives harder. They are good custodians; we should respect them. (Time expired)

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have heard a lot about the so-called climate wars recently. We have heard about them from the Prime Minister, we have heard about them from the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, we have certainly heard about them from many in the press gallery. Do you know what? There actually is a climate war going on right now but it is not the one those people like to talk about. It's not between Labor and the Greens, as Labor would like people to believe, and so many journalists love to uncritically parrot. The real climate war is between, on one side, the big corporate emitters, their shills in this place and most of the media and, on the other side, those who are fighting for a safe climate for the ecosystem that supports our lives. That is the real climate war and, I will tell you now, it has barely got started. In the future it is going to get a lot bloodier and a lot more desperate, because the people who run the big emitting corporations are murderous psychopaths, and their agents in this parliament on both sides are too weak and too beholden to stand up to them.

Governments are already trying to arrest their way out of the real climate war but they will soon understand that the prisons just aren't big enough. The real climate wars will not end until either we have public policy that will ensure a liveable planet—and we are a long, long way from that in this country—or until the climate has broken down so irreparably that it simply doesn't matter anymore, and people are only concerned with scrounging enough food to feed themselves for another day. While the real climate wars are going on, I will be fighting them in this place, on the streets, online, in the forests or locked on to the fossil fuel infrastructure, because this is a crisis, it is an emergency and fighting for a liveable future is what the situation demands.

The crisis also deserves honesty, so here are some facts. We know that Labor's climate policy is nowhere near compatible with a liveable climate. A liveable climate demands that coal, oil and gas be left in the ground and it demands an end to logging native forests, because you cannot negotiate with the laws of thermodynamics. And here we are in 2022, with all that has come before us, all the information that we know, being held to ransom by the psychopathic cabal of the fossil fuel sector and its puppets in the major parties in this place. Instead of shining a light on the toxicity and highlighting the damage that is being done to climate and planet and instead of demanding that Labor go further, we are getting appeasement from many in the media gallery. With Labor so desperately trying to sell us short, so many in the gallery are focused on trying to rewrite history and pushing for a negotiation with people who are profiting so obscenely by cooking the planet.

There are plenty in the press gallery who are just as culpable in the climate debate as those who profit from cooking the planet, those nature-destroying corporations. The blind zombie stenography of Labor talking points from the incrementalists and the centrists in the press gallery is just as damaging for the chance of real action as the mantra from the climate denialists at Newscorp. You can neither negotiate climate policy with the psychopaths who run corporations that are responsible for driving climate change nor can you accept their donations and expect to be taken seriously. Unlike Labor, the Greens will not break bread with the people who are lining their pockets by cooking the planet. To the Labor politicians who say we have seen a decade of climate inaction, I say you are either ignorant or you are lying. And, to the press gallery folks who credulously report that rubbish and so frantically greenwash Labor's climate policies, I say this: please imagine the contribution you could make to the real climate wars by pushing Labor to go further and faster on climate, rather than trying to push the Greens to accept Labor's mediocrity. If you did that, you'd be on the right side of the real climate wars, not on the wrong side of history.