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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Wong) to a question without notice I asked today relating to Australia's environment laws.

Before the last election, the Labor Party promised to fix Australia's broken environment laws, and they've broken that promise. They've abjectly failed to deliver. It's a clear breach of the trust of the Australian people. Not only have they failed to strengthen Australia's environment laws, as they committed to do before the last election; they have now introduced legislation to gut Australia's environment laws. They've done that because they want to back in the profits of multinational salmon farming corporations in Tasmania, in the full knowledge that it's the actions of those very same corporations that are driving an ancient, iconic fish species, the maugean skate, into extinction. This situation has come about because the Labor Party—who are claiming, by the way, that they are doing this for jobs, when they stood silent as these very same multinational salmon farming corporations shed job after job in a relentless process of automation over the last 20 years—believe that they need to do this in order to either win or save seats in my home state of Tasmania.

This is a broken promise. The introduction of laws to gut environment protections in Australia is a broken promise. The Labor Party committed to the Australian people that they would act to strengthen environment laws. In fact, Minister Wong admitted in question time today that our environment laws are broken because they don't protect the environment. Well, if the environment laws are broken because they don't protect the environment, introduce laws to fix our environment laws so that they better protect the environment. Don't come in here and introduce laws that gut environmental protections in Australia. That is what the Labor Party are doing.

They are doing this in the midst of an animal welfare catastrophe in Tasmania, in the midst of an environmental calamity in Tasmania, in the midst of social upheaval. People can't go swimming at their local beaches without bumping into dead, rotten, stinking salmon carcasses, and they can't walk along the sand of their local beaches in their bare feet without their feet getting coated in this fatty, stinking, slimy substance that is washing up on beaches right around the south-east coast of Tasmania, down the D'Entrecasteaux Channel, down the Huon and over to beautiful Bruny Island.

In the middle of this social, environmental and animal welfare catastrophe, in the middle of an ancient and iconic fish species being driven into extinction, what does our out-of-touch Prime Minister do? He promises to legislate on behalf of the corporations that are actually delivering this animal misery and delivering these environmental and social catastrophes. He's going to legislate on their behalf so they can continue driving the maugean skate into extinction. That's what's going on here right now.

The good news in Tasmania is that people are rising up against industrial salmon farming. They are rising up and demanding that these big, environmentally destructive corporations be held to account. They are rising up to reclaim their waterways, which are being privatised, and reclaim their coastlines, which are being polluted and poisoned. They are rising up for the marine environment, and they are rising up to try and save the maugean skate from extinction. I'll tell you what: the Labor Party is going to pay at the ballot box for what it is trying to do to Australia's environment laws this week—gut them on behalf of big salmon corporations. It's going to pay at the ballot box not just in Tasmania but right around Australia, because Tasmanians have shown for many, many decades now that they will vote to defend their environment, and people around Australia have shown that they will vote to defend their environment. Gone are the days when the Labor Party actually took votes from the Liberal Party by promising to do things like save the Franklin River. Now the Labor Party is promising to do things for polluting, toxic salmon farming corporations. Shame on you!

Question agreed to.