Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great—well, I would say 'pleasure' but I'm concerned that we actually even have to have this debate in relation to this piece of legislation, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Reconsideration of Decisions) Bill 2024, because it's a problem of this government's own making that this piece of legislation addresses.

We shouldn't need to have this debate, but we do because the Minister for Environment and Water took the word of organisations such as the now discredited Environmental Defenders Office over that of the Tasmanian government in relation to a decision on salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour. Instead of taking the word of the Tasmanian government, who in their submission to the Commonwealth in relation to this matter indicated that there had been no substantial change in circumstances that weren't foreseen in relation to salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour, the government went with the environmental groups. It's a pattern that we have seen in Tasmania for a considerable period of time, unfortunately.

Of course, the Environmental Defenders Office are an organisation that have recently had a significant finding against them in the courts in relation to other matters, where they have been found to have fabricated evidence, so it's even more disturbing that the government would take the word of an organisation like this over that of the Tasmanian government. That decision set a precedent, which is that more than 11 years after a decision was made to support salmon farming in Tasmania—a decision that it would not be a controlled action—the government can come back, after all of the businesses involved have made all of the investments they have made, and reconsider the decision. What sort of circumstance is that? What if a council gave you approval to build a house and then 10 or 11 years later they came back and said: 'Hang on a minute. We're not sure about that. We might have another look. In fact, we might make you take your house down. We might make you demolish your house, because we don't think we should have approved it in the first place'? What an absurd circumstance! What level of sovereign risk does that generate?

In respect of this bill to amend the EPBC Act we've seen exactly the same attitude. Those who invest their resources to create jobs in our economy, for whom everything is at risk—every single one of them, from a range of different circumstances—supported this amendment to the act. Obviously, the salmon industry supported it, as did the Forest Products Association; the renewable energy industry—Tilt Renewables; the Business Council of Australia; Senex; Santos, who obviously were the victim of the Environmental Defenders Office, with its corrupt evidence to a court; the Australian Airports Association; the Minerals Council of Australia. These are the organisations that invest tens of thousands of dollars—millions of dollars—in gaining environmental approvals, and every single one of them supported this very simple amendment to the EPBC Act to provide them with some certainty and remove the sovereign risk that this government had created. What does the government do in its majority report on the bill? It sides with the EDO, the Environmental Defenders Office. It sends a message.

The government will get up and say: 'Yes, well, we're going to amend the EPBC Act on a broader scale. There's the nature-positive legislation.' Well, there's not. The government themselves voted against debating that this week. So there is no change on the horizon from this government. That's unless they do a deal with the Greens, which we've seen a fair bit of lately. They stand here today against every user of the EPBC Act—those who invest to create jobs in our economy. That's all that these people are asking for: some certainty that, when a government makes a decision, the decision stands. That's what this very simple piece of legislation does.

This legislation doesn't even remove the capacity for reconsideration down the line in the case of a genuine change in circumstances. It leaves the act exactly as it is for three years, and then, after three years, any reconsideration request must come from an appropriate minister in the state government where the project is being developed. It's a simple piece of legislation. It should be easy for the government to support. They currently don't have anything on the table with respect to changes to the current act but they are prepared to oppose this change simply because the environment group said so.

Let's hear what some of these organisations that submitted to the Senate inquiry had to say. It was an inquiry that wasn't allowed to have public hearings, that was punted back to a time after sittings in the last part of last year. Really, there was zero respect for this piece of legislation shown by the government all the way through, which is a bit of a trademark, I suppose. Senex Energy said:

The Bill under consideration … would provide greater certainty in approval conditions for project proponents. Such certainty is essential for investor confidence, particularly in capital intensive industries involving multi-decade investments such as the natural gas industry.

We know the Greens won't support it, because they're the anti-everything brigade, but the government talk about having a future gas strategy as being important for our future energy needs. We know we need more gas in the system. This is what a major investor is saying in respect of this legislation. It's a simple piece of legislation; it should not be difficult to support.

Santos wrote:

Challenges in the form of reconsideration requests will continue to cause delays and uncertainties for proponents, investors and the community if deficiencies in the Act are not addressed.

Santos supports the Bill.

Santos also wrote:

Santos supports any reform which will bring clarity and greater investment confidence to the approvals regime.

It's pretty clear. But, of course, the government reject that. They've gone with the corrupt Environmental Defenders Office.

The Australian Forest Products Association wrote:

The proposed changes in the Bill will substantially improve regulatory certainty for investors in projects that require environmental approvals, increase investment overall and directly assist the government's efforts to promote expansion of, and investment in, the plantation forestry sector.

The government have a policy to increase plantations, and here's the forest industry saying this piece of legislation will enhance that, but Labor's gone with the corrupt Environmental Defenders Office.

The Business Council of Australia wrote:

One of the key criticisms of the existing EPBC Act is the lack of certainty provided to proponents in pursuing a decision via the process. When multi-million and multi-billion-dollar investments, supporting thousands of direct and indirect jobs, are being developed and delivered there must be certainty in process and approvals.

It can't get much clearer. Yet the government, again, poignant in the Santos circumstance, are going with the discredited, corrupt Environmental Defenders Office evidence. BCA continued:

The recently highlighted ability under the existing Act for third parties to challenge an approval, years after it has been given, has the potential to undermine investor confidence in any project that may have an interaction with the EPBC Act. Decisions under the Act range from renewable energy projects to mining, to housing supply—

hello, national housing crisis—

and tourism, and to agriculture and aquaculture.

All users of the act that submitted to this inquiry supported this change. The government has chosen in its report to go with the anti-everything brigade.

The Clean Energy Investor Group wrote:

CEIG also wrote:

Here we are with a government with a renewables policy for transition of the Australian economy. This is what the investors into clean energy are saying to the government, and they snub their nose at it. How absurd!

Tilt Renewables, one of the largest owners and operators of wind and solar generation in Australia, with 1,700 megawatts of renewable energy capacity across a number of projects, wrote:

The rationale for this is clear as investors need certainty that a planning approval … is final and will not be overturned as they continue to invest in developing, and then constructing, the project.

…   …   …

… the Bill would be a worthwhile reform and improvement to the current open-ended EPBC appeal process.

I went about developing this piece of legislation after a conversation with a state environment minister who had told me about the alarm amongst other environment ministers around the country as to the actions of Minister Plibersek in reopening this over-a-decade-old approval in Tasmania. It wasn't just about the salmon industry; it was about all of the other sectors that I've talked about during my contribution. We'll be accused of running a wedge or something of that nature in relation to salmon farming, but this was a genuine concern that was brought to me by a colleague in another parliament who happened to be the environment minister. They were all concerned about the precedent that had been set that would allow any similar approval to be reconsidered by the minister. And this was not through some sort of substantial submission. Three environmental groups—anti-everything brigade groups—wrote a letter to Minister Plibersek. They didn't write a substantial submission; they wrote a letter. On the basis of that letter, an approval process that has been in place for over a decade has been thrown into upheaval, and everybody is asking questions, including environment ministers at a state level.

This is a simple piece of legislation that can provide certainty for investors. Yes, there's a process that may come to fruition, perhaps in the next parliament, with respect to the EPBC Act more broadly. But, quite frankly, people who are putting up million, tens of millions or billions of dollars to invest in projects that support this sector, support industry and support jobs around the country should have the certainty of the decisions that are made by government. It is only reasonable that they do.

As I said earlier, consider if a council approved your house and came back 10 years later and said, 'Sorry, we're going to look at this again; you might have to take the extension down or we might make you take the house apart.' It's an absurdity, and the government should be supporting this legislation. They should be supporting jobs in Tasmania and across the country.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There were so many things that one could respond to in that contribution. I am amazed by the scaremongering that's going on here. The EPBC legislation, as it stands, has stood for a very long time. Senator Colbeck trying to frighten people, saying that someone's going to take down their house, is beyond absurd. It's offensive and unnecessary, and he probably should be quite ashamed of himself.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Debate the issue, go on!

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand here ignoring Senator Colbeck's interjections because I listened to him in silence, out of respect, and it would be nice if there were a bit more of it.

The committee that I chair, the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, conducted an inquiry into this bill, and the report was informed by a range of expert submissions. There were a variety of views, of course. This issue and anything around the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act brings us a great deal of debate and two very strong opposing sides: those opposite, the coalition, who back business and business only and have no interest in the environment; and our colleagues over in the Greens, who fight valiantly to protect the environment and have a lesser concern about business.

What we're trying to do here, what we always try and do here, is find the balance that's right for Australia, the balance that respects and encourages investment in business but keeps the integrity of our environment at the heart of the decision-making. The committee found through its inquiry that this bill is unnecessary, misguided and counterproductive, basically, to Australia's environmental governance. The committee recommended that the bill not be passed. As we've heard from Senator Colbeck, it really is a desperate attempt to scare workers in regional Tasmania, and that absurd rant at the end about housing has no place in this chamber.

Labor will always back workers. There is an industry in Tasmania that is, that should be and that will be—we will support it to be—a sustainable Tasmanian salmon industry. It is at the centre of a lot of jobs, and therefore there's a balance in how you proceed. We know how much Tasmanians love their natural environment and we also know how important their local economy is. We stand here on the Labor benches not to pick one side or the other but to support workers, to support business and to support the environment. That is a more complex way to go, but it is the right way to go.

The bill that was introduced by Senator Colbeck is looking to impose arbitrary limitations on the reconsideration of environmental decisions. It basically restricts timeframes within which consideration can occur and limits who can actually request it. Senator Colbeck has argued that this will provide greater certainty for industry and investment, but, as the committee inquiry heard through its submissions, these proposed changes are unnecessary. There are already very strict conditions on reconsiderations that already exist, and those reconsiderations have been in the act for a long time. What we don't want to do, and what Senator Colbeck's bill would do, is undermine the fundamental integrity of our environmental protections.

The most glaring issue in this bill is that it removes an important safeguard in our environmental decision-making. Under the current act, the minister has the ability to reconsider a decision when a new substantial piece of information arises or when circumstances have changed significantly since the original approval. I think what you need to be clear on here is what the words 'substantial' and 'significant' mean. It's not that, as Senator Colbeck would have you believe, we're going to go and tell people they have to take their house down.

These are fundamental issues that need to be held within our environmental protection laws. The environment is not a static thing. As scientific information evolves, as we learn more and as things change, our environmental monitoring needs to identify those things. Then we need to deal with them—not in the manner that Senator Colbeck has dealt with them this morning, through scaremongering. These are often new threats and things that reveal new issues that need to be considered, not just ignored or mowed over for a particular ideological position. There are great dangers in limiting reconsideration to a three-year window, as has been proposed, because sometimes issues occur decades into the future. Things change. We do not live in a static world.

Restricting who can request such a reconsideration is also one of the big challenges with what the coalition is proposing here. Limiting reconsideration requests beyond three years and limiting who can make them is highly problematic. You're turning it into an entirely political situation, as opposed as a scientific, factual one that respects the community, respects business and respects the perspectives put forward when something changes.

This bill deliberately excludes community groups, because, as we know—and we hear it all the time—those opposite aren't big fans of community groups who have views on things, particularly when it comes to the environment. It excludes independent experts. It excludes environmental organisations. We know environmental organisations are public enemy No. 1 for the coalition. They can't bear somebody having an opinion and they can't go through a process of respecting people's ideas. The kinds of restrictions here about who can make a request are going to significantly reduce any public oversight and any community concerns being recognised.

We look at community participation in environmental decision-making as a crucial transparency and accountability measure. Removing this pathway for public engagement is going to erode trust even further than it already has. The system is widely regarded as inadequate. We know that; we talked about this endlessly in this chamber. Endlessly we have spoken about the problems with the EPBC Act. This has been going on for decades. But do you think we can get agreement to bring forward a revised bill? No. Those opposite are business only. Greens colleagues are environment only. Neither of these ways is the way to go. We need to come to a position where everyone gets that business is important and the environment is important. We need to find the pathway through that. That's what we've been trying to do with revisions to the EPBC Act that we've been talking about ever since we got into government, but do you think we can get an agreement? No, because it's an either/or. That's not what we're about. We're about protecting the environment and supporting business. That takes a much more complex thought process and a much more engaged process than either of our major party colleagues in this chamber or the other are prepared to invest.

Now, the EPBC Act, as I've said, already contains strict safeguards to ensure that any reconsideration requests are entertained only with substantial new information that warrants a review, not just for political purposes as proposed by Senator Colbeck. Sustainable investment anywhere in this country, in any industry—be it salmon farming, be it mining, be it housing; it doesn't matter—all relies on robust, reliable environmental governance. Allowing projects to proceed based on outdated or incomplete information creates long-term financial and long-term environmental liability. Ultimately, that will harm business, communities and ecosystems alike.

The comprehensive reform of the EPBC Act was informed by Professor Graeme Samuel's review. He identified—and I don't think anyone disagrees—that our environmental laws as they stand are broken. Yet in almost three long years we have not been able to get our colleagues in the chamber to have a proper conversation and agree to compromise. I know that's maybe not quite where people are at, but compromise is a good thing to get a better outcome. Until we get some more engaged, more thoughtful and more intellectual embrace by my colleagues of the reform that we're trying to get through to the EPBC, we will still be in this situation where we have the same conversation over and over again in this chamber, because the coalition and the Greens are so ideologically entrenched.

If what you are looking for, Senator Colbeck, is a better deal for business, I would suggest you engage with the EPBC reform, because, with the way the laws are now, they're not working for anyone. We know that, in the current situation—we're seeing it—our environment is facing unprecedented challenges: climate change, habitat destruction and biodiversity loss. We have to ensure that our laws on the environment are robust, responsive and informed by the best available science. This bill moves us completely in the wrong direction. Really, it is just a political stunt that Senator Colbeck has been put up to by his Tasmanian Liberal colleagues. We need an answer. We need a pathway. We need a measure that protects business, protects workers and protects the environment. With enough thought and a bit less ideology, we can get there.

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

I rise to contribute to the debate on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Reconsideration of Decisions) Bill 2024. Let me say straight up that this bill is a bad bill. It's a political stunt from the coalition. It says everything about what the coalition think about the environment, and that is that they hate it. They hate the environment. They hate any moves to protect the environment. They resist any regulation that protects the environment, and they'll do anything they can to weaken environmental protections.

This is one of these issues where the coalition, refusing to listen to the scientists, refusing to listen to independent advice and refusing to listen to the cries and concerns in their local community for the survival of our native species and our ecosystems, are all too obsessed with digging, drilling and polluting. In this case, when we look at the salmon industry's devastation of waterways in Tasmania, the coalition don't give two hoots about the pollution and the damage that the corporate—foreign, I might add—salmon industry is doing to beautiful Tasmania.

We are on the cusp of a biodiversity crisis. We have ecosystems in collapse. We have our beautiful native species—species after species—being acknowledged as in serious danger of extinction, and in this case it's the maugean skate, an animal that has been around for hundreds of thousands of years, facing extinction. The Liberal Party and the National Party don't care about protecting Australia's environment. They don't care about the impact that industry, at all costs, has on ecosystems. I do wonder just how much money and support is flowing from the big salmon corporations to the Liberal Party. Why otherwise would you, day after day after day, ignore the very real threats to Tasmania's environment and waterways so these foreign salmon corporations can make profits? We've been told over and over again that the expansion of the salmon industry in Tasmania will push our native species and our biodiversity to extinction. But the Liberal Party in Tasmania do not care. That's what this bill is all about.

But of course it's not just in relation to the toxic salmon industry in Tasmania. This is emblematic of the coalition under Peter Dutton's rule. It is emblematic of Mr Dutton's attitude to the environment and to nature full stop. Do you know who is, more than anyone else, helping Mr Dutton at this coming election? That of course is Gina Rinehart. Gina Rinehart openly denounces the protection of Australia's environment and seems to have total disdain for Australia's unique and beautiful wildlife. If anyone hasn't seen it, you should look up the crazy, unhinged speech that Gina Rinehart gave last year as part of the Bush Summit. In the list of random points that Gina Rinehart was making, chief among them was that we couldn't possibly have laws that protect Australia's endangered wildlife, because—you know what?—27 of them might kill you.

That is the kind of logic that this unhinged, power-hungry individual has. Of course, we know where Gina Rinehart is putting her money this election. She is funding the Liberal Party. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are being handed over to Mr Dutton to do Gina Rinehart's bidding. Chief among her demands is the trashing of Australia's environmental regulation, the winding back of laws that protect our native species, all in the name of profit for the big mining corporations and Gina Rinehart herself—unhinged, un-Australian and damaging to our precious biodiversity.

The Liberal Party are going to run around this election saying listen to them because they will wind back environmental protection. They will stand in the way of and stare down the advice of scientists and experts about what is best for the sustainability of our natural world, and they will do the bidding of those who want to just keep logging, digging, bulldozing and polluting—and it doesn't matter whether it's the coal companies, the gas corporations, the logging lobby or, indeed, the big, foreign salmon corporations.

This position is not in the interests of local communities here, in Australia. This is in the interests of the profits of these big corporations and at the expense of our environment and the sustainability of jobs in our communities. If you pollute our waterways to a point where nothing can survive, there'll be no jobs in that area anyway. If you continue to log our native forests into extinction, there'll be no jobs there anyway. There are no jobs on a dead planet. That is a very clear, simple fact that is lost day after day on the likes of Mr Dutton, the Liberal Party and the National Party. But it seems that, if you are rich enough, like Gina Rinehart—if you've got billions of dollars yourself—then you don't care about what is being left behind for any future generation, and you don't care about the impacts on jobs in local communities or the health and protection of our environment.

Let's not forget Gina Rinehart was praising the ridiculously low, almost slave-labour wages of overseas workers because that's what she thinks workers should be paid here. She doesn't care about people's jobs. She only cares about her own money, and she only cares about whether Mr Dutton will be elected so that he can implement what she wants.

This bill is a political stunt from the Liberal Party, but it is a dangerous warning sign of what is to come under a Dutton government: the trashing of common sense, the overriding of independent expert advice because they don't like its inconvenient truth and the doing the bidding of the industries that only make their money and profit because they continue to pollute, destroy and bulldoze. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about the interests of the foreign owned salmon corporations, foreign owned logging companies, foreign owned mining corporations or foreign owned big ag.

This is a warning of what is to come from Peter Dutton's government if he were to be elected. They would do the bidding of big corporations at the expense of Australians, Australian jobs and our environment. When we stand up and say, 'Well, these corporations should have to pay their fair share of tax,' who does the squealing and the bidding and the defending of these big corporations? Of course, it's the Liberal Party and the National Party, the coalition who think their job and our job here in the parliament is to pave the way for these big corporations to run riot over our environment, over workers' rights and over Australia. But as soon as you say, 'Maybe you should pay something for that,' the Liberal Party say, 'Oh, no, no, no, you don't have to pay anything.' You don't have to pay anything—unless, of course, it comes in the form of a political donation, and then they'll have their hand out. They're happy to take money for themselves as donations but they don't want money being paid back in tax to the Australian taxpayer.

The beautiful waterways and rivers of Tasmania deserve to be protected for everybody—not just for the survival of the maugean skate and not just for fishermen in the area and the sustainable fishing industry. They deserve to be protected in the public interest because nature needs our help and we are part of the environment. When we come into this place and see pathetic pieces of legislation designed to ignore expert advice and overrule the protection of our endangered species and our environment, you've got to be very wary. Why would the Liberal Party want these rules and this advice ignored and overturned? It's not because they're doing it in the best interests of the Australian people. They are doing it because the corporations who are polluting, logging, digging and burning want to keep making massive profits. Mr Dutton is doing the bidding of the big corporations because he wants them to be able to keep making profits. He wants to be mates with them, like he is with Gina Rinehart, at the expense of what is good for our communities and our environment and at the expense of the survival of some of our most unique and oldest living creatures.

Australia is a beautiful, beautiful country. We have some of the most unique species in the world. But, rather than taking pride in that and having a sense of national pride about how beautiful our country is, the Liberal Party want to sell it for cheap. The Liberal Party want to sell it off to the big corporations at a cheap price with very little regulation and no respect for or understanding of expert advice. Who would you believe—the scientists or Peter Dutton's Liberal Party? Do you take your advice from the Tasmanian Liberals? Or do you take your advice from the environmental scientists and climate experts? I know who I would choose, and I know who most Australians would choose. This bill is a bad bill for Australia and for our environment, and it should be rejected.

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

There's a rumour going around at the moment—would you believe it?—that this could well be the last sitting week before the election, and I'd tend to think it is because, from listening to what both the government and their coalition partners, the Australian Greens, have had to say, you'd say it's all about sandbagging and holding together this little sham difference of opinion long enough for Australians to be distracted and not fooled into some allusion that this crowd over here, the Australian government, are pro jobs and that the Greens aren't the green tail wagging the Labor dog.

The Greens talk about what is to come, and, I have to tell you, this last sitting fortnight is a great representation of what is to come. I've lived through Labor-Green governments before and I can tell you one thing: they are bad. We hear someone talk about a bad bill that's bad for the environment or bad for the country. I'll tell you what's bad for the country, bad for the environment, bad for jobs and bad for the cost of living. It is a Labor-Green government and, if the polls are to be believed, that is what we're going to end up with after this election.

That is why it was so interesting to see the Senate inquiry report into this bill, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Reconsideration of Decisions) Bill 2024. Both Labor and the Greens lined up together to say: 'Do you know what? We aren't going to touch this bill'—for a range of spurious reasons. They provided their responses and their arguments around why they wouldn't. None of them stack up, because, at the end of the day, there are very few people in this chamber—an exception being a group called the Australian Greens—who believe the laws are broken, in the sense that they don't protect the economy, they don't protect jobs, they do not do anything to advance the cause when it comes to addressing the cost-of-living crisis and keeping jobs in our regional communities.

That's why it is just so ridiculous that, instead of working with the coalition on making sure this bill does something productive for a community that has been left on tenterhooks now for more than a year, almost 18 months, for two Christmases—families in the community of Strahan, in the electorate of Braddon, have been left wondering whether they will have jobs in the months to come, will be able to pay their mortgages or should re-enrol their kids in the local school. These concerns are real, and what this bill was about was attempting to address the issues that that community has faced.

To suggest that we have a good process in place now, where anyone anywhere in the country, masquerading as a concerned citizen or, indeed, as some might categorise them, a scientist, can throw up into the air the certainty of an industry which has operated, in Macquarie Harbour in this case, for more than a decade—for almost 13 years now this salmon farming operation has been in existence. But the Bob Brown Foundation, of course, is not a group of scientists. I don't know how many scientists they have on staff or in their membership, but they are not invested in good outcomes for that community; they are a political outfit. They are green activists who seek to do harm to industries that generate economic outcomes for our community, and it is on that basis that we think we do need to restrain who can make claims of this nature. The fact is that more than a decade after these permits came into operation you can have this happen.

We hear these claims that it's all about foreign owned companies deriving massive, dirty big profits. They're a terrible thing, these profits, which, of course, are invested in our communities by companies like Huon Aqua, Tassal, Petuna and employ people. The fact that they employ 5,000 people in our state is something that gets glossed over by those who oppose the industry and those who won't stand up for it. If you want to talk about foreign money, let's talk about the Neighbours of Fish Farming, who receive overseas donations and grants from foreign, opaque, dark, shady entities like the Global Salmon Farming Resistance. Who are they? Where are they from? Do they have our community's interests at heart. No, I don't think they do, not if they're based out of Argentina and we don't know who they are. Do you think that they want to have Tasmanians employed in the salmon industry? No, I don't think they do, but they're handing over lots of money to the Neighbours of Fish Farming. Indeed, the members of the Global Salmon Farming Resistance, this foreign organisation, have very strong ties with the Bob Brown Foundation and others who are anti industry, anti jobs and anti good outcomes for our community.

So I say that if you're serious about protecting this industry, if you're serious about getting a good outcome and if you're serious about saying you support the salmon workers, then, this being the last sitting fortnight that we will have before this election—and I think that is the case—do something before the election to provide certainty for salmon workers. Do something to ensure that this industry can operate with certainty into the future. You cannot say you support this industry, which, frankly, science has proven is sustainable, is manageable and will create jobs while protecting the environment and protecting the future of the maugean skate—do something! If you don't want to support this bill in its current form, amend it or, I don't know, move a motion to protect this industry. Call on this environment minister, who has sat on her hands and now sat on departmental advice for nearly 18 months, and do something to protect these jobs and this community. It is what any good Tasmanian would do. That's what I am doing, along with Senator Colbeck, Senator Chandler and Senator Askew.

I look forward to seeing how this bill is voted on, because I would characterise a vote against this legislation in one way, and that is, frankly, that you think what is happening here is okay, you think this green activist opposition to this industry is okay and you're going to let it continue. That's what it means if you vote against this bill. I commend the bill, of course, to the Senate.

Tammy Tyrrell (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Losing the salmon industry from Macquarie Harbour will devastate the West Coast. Strahan and its surrounding towns will never be the same. If you think I'm being dramatic, don't take it from me. Anyone who's spoken to people on the West Coast knows how important the salmon industry is to their survival. The industry has revitalised the West Coast. It's brought back that sense of pride for the community, and our communities need jobs to thrive. If the salmon industry jobs go, with nothing else to replace them, the community will implode. Families will have to move away to find new work, and the West Coast of Tassie will lose its next generation. It will die another death. The West Coast has taken hit after hit, and it won't survive another.

The Prime Minister has made a few visits to the West Coast recently. He said he's open to passing legislation so reviews can't be made against past decisions—the same kind of bill we're voting on this morning from the coalition. I asked in question time last week if that was the Prime Minister's personal opinion or the official Labor Party policy. The Minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Water wasn't aware of the Prime Minister's comments, and I think that says everything.

With an election looming and Braddon a key seat, Labor and the Liberals are doing everything they can to win over voters on the north-west coast. Comments like this from the Prime Minister give the community hope. They give them a light at the end of the tunnel, a resolution finally in sight. But, if he doesn't have any intention of following through, it's misleading and cruel to a community on the brink.

Macquarie Harbour has been under review almost the entire time Labor has been in government—three years. Imagine waking up every day for three years not knowing if that's the day your job is going to be ripped out from under you, if it's the day you're going to lose the ability to buy food for your family and pay for the roof over their head. I've visited the workers in Strahan a few times. Each time, I was met by the worried faces of workers not concerned with politics or what's going on here in Canberra but who just want to do their job, provide for their families and be part of the West Coast community. It shouldn't be a big ask.

The chaos around Macquarie Harbour has led to a wider debate about salmon farms, and we've taken an all-or-nothing approach to the salmon industry in Tasmania. Either you support salmon and support jobs or you want to save a fish and damn an industry. This is a major oversimplification of the issue. I think there's a way forward where the industry can thrive and we can look after the environment at the same time.

The salmon industry is a major employer. It directly employees thousands of people in Tasmania. Many of these jobs are in regional and remote areas where other employment opportunities aren't available. But we can't ignore the very real environmental concerns either. Evidence shows salmon farms are contributing to long-term damage in sensitive aquatic habitats. It's not about compromise; it's about finding solutions and genuinely improving outcomes for both sides.

Here are some thoughts on how we could do that. The government can invest in offshore technologies. It'll help take the pressure off vulnerable ecosystems. They should also support research for sustainable food sources. It'll reduce the industry's environmental footprint and wastage. Let's also have more transparent reporting around the industry and bring the community into it. People in Hobart and Lonnie don't have direct contact with salmon farms in Macquarie Harbour or down in the Huon. Let's bring them into the conversation and acknowledge the industry has had its problems and will always be evolving to put them right. People trust that over the usual, 'Nothing to see here.' To genuinely move forward with salmon farming in Tasmania, we need to start looking at how we work together rather than fighting against each other.

The coalition bill aims to do just that. It's trying to make salmon farming no longer a political football. This bill says that reviews won't be able to be launched willy-nilly into past environmental decisions, but it's not a blanket ban on all reviews. The bill allows anyone to call for a review within three years of a decision being made. After three years, the call can be made, but it has to come from the relevant state or territory minister, by whom the review of the action will happen. It's a reasonable buffer where a decision can be examined, but the case has to be made to an elected minister, and not by someone with a beef against the original decision. Businesses investing in our regions don't do it on a whim or easily change direction when somebody thinks they should. They invest with a view to the long-term future, not a three-year election cycle. They have to be viable. They have to pay their workers. They have to make a profit and plan for the future. They take the risk and have to manage that risk. Their opponents know this, too. The bill still allows objections to be made, and, yes, hindsight can often help us look into the future. But it has to be balanced with what's fair and right. Opponents can still make their case to a state or territory minister, but it has to be fought and won on its merits, not on who can make the most noise and cause the most trouble.

Ministers are accountable and can be challenged. They know this, especially at state or territory level. This bill puts the power back in the hands of the local communities where decisions have been made—not in the hands of someone who lives in another state. Any rational person also knows that leaving thousands of workers in limbo for years is a dark place to be. It's not right and it's not fair. When it comes to Macquarie Harbour, I stand with the workers and the West Coast community. I stand for finally getting a solution for an industry that spent three years waiting for the other shoe to drop. That's why I'm supporting this bill.

Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Reconsideration of Decisions) Bill 2024 is an incredibly important private senator's bill we are debating here today, introduced by my colleague Senator Richard Colbeck. He's done an incredible amount of work drafting this bill, which will provide the certainty that Tasmania's salmon workers need. Like I said, Senator Richard Colbeck has done an incredible amount of work on this bill. It is important to provide the salmon workers of Tasmania the certainty they need. I have spent many hours over the last few years meeting with Tasmania's salmon workers and talking to them about their concerns of a lack of certainty over their industry. I think it is incredibly important we listen to those concerns in this place.

As my colleagues who have already spoken on this bill, Senator Duniam and Senator Colbeck, have shared, Tasmanian salmon workers are hurting right now. They are hurting because this government has a decision sitting over their heads, meaning that they don't know if they are going to see another Christmas or another year working in their local industry. My colleagues Senator Colbeck and our fellow Senate candidate at the upcoming election, Jacki Martin, and I have spent time on the West Coast of Tasmania in Strahan, speaking to salmon workers and listening to their concerns. I know this bill that Senator Colbeck has introduced here today is incredibly important in doing that.

If we are able to bring this bill on for vote today—and I certainly do hope that is something we can do—then I think that will go some way to providing the certainty that this industry needs. The government has not provided them with that certainty. The government has not listened to Tasmanian salmon workers. It has not listened to the concerns of the industry and what they are seeking to achieve. They just want certainty.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the question be now put.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the question be now put.

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

While global heating is spiralling past 1.5 degrees and while ecosystems are literally crumbling around us, here we have the Liberal Party engaged in a race to the bottom to undermine our already pathetically weak environment laws in Australia. Let's be very clear about the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act—it does not do what it says on the tin. It claims to be about protecting our environment, but what it actually does is facilitate the destruction of nature. It facilitates the undermining of biodiversity. It does that because it was designed to be a fast track for environmentally destructive approvals. It was never designed to be a piece of legislation that protected our environment. That's why it was so disappointing when Labor kowtowed to the fossil fuel industry and refused to progress its so-called nature-positive laws, which were not anywhere near sufficient to fix our broken environment laws.

But Labor wouldn't even progress their weak attempt to fix our weak environment laws, because they got their riding orders from the giant fossil fuel corporations who, remember, are making obscene profits and whose CEOs are making multimillion dollar salary packages by cooking our planet. What that means is they are making obscene profits and their CEOs are making multimillion dollar salary packages by engaging an action that will actually result in large numbers of people dying, even greater numbers of people being displaced from their homes, famine, war and a massive civilisational upheaval that humanity will face as we move through the decades of this century. Instead of actually taking action in the public interest, we have Labor kowtowing to the fossil fuel sector and refusing to progress reforms to fix our broken environment laws and the Liberals coming in here today moving to undermine our already pathetically weak environment laws.

This is a race to the bottom. It is dangerous for humanity. It is absolutely catastrophic for our ecosystems, for that beautiful, complex web of life that actually underpins human survival on this planet. History will view the Labor and Liberal parties very harshly—and rightly so. History will also laud those of us—for example, in the Greens—who are standing up and fighting against what is happening in here. This collaboration, this collusion between Labor and Liberal, to refuse to fix our environment laws and to actually actively undermine them and prevent them from even having an opportunity to do what it claims that they do in the name of the legislation, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, is active collusion and it is against the interests of humanity. We need to understand this because we need to name it and we need to call it out. When you are facing this kind of collusion, this kind of abrogation—

Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for this debate has expired. You will be in continuation.