Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Water (Senator McAllister) to a question without notice asked by Senator Hanson-Young today relating to environment laws.

I came into this parliament as an environmental lawyer, and one of my main drivers in seeking election was to try to strengthen our environmental laws to better protect nature and give voice to communities who also want to protect nature. It turns out that's a whole lot harder than you might think. Imagine my surprise to discover that, in fact, both big parties don't want to strengthen our environmental laws, because they're both in the pockets of the mining companies, the logging companies, the forestry operators—big industrial complexes. Imagine my horror to discover that it is harder than you think to have laws that protect the wondrous biodiversity and nature that our very survival depends on.

The Prime Minister made a promise that, in this term of government, his government would strengthen our environmental laws—it would have an independent watchdog and it'd fix some other longstanding flaws in the EPBC Act. Apart from one tiny change which expanded out the water trigger to include shale gas and tight gas—at the behest of the Greens and with our votes to deliver it—we haven't seen any strengthening at all. In fact, when we were on the verge of inking an arrangement with the environment minister, the Prime Minister himself came in and cancelled that arrangement because he'd just gotten off the phone with the WA Premier, in the lead-up to their state election, who'd said that the big miners and the big loggers didn't want this bill. The Prime Minister had to dump it, and so he did. Nature, once again, went to the back of the queue because politics trumped it. How base! How absolutely demoralising for anyone who expects better from parliament.

Not only did we not get the strengthening of environmental laws that had been promised to the public as part of this party's election platform; now we see in the final week of parliament, on the very final day of this parliament, that, no, we're not prioritising making the GP free, we're not prioritising making TAFE free, they're not prioritising climate action or even getting dental into Medicare—all things that the Greens want to see. No. In fact, this government is prioritising doing a deal with the opposition to weaken our environmental laws to send an ancient species, of which there are no more than 120 left on the planet, to extinction to save a rotten industry. At risk are 22 people's jobs. The jobs of 22 people are worth more to the folk in this chamber than an entire species. Those people deserve help; it's not their fault that they work in a toxic industry. They could be receiving different kinds of help from the government, but, no, the Prime Minister has decided that he's going to wreck our already weak environmental laws to facilitate a toxic industry continuing to operate and send the maugean skate to extinction. That's the political calculus that he thinks is a good call.

It's not just for the salmon industry. This change to our laws means that any change in circumstance, any new information that comes to the environment minister's desk, can't be considered. It cannot change the mind of the minister. This bill is fundamentally antiscience, because it says, if you find out you are going to send a species to extinction, or, wow, that patch of habitat is the only bit that's left now after, perhaps, a bushfire destroyed the rest, tough luck, the minister won't be able to reconsider that decision. The minister will not be able to act to protect nature in that instance. This bill doesn't just affect the Tasmanian salmon and the future of the maugean skate; this is a blank cheque for any industry that wants to try and sneak out of our environmental laws.

The message that it sends to any powerful industry is, 'If you're not happy with our environmental laws, if they're not weak enough already for you, you can just get on the blower to the prime minister, ask for a special loophole and, hey presto, the parliament will deliver that for you. It sends the message that the big corporates are in charge of this building and that they are more important than the community or nature. The Greens will not stand for that. It's likely there'll be a minority government, and we will push the next government to actually protect nature and finally cancel the stranglehold that big corporates have over this so-called democracy.

Question agreed to.