Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Emergency Management) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

Labor is committed to fixing our environment laws so that they work better for our environment and better for business. That means our laws need to improve nature, and protect our unique native plants and animals.

And our laws need to be less bureaucratic and provide more certainty for business. That's what the community expects and that's what we're delivering.

We will do this in a common-sense way that supports both national productivity and environmental protection.

Everybody agrees that the current laws don't work.

We said we would improve certainty for business. Certainty that helps drive investment in jobs, communities and nation-building projects.

That is what we are doing.

We said we want a country in which nature is being repaired and is regenerating rather than continuing to decline.

That is what we are doing.

This Bill would address a critical problem in our current laws.

A problem that is playing out right now in a small community in Tasmania, that is supported by a well established industry.

A problem that is putting jobs, investment and individual livelihoods at risk.

This Bill would support the Government's commitment to provide certainty, clarity and fairness for ongoing industries, workers and communities affected by reconsideration of decisions under the EPBC Act.

The Bill would remove the ability of the Minister for the Environment to reconsider a past decision on an action that meets certain criteria.

Reconsideration powers have been available to the Minister since the beginning of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act a quarter of a century ago.

These powers exist to enable the Minister to respond to a limited range of circumstances, based on new and changing environmental information.

This is important.

But, these powers can create considerable uncertainty and affect communities that have come to depend on a lifeline industry.

The economic and social impacts of changing a decision can be severe, putting jobs, community and individual livelihoods at risk.

Industries and communities like Macquarie Harbour. This is a timely example, but it's potentially not an isolated event. This means that swift action is required now, but also to ensure that these circumstances do not occur again.

The Bill recognises that established and lawfully operating projects, where proponents did the right thing and referred their action to the Environment Minister, and which have been investing and operating for 5 or more years on the basis of that decision, should not be put at risk.

The Bill would only capture a small subset of decisions that can be reconsidered called 'not a controlled action- particular manner' (or NCA-PM) decisions. These decisions are made when the Minister decides that an action does not require approval, because the action would be undertaken in the particular manner described.

The Bill would also recognise the important role that states and territories play in managing environmental impacts, through their own plans, policies and laws. The amendment specifies that a project must have a state or territory management arrangement specified in its 'particular manners' to meet the criteria.

The Australian Government is committed to working in partnership with industry, communities and states and territories to protect our environment and support the conservation and recovery of our threatened species.

We have invested more than $500 million in targeted threatened species recovery, including under the Saving Native Species Program, the Natural Heritage Trust and the National Environmental Science Program. This is complemented by other Government investments for Ramsar wetlands, World Heritage properties and protected areas that support biodiversity conservation and the recovery of threatened species.

We have invested $37.5 million in priority conservation actions for the Maugean skate population in Macquarie Harbour. Investments to improve water quality and environmental conditions within Macquarie Harbour and support critical species conservation actions including a successful captive breeding program.

We are also actively working with salmon industry stakeholders on further steps that can be taken to protect the environment and ensure the industry has a sustainable and long term future producing high quality salmon.

This Bill strikes a balance between the important task of protecting our environment, and the need to provide certainty and stability to businesses which have already made substantial investment to get a project up and running, and most importantly protecting jobs.

This is good, sensible and balanced regulation.

The proposed changes would commence the day after Royal Assent and would apply to any reconsideration decision made under section 78 after the amendment commences, regardless of how long ago the original decision was made.

I commend the Bill to the Chamber.

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

I have been looking forward to dealing with this issue for quite some time now, although one has to question what we are actually doing here, given it is well past the eleventh hour for this Senate to be dealing with something that could have, and should have, been dealt with a long time ago. What is this bill here for? It is a political fix the government have brought in as a result of a minister in their own cabinet refusing to do the job asked of her. That is what the government have been forced to do in order to resolve a situation that, as I say, could have been dealt with a long time before now.

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Reconsiderations) Bill 2025 amends the EPBC Act, a piece of law in this country that everyone in this chamber seems to agree is beyond fit-for-purpose, is broken. Indeed, it's interesting to note that they're words even the minister uttered earlier this week in debating this very legislation in the other place. We all agree the act needs reform. We all agree something should happen. In fact, the Australian Labor Party, now the government, promised us before the last election that they would reform this legislation in response to the Samuel review. They promised that they would fix this broken and outdated legislation. They haven't. They promised us we'd have new, fit-for-purpose laws that would be better for business and better for the environment. We don't have them. Instead, we've had a government mired in bureaucracy and led by bureaucracy in how it handles reforms to our critical national environmental approval laws. It has not progressed anything. No stakeholder anywhere on the spectrum is happy with the government's handling of any matter related to federal environmental approvals. From green groups right through to business lobby groups, everyone says the government have stuffed it royally. I think their record, the history of the last two years, very much speaks to that fact. Here we are perpetuating the problems with this legislation by doing another little patch-up job because the government have left us with no choice but to do this.

When the green groups lodged the request for a reconsideration of salmon farms in Tasmania, which have been granted permits to operate since 2012—which was under the last Labor government, with the then environment minister, Tony Burke, granting those permits—it was our view that this decision should be made urgently to resolve this issue one way or the other. That is, indeed, what industry, as recently as the end of last week and over the weekend, were saying as well: 'Just get the government to do their job and make a decision relating to the permits, and the question that hangs above them, for salmon farming within Macquarie Harbour.' Would you believe, though, that for nearly 18 months this government has been sitting on this request from the Bob Brown Foundation, the taxpayer funded EDO and others? It has failed to make a decision. I find it astounding that this request for reconsideration is still a live question before the government. So, because the minister hasn't made a decision, hasn't done her job and hasn't assessed the evidence before her to the extent that she can make a decision, the government have been left with no choice but to legislate to work around this minister and end the uncertainty that has dogged this government.

Who's running the show? The Prime Minister has said countless times he backs the salmon industry. He has been down in Tasmania telling salmon workers: 'I've got your back. Don't worry. I'm with you all the way.' But he's done nothing during his term in government until now. Let's not forget that this is a sitting week that we weren't supposed to have. But for the unfortunate events in South-East Queensland and northern New South Wales with Tropical Cyclone Alfred, which pushed back the election date, we wouldn't be here. So the government was left with no choice but to do this legislation. On 15 February, a letter was sent from the Prime Minister to the salmon industry. On that day, I wrote to the Prime Minister. We rang his office, and I said: 'We want to see this legislation. It is urgent. You have left this industry hanging for 18 months. You've promised us reforms to the laws, and you haven't delivered.' Do you think I got a reply to that letter? Well, no, I did not. We wrote again—no reply. We wrote to other ministers in the government. We rang their offices—nothing. There was nothing until the Monday of this week, when draft laws were offered to us, with a briefing, at short notice on Monday afternoon, about their political fix to an issue they could have resolved if this government were actually on top of its brief and doing its job properly.

So here we are—this eleventh-hour fix to try and get an issue off the political agenda and make it not an election issue so that they can go down to the West Coast of Tasmania and say, 'We've fixed it; we've saved your jobs.' Well, why was it not done before now? I'll tell you why: because the minister did not want to. Indeed, as late as Monday, the minister still did not want to. The minister was not even slated to introduce the legislation in the other place, according to the information provided to us in a briefing. It was, indeed, the Prime Minister who was supposed to introduce this legislation. As it turns out, Minister Plibersek did introduce it, so something changed. I think they realised it was a pretty bad look to have someone other than the environment minister introducing legislation into the House to amend an act she administers—one she administers woefully. As stated, it took 18 months to get nowhere in the decision-making process relating to such a critical industry in Tasmania.

In addressing the issue that she's now been forced to address, the minister—let's make no mistake about it—was not excited about this. She was not a fan of this legislation. She was certainly not the driving force behind it. But in addressing this legislation, as I alluded to before, the minister was able to concede that the laws are broken and are no longer fit for purpose and that this is an important issue that needs to be dealt with. Well, yes, by gum, it does, and it needed to be dealt with 18 months ago, as soon as these green groups got in the way and started doing what they did. But instead of acting when they could have and should have to end the uncertainty and allow salmon workers to have Christmas in peace, knowing that their jobs would be safe, the government have left it until now. If it was important, why on earth did we have to wait until a handful of weeks, if that, before the election? Perhaps the election will be called as soon as Friday this week, or perhaps Sunday. The reason was that they wanted to kill off this political issue.

The coalition have called for this for 18 months and said multiple times, 'Let's recall parliament to deal with this issue, prior to all the big holidays, when families want to know their parents are going to have jobs afterwards and when people, including salmon workers, will be stressing about how they're going to pay their bills, including mortgage repayments and power bills.' We've said: 'Bring it on. We'll come back to parliament and fix it.' We've been doing that for 18 months. Instead, here we are, as I said, dealing with this political fix rather than having a proper decision made by the minister.

We will support the legislation. There are amendments, which I'll come to in a moment, to ensure that this bill is as good as it possibly can be—noting that, as I said before, we were given this legislation on Monday. We had just a day or so to consider it, to understand whether it works; we hope it does. We are proposing amendments that will strengthen the legislation, and of course there will be second reading amendments that go to some of the other issues related to this government's poor administration of the environment portfolio and their blatant disregard for job-creating industries in regional Australia, be they salmon farming, forestry, mining or whatever else. We are committed to passing these laws through the parliament this week, although the appalling handling of this situation cannot go without remark, and the political and cynical approach taken by this government in getting to this point.

When we asked the officials at Senate estimates just a couple of weeks ago where the draft legislation was—more than 10 days after this letter had been issued and I'd responded to the Prime Minister saying, 'Give us the legislation'—we found that they hadn't even picked up the phone to the industry to convene a meeting to discuss the legislation. At Senate estimates they told me it was their 'intention' to have a meeting to discuss this. So urgent was this that it hadn't even been on their radar, even after the Prime Minister had dispatched this letter to industry! I think we can see this for what it is.

What's more, this party—the Labor Party, the party in government at the moment, who are about to take us to an election—are very vexed on this issue. If anyone wanted to try to convince the Senate and the people of Australia that this is a settled matter inside their party room, they'd be kidding themselves. There is a very vast divergence between the opinions of some in the Australian Labor Party about how this issue should be sorted. There are some who are very uncomfortable with the idea of this legislation—and of course, as you would assume, they come from the Left side of the party, and there are certain groupings within the Labor Party, such as the Labor Environment Action Network and others, who are not big fans of doing anything that would support primary and productive extractive industries in this country and having environmental laws that facilitate investment, create jobs and grow the economy while protecting the environment.

We heard about the Labor Party caucus meeting that occurred earlier this week. It went longer than usual, because, as has been put to the media, there was a quite heated debate about what the government was doing at this last minute—hoping it would hide, it would disappear under the cover of a budget with a few little tricks and treats in it for the people of Australia, it would sink without a trace. Well, of course our friends from, I gather, the Bob Brown Foundation were certain to ensure yesterday that it didn't sink without a trace. And while I don't support their actions, it was rather a sight to behold—people gluing themselves to the steps and handrails of the Marble Foyer of Parliament House for their cause—again demonstrating the vexed nature of the political debate here, which has not escaped the Labor party room. They are just as split as are some others in the community.

That's why, alarmingly, the Prime Minister—having gone over to Western Australia with his entire cabinet and told the mining industry of Western Australia, the backbone of our economy, the generator of royalty revenue for our country, which pays for schools, hospitals, roads, the NDIS and all sorts of other essential services: 'Hey, mining industry, don't worry: we've got your back; we are going to ensure that this EPA never sees the light of day. There is no deal to be done. We will never, ever allow this legislation to come in'—had to promise his party room that it's on its way back, as has been reported. A re-elected Albanese government, perhaps in partnership with the Australian Greens, if the pollsters are to be believed, will establish a new giant green bureaucracy here in Canberra—forgetting the fact that we already have seven EPAs across state and territory governments in this country. Why not have another one? But that was the sweetener for this bitter pill that they were going to have to swallow in supporting and waving through this legislative fix.

We know the government was always going to do this. I have to revisit these heavily redacted documents that were the basis of a deal between the Australian Greens and the Australian Labor Party. When I asked for the details of the deal on these laws to establish a new EPA, they gave me these blacked-out documents; I'd love to know the detail of them. But that will have to wait until after the election because that is the basis of a Labor-Green deal, which is bad news for Western Australia and bad news for the mining industry. This EPA is going to be disastrous but it is now part of what has been agreed to in the Labor caucus to get this bill through today.

We want to see a few changes here. There will be a second reading amendment, I can foreshadow, relating to the funding of the Environmental Defenders Office. Let's not forget this group was one of the instigators of the terrible situation Tasmanian salmon workers have found themselves in for the last 18 months. Why this government continue to fund that organisation to the tune of $2½ million every year, I do not know. It's the kind of thing that should stop, and that's one of the things we'll be calling on the government to do. We'd also love to see them rule out the establishment of a new green bureaucracy that will destroy jobs and erode economic confidence.

More substantive amendments will be dealt with in the committee stage in this 11th-hour debate that we have no choice but to have because this government haven't done their job, as they should have. They will relate to the expansion of the projects that are caught in this relating to reconsideration requests from not just non-controlled actions but controlled actions; bringing the period of time under which an exemption would apply from five years down to 12 months; and the minister, instead of making her decision as soon as practically possible, making her decision within a 12-month period of a reconsideration being received—something we've well exceeded now.

At the end of the day, we shouldn't be here but we are. We need to find a solution to this, and it has to be a permanent, lasting solution that supports these jobs in Tasmania while having an impact which sees the maugean skate survive. We want to make sure these laws do this. We are disappointed the government have been dragged kicking and screaming here; it's not like it's a new issue, which is why I am befuddled by the minister's comments that she is so surprised about the need to do this and her unwillingness to act in this area. We will move our amendments at the appropriate time, and I move my second reading amendment now:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate notes that:

(a) on the eve of a federal election, the Albanese Government has been forced to work around their own Environment Minister in an attempt to fix a political mess of their own making—and that they should instead simply have ended the Environment Minister's disastrous review of the future of salmon farming at Macquarie Harbour;

(b) the Government—and particularly the Environment Minister—must guarantee that they will not instigate other forms of legislation or regulations that will impose new controls or reviews on the salmon industry, including through the return of their Nature Positive legislation, Federal EPA or use of other mechanisms in the EPBC Act, such as directed environmental audits;

(c) the changes to the reconsiderations regime in the bill should be substantially strengthened to ensure that all assessments of all projects, across all industries, do not remain subject to the open-ended review processes that currently exist; and

(d) the Government must immediately end the millions of dollars of taxpayer funding to the Environmental Defenders Office which, amongst many of its other actions deliberately targeted at thwarting and stopping business activity, investment and job creation for Australians, was one of the three organisations that initiated the reconsideration request against the salmon industry."

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

I rise to contribute to the discussion and debate on this piece of legislation, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Reconsiderations) Bill 2025. It was introduced into the parliament only yesterday. It went through the House of Representatives yesterday afternoon, and it is now being rushed through this chamber today—no proper process, no proper scrutiny, no ability for the department or the minister's advisers to answer the right questions or to know exactly what the consequences will be of this particular piece of legislation. This is a stitch-up between the Labor government and Peter Dutton's Liberal Party to gut Australia's environment laws and to facilitate the continuation and expansion of an industry that is polluting the Macquarie Harbour and that is pushing the maugean skate, our wildlife, to the brink of extinction.

Yesterday, we asked the government why this legislation needed to be unprecedentedly rushed through the parliament, on the eve of the election. We heard from the representing minister that it was because there was a flaw in the environment laws. We asked what the flaw was. It was that the law, as it currently stands, allows for a reconsideration when the environment is being damaged—so the flaw is an inconvenience to the corporations. The flaw is an inconvenience to the industry who want to keep polluting, who want to keep destroying, who want to keep fishing the rotten salmon that is washing up on the beaches and the bays in Tasmania right now.

The Prime Minister promised the salmon industry some two months ago that he would give the salmon industry a carve-out from Australia's environmental protection laws. That is why this piece of legislation is now being rushed through. Rather than listening to the science or listening to the local community, who are concerned and increasingly worried about the toxic nature of this corporate salmon farming in Tasmania and what it is doing to the environment, the Prime Minister decided that the 22 jobs—I'll say that again: the 22 jobs—in Macquarie Harbour are more important than keeping people's beaches clean and pristine and protecting the environment. This is all about rank, raw politics. This is about the Labor Party desperate to win Lyons at the federal election and desperate to hold on to votes. Meanwhile, they're missing the fact that the community in Tasmania are increasingly outraged at the sludge and the rotten fish that are washing up on the shores.

This piece of legislation, which will now not go to a Senate inquiry—we will not hear from the experts and we won't understand the real legal implications of this—is a carve-out and an exemption for the salmon industry to deal with what the Prime Minister thought was a political problem, bowing to the pressure of the corporates rather than listening to the community. But, in the way this legislation has been drafted, there are unintended consequences that now give a free-for-all to corporations and industries across the board. This legislation opens the floodgates for companies that are trashing the environment to continue to trash the environment even when the environment is suffering immensely, even when our native species are facing extinction and even when science suggests that a particular activity is too damaging and should be stopped.

What this legislation means is that, if approval has been given for a particular activity, whether it's fishing, mining or a land clearing project, after five years, if the environment is suffering terribly and we have wildlife on the brink of extinction, the minister cannot press the pause button and say: 'Hang on a minute. We might need to rethink this, because what we thought was going to happen is now worse. What we thought would be okay is now not.' The minister will not be able to look after the environment, because the interests of the corporations will have been embedded into the law. That's what this piece of legislation does. This is about protecting those industries from environmental scrutiny and from being held up to the requirements of environmental protection law, and it allows a free-for-all for environmental destruction. This law passing today, being rushed through by the Labor Party, will mean that Australia's environmental laws are weaker than they were when the Labor Party came to power. What does that say about the Albanese government and Minister Plibersek's legacy?

Three years ago, when the Labor Party was elected to government, we heard promises from the environment minister that the environment was back, that this government would act on strengthening environmental protections, putting in place rules that would ensure we stop the extinction of our native species and that there would be accountability for the industries and corporations that have been doing the wrong thing. That was a promise. That promise was made to the Australian people at the last election and was reinforced once Labor came to power. The bill that is being rushed through the parliament today does the exact opposite. In fact, it doesn't just not deliver on that promise; it takes Australia backwards. It makes our environment laws weaker, more defunct, and less able to protect the environment and our native species than when the Prime Minister took office.

The election will be called sometime in the next four or five days and Anthony Albanese will leave the office of Prime Minister asking the Australian people to re-elect him after he has trashed Australia's environment laws. The Prime Minister and the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, will walk out of this building tomorrow with weaker environment laws than were here when they took office. If you need any other reason to question the Labor Party's commitment to the environment, this is it. The Labor Party cannot be trusted to do the right thing by nature. This bill proves it. They are doing this because Peter Dutton asked them to. They are doing this because the salmon corporations, the foreign owned salmon corporations that take all their profits overseas, asked the Prime Minister to do this. The salmon corporations asked the Prime Minister to weaken the laws because it was inconvenient for them that the laws might actually protect the environment. They wanted a carve-out, they wanted a workaround, they wanted an exemption, and the Prime Minister handed it to them on a platter.

This bill stinks as much as the rotten salmon that is washing up on the shores in Hobart and southern Tasmania. And, boy, I think the government has got this wrong, and I think the opposition has got this wrong. They are absolutely misreading the community outrage on this issue right now, and not just in Tasmania but across the rest of the country. Australians are looking for integrity in politics. They're looking for people and politicians who do what they say and say what they do. This bill is a rotten, stinking deal between the Labor Party and the Liberal Party to trash our environment and to weaken our laws rather than to do what was promised.

The truth is that, if Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party cannot stand up to the pressure of an industry that has rotten fish washing up on its shores right now, there is no way in hell you could trust them to stand up to any other industry that wants a carve-out and a special exemption when it comes to the environment. If the Labor Party can't stand up to the foreign owned salmon corporations that are allowing rotten fish to wash up on the shores in Hobart, do you really think they're going to stand up to Gina Rinehart and the gas and the coal industry? Weak. Gutless. Pathetic. They cannot be trusted to do the right thing when the time requires. It's all about bowing to the corporate pressure, bowing to the donors, hushing up the community concern and silencing the environment.

This industry has no social license left. Let's be clear here. Thousands of people are rallying in Tasmania because their beaches are polluted and are covered in rotten sludge, and the Prime Minister is backing the foreign corporation over the community. It's political suicide and it's madness, but it is at the cost of the environment.

I listened to the Minister for the Environment and Water's speech in the House on this bill yesterday. The minister was so desperate to get off this topic while introducing this bill that she went through a litany of other things to try and remind the Australian people about what this government has done on the environment in this term of government. The list isn't very long; the list is pretty limp.

This bill supercharges all of the weakness in the existing laws. This makes Australia's environment legislation and protection for the Australian environment weaker and more ineffective than ever under this government. This isn't slow progress. This is a huge step backwards for nature under the Labor Party at the behest of Peter Dutton. Let's not forget that Peter Dutton wants even less protection, and the Labor Party has now just delivered that on a platter of stinking, rotten salmon.

Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today, I want to talk about the trust that I asked for from the people of Tasmania when I became a senator 14 years ago. In my first speech to this parliament, I asked the people of Tasmania to take me at my word. Today, I want to recommit to the people of Tasmania that I will never give up on standing up for you. You can trust me and you can believe what I say to you. Today, I want to say to Linton, Salty, Tracy and your fellow workers; to Tash, Sammy and the other mothers in Strahan; and especially to young Logan and his schoolmates that I will stand up for you.

This debate is about several things. It's about good, well-paid jobs in Tasmania, which I have spent my working life standing up for. Most of you here have not worked on the factory floor in food production or in industries and processing plants that sustain whole communities. Let me tell you the same thing that I said 14 years ago in my first speech in this place: I will always stand on the side of workers, for workers' rights and for the protection of their jobs.

This debate is also about community. It's about the aspirations of individuals and families to put down roots in a place that really means something to them. It's about safety and certainty and a place to call home. It's about the school that your kids attend, where you want them to focus on learning, not on worrying whether Mum and Dad will have jobs, whether their mate's mums and dads will have jobs or whether the school will close and their family will move on.

It's also about the environment, and I won't apologise for having secured $37 million for environmental measures that support the health of Macquarie Harbour and the sustainability of the salmon industry, including funding for very successful oxygenation of the harbour; for a captive breeding program for the maugean skate, which is exceeding every expectation; and for better surveys and monitoring of harbour health. This investment is delivering real returns. For the first time in nearly a decade, scientists have recorded an increased presence of young maugean skate and found that the skate population is stabilising. The scientists at the University of Tasmania have told us that no further declines have been detected and, in fact, an abundance of trends are improving. There are no accidents in the investments the government has made in the health of the harbour and the future of the skate. Both industry and government have invested in science-led solutions. It's been deliberate and methodical, and our efforts are paying off.

This legislation is a specific amendment to address a flaw in the EPBC Act. We're not going to stand by and see workers lose their jobs because of this broken law. The blame game which is singing out the industry and the communities whose livelihoods depend on the industry will not guide my actions, nor will it guide the actions of this Labor government.

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

It's with some bemusement that I make a contribution to this piece of legislation, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Reconsiderations) Bill 2025, given the debate that occurred in this chamber on a very similar piece of legislation that I introduced just a few weeks ago where the Labor contribution was scornful, scathing and not supportive. Yet this piece of legislation that we're seeing introduced today is effectively the same legislation except it's been made retrospective, which is something that I didn't want to do as someone who has thought about the way we should consider this and what we should do in this place. There was an action in this place; I understand that. I don't agree with the action that the Minister for the Environment and Water took. She took the word of a number of discredited environmental groups through a letter rather than a formal submission and made a decision that she didn't need to make, creating uncertainty that didn't need to be created for communities.

Labor opposed that piece of legislation which didn't have retrospectivity in it. The three-year timeframe after an approval is five years under Labor's legislation so it's longer, but what it doesn't do, which my bill did, was provide the opportunity for a state minister to come to federal government and offer some consideration. That's disappeared. So, while I was trying to put in place something that was responsible, that considered the environment over a longer period of time and that wanted a good result which would provide some security to companies that had invested sometimes millions of dollars in the environmental approval, the government have wiped all of that away to solve a political problem that they created themselves. I find it, let's say, bemusing that during the last debate the Labor contribution was so scornful of what we were trying to do, which was to try to provide a balance between industry and environment which is important in what we do.

We've heard a lot of very provocative debate and conversation here this morning about the circumstance in southern Tasmania, the very unfortunate circumstance where one of the businesses down there has been hit with a bacterial attack which they've struggled to get on top of. But the exaggeration about the impact of that, I have to say, is pretty breathtaking, and I've heard in recent contributions discussion about fish carcasses washing up on the beach in Hobart, all over Hobart and surrounding beaches, that is simply not true. There are no fish carcasses washing up on the beach in Hobart. There have been a couple of circumstances where people, quite vigilantly, have found some pieces of salmon that have broken down, but there are not fish carcasses washing up all over the beaches around Hobart. That's simply not true. But that's what we hear in this debate: misinformation, misleading information. In fact, some of the images that are being circulated as fact, as part of this debate now, are actually AI generated. They're not true.

Environmental groups are doing what they did in other recent cases where they have fabricated evidence: AI generated photographs to support their arguments. Yet this government continues to fund one of them, the Environmental Defenders Office, which had a multimillion-dollar fine imposed on them for their fabricated evidence to a court case. And here we have in Tasmania, right now, one of the organisations, the Bob Brown Foundation, again fabricating evidence. So we hear the Greens putting information forward in this debate that is simply false, creating concern for my communities and communities around Australia.

I won't accuse the Greens of lying, because that is unparliamentary, but I won't give them credit for knowing what they're talking about. They're just spreading the bunkum that's been fed to them by these dishonest, discredited environmental groups that are funded by this government. We all express our concerns about the utilisation of AI, and here it is being used to create misrepresentations of the salmon industry in Tasmania. It's a disgrace. Then, of course, we have to listen to the xenophobic rhetoric about the businesses that are operating.

Each of the three businesses in Tasmania started off as a family business. They grew their business. Yes, it grew over time and they sold their business to larger companies, which provides additional capacity to invest and build an important industry for Tasmania and it supports thousands of people working in the Tasmanian community. We want to see that continue sensibly, a sensible industry working with the environment.

The suggestion that these companies are looking to, in some way, degrade the environment and do it deliberately, which is the inference being made, dishonestly, by some in this chamber but certainly in the environmental movement—clean water is important to fish farming. Clean water means healthy fish.

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

They're not healthy; they're dying.

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

No. Unfortunately, there has been a bacterial outbreak that they're trying to deal with. You completely misrepresent those circumstances in my state, based on fabricated evidence put together by environmental groups that have been discredited. It's dishonest information.

We, quite sensibly, have some amendments to this motion. We don't want to see the Environmental Defenders Office continue to be funded by this government. This discredited organisation has been found, through another case, to have provided misleading evidence, to have fabricated evidence, so that it could oppose a project. That's exactly the sort of thing they're doing in my home state right now. It's dishonest. I find it galling that the newspapers and the ABC run the AI, artificial intelligence, generated pictures in their news bulletins as a depiction of what's really happening when it's not. What happened to journalistic integrity? What happened to that? But with respect to an organisation like the ABC I don't expect anything different. It's an organisation that turned up to a lady's house to film a home invasion. So I don't expect much more from the ABC.

We are debating a piece of legislation that we didn't need to debate, because the circumstances that created it shouldn't have been created in the first place. It was created by a minister who made a bad decision. The government tries to justify it by saying that they were required to by law, but they weren't required to by law. The minister had a choice to accept three letters—not three submissions; three letters—and reopen a more than 11-year-old decision or reject them, and she should have rejected them. That's what she could have done and should have done, and the salmon workers in Macquarie Harbour would not have experienced the uncertainty that they've experienced for the last two Christmases. We shouldn't be standing here at five minutes to an election to try and sort out a mess because this government can't do it itself or its minister refuses to.

I have to say that I genuinely wonder about the longevity of this fix. Part of the deal that was done inside the Labor Party to get this legislation onto the floor of the parliament this week is to bring back the nature-positive laws that they supposedly put to bed and put away before the Western Australian election because the Western Australian Premier was so opposed to them. The Western Australian election is over and done with—'We don't have to worry about him anymore'—and they're going to bring back the nature-positive laws and a new bureaucracy here in Canberra. That's going to be fantastic for us all, isn't it? There's an EPA in every state and territory, except for one territory, and they're going to have another one here in Canberra now as well—more bureaucrats; fantastic! That's just what we all need. So what is the life of this fix that we're being asked to debate at five minutes before an election?

Let's not forget, when we debated a similar bill just a few weeks ago in the last sitting fortnight, on every single occasion where the government had a choice, who they sided with. Let's not forget that every single industry that made a submission to the Senate inquiry into my private senator's bill—every single one, the users of the EPBC Act, those who spend millions of dollars to get an approval under the act—said that the private senator's bill would increase the security of their operations, which is what they wanted for their investment decisions and all of those other important elements of running a business. Who did the government side with? The government sided with the EDO, the Bob Brown Foundation and the political propagandists of the Greens, the Australia Institute. That's who the government sided with. So what's going to happen with a Labor-Greens government after this next election, if that's what happens, when 'nature positive' comes back and there's another bureaucracy in an EPA? What's going to happen then?

Yet when you look at the circumstance of what's actually happening in Macquarie Harbour with the investment—admittedly, by the government, and I commend them for the investment that they've made, in that sense, but also by industry—there's one thing that's guaranteed the survival of the maugean skate, and that's the investment, particularly by industry. I go back to the point that I made before: the industry wants and needs clean water because it means healthy fish. They don't want to see the circumstance that they've been struck with right now, because an event like this is absolutely terrible for everybody.

We see it disgracefully misrepresented, and we see the attacks on the industry take some absolutely shameful forms. We saw one of the activists who was here yesterday, Peter George, dropping an anti-salmon banner behind the Premier when he was commemorating the deaths of children at Hillcrest Primary School. This is a person who calls himself a leader of the community. What a disgraceful effort from that person. He wants to be a member of the parliament. He has no respect for the kids and families of Hillcrest. He's more interested in getting his issue up and using that very sad day for political purposes.

This is what we're dealing with as a part of this debate. This is the sort of behaviour we're dealing with—fabricated evidence and misinformation, amplified by some in this chamber—and yet if you look at what's actually happening in Macquarie Harbour and read the science it shows (a) the conditions in the harbour are improving and (b) the captive breeding program has been highly successful, which is fantastic. And so the existence of the salmon industry is actually providing for the survival of the maugean skate, which we must remember has disappeared out of Bathurst Harbour where there's no mining, there's no fish farming. So what happened in Bathurst Harbour, just down the coast a little bit further? Why don't the skate exist in that waterway?

The existence in the salmon industry is one of the things that will guarantee the future of the maugean skate in Macquarie Harbour, because it's in industry's interest for it to be there. But of course there is no mention of the fact that there is a 120- or130-year mining history that impacts rivers flowing into Macquarie Harbour, or the fact that there are large empowerments further up that potentially impact on the oxygen inflows into the harbour. Protesters aren't talking about those things.

The industry is doing something practical to ensure that the skate exists because they want their industry to exist. They've been there for 30 years, responsibly farming. They've had their moments, I'll admit. That has been turned around. We need to make sure that what we do ensures a sustainable future for a strong industry for Tasmania, one that I think is very important for our local communities.

David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in opposition to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Reconsiderations) Bill 2025 and I foreshadow a second reading amendment circulated my name.

This is a bill that strips power from the environment minister. It guts oversight from the federal government. It undermines the very integrity of our national environmental laws, laws that are already weak and broken. And, to make matters worse, this bill is being rammed through the Senate without proper scrutiny, without consultation and without any serious attempt to weigh its consequences. Let's call this for what it is. This is an abuse of process, a carve out for a polluting industry and a betrayal of the government's own promises to the Australian people.

This chamber exists for a reason. It's not a rubber stamp; it's the house of review. It's a safeguard to ensure that our laws are scrutinised, challenged and improved before they become permanent, and yet here we are again being asked to wave through highly consequential legislation with no Senate committee inquiry, no expert hearings and no meaningful debate. The government has teamed up with the coalition to guillotine debate and force this bill through on the final day of the Senate. This is not how a functioning democracy should operate. This is how power protects itself. This is how vested interests get what they want while the public and the planet—our home—lose.

Let's be very clear about this bill after some of the contributions we've heard. This bill is not about streamlining environmental decision-making, it's about shielding certain industries, especially the salmon farming industry in Macquarie Harbour, from proper scrutiny. Under current law, if new information emerges or if there is a change in circumstances any person can ask the minister to reconsider a previous decision. It's a vital safeguard, a check against outdated or inaccurate assumptions. It's a line of defence when threatened species are at risk. And this bill tears that line of defence down.

If passed, the environment minister will be prevented from revisiting certain decisions, even if those decisions are actively harming our most precious environmental assets, even if they're driving a species to extinction, even if the original assumptions were clearly wrong—and the maugean skate, a prehistoric species living only in Macquarie Harbour, is a tragic case in point. The maugean skate has survived for some hundred million years. That's an amount of time that I think we struggle to get our heads around. The maugean skate has been around since the dinosaurs. It has adapted to one of the most unique marine environments on Earth. But it may not survive this decision to wind back environmental protections. Scientists tell us salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour is pushing this World Heritage animal to the brink of extinction. The RSPCA has now, finally, withdrawn its certification from Huon Aquaculture, one of the multinationals operating in Tasmania, citing mass fish deaths and animal welfare concerns.

Yet, rather than step in to reassess the environmental approval—rather than pause and listen to the warnings of scientists, conservationists and community groups—the government is trying to remove the power to do so altogether. This bill would make it impossible for the federal government to step in and say: 'Stop. We need to reassess. This is doing irreversible harm.' This is legislation that prioritises profit over protection, that puts industry before integrity, that puts extinction on autopilot.

For the young Australians who come through here, who would have seen pictures of the thylacine or maybe video of the last thylacine and thought, 'What ignorance, what insanity; what were people thinking back then, when they had government policy, when they had a bounty on a species like that?'—well, it's happening today, brought to you by the Labor Party and the coalition. I think this bill, on the last day of parliament in 2025, is very instructive as to where we currently sit when it comes to our democracy, the declining trust in the major parties, the disillusionment of many long-term Labor voters in what Labor actually stand for, and the huge disparity between what they say they stand for, what they promise, and what they actually deliver.

You need look no further than our Prime Minister. In 2005, the year I finished high school, now Prime Minister Albanese introduced his own climate trigger legislation into the House of Representatives—great speech: it talks about the future, talks about how climate is the biggest issue we face and how we desperately need leadership on this and how we should be considering climate. In 2015, a decade later, he stood against the coalition's attempts to wind back our environmental laws. I think it's worth quoting him:

The right of citizens with standing to challenge their governments in court is a fundamental pillar of a robust democracy. We must not set this principle aside simply to provide a drowning Prime Minister with a headline …

Well, a decade later, here we are: the last day of parliament, and a prime minister desperate for a headline when it comes to salmon. Australians deserve better. We deserve better. The people and places across this incredible continent deserve better.

The government tells us that this is a narrow amendment, that it applies to only one case. But that's not true. The language of this bill is extremely broad. That means we don't know how many projects it might cover. It could be salmon farms today and gas projects tomorrow, fracking in the NT or offshore drilling in sensitive marine zones. It opens the door to more carve outs, more loopholes and more legislative exemptions for industries that pollute, extract and destroy. That's the real danger here. Yes, the maugean skate is at risk, but it's about more than that. It's about creating a precedent that says some industries are above environmental law, that says some environmental harms are beyond federal concern, that says 'hands off', even when the damage is severe and irreversible. Worse, I've received independent advice from leading barristers chambers in Sydney that this bill does not even achieve the outcome it purports to seek. So, we have a bill that does not achieve the outcome it seeks and has potentially far-reaching consequences for our national environmental laws. No wonder there's a decline in trust in government.

What are we doing here? The coalition is willing to just wave through legislation that may not even do what they want, because this isn't actually about that. This isn't about actual good governance; it's about some culture war that they want to fight.

The disappointment I hear from people when it comes to environment and nature protection in this term of government is palpable. This government was elected on a promise to fix our national environmental laws. Labor then promised no new extinctions. They promised a stronger EPBC Act. They promised a federal EPA. They promised transparency, consultation and evidence based decision-making. What have we seen instead? Where are all those things? We've seen yet another captain's call by the Prime Minister to withdraw legislation that would have established a federal EPA and improved environmental enforcement; we've seen decisions to open up and extend coal and gas projects; and now we see a bill that makes it harder, not easier, to protect nature. This is not environmental reform. This is environmental regression. This is environmental vandalism. This is short-changing the future, and it flies in the face of everything this Labor government told the Australian public it stood for.

You have to ask the question. There are many good people in the Labor Party. How do they roll over to a captain's call like this and accept a Prime Minister who says, "You know what? Don't worry about the maugean skate. It can go. If you vote for that, we'll do what we promised everyone we would do three years ago. We'll take it to the election again, even though we had the numbers in the Senate to do it'?

If you look at who stands to benefit from this legislation, none of the three major salmon-farming companies in Tasmania are Australian owned. Last financial year, they made a combined $7 billion in revenue. They didn't pay a cent of company tax—$7 billion in revenue, and zero company tax. At the same time, they're clearly just externalising all sorts of costs, from the inland waters to Macquarie Harbour to Hobart's drinking water and the impact that hatcheries are having upstream. These are multinational corporations exploiting Tasmanian waters and damaging a UNESCO World Heritage site. One of these companies is banned from fish farming in Washington state. Washington state says, 'You cannot be trusted, and you cannot do business in this state.' The founder of one of the other companies was jailed for bribery and corruption. But they get the red carpet from the Prime Minister. They're being handed an exemption from federal oversight, handing the environmental cost to local communities and future generations.

The future of Tasmania is surely a sustainable aquaculture industry, ecotourism and a regenerative economy—industries with real long-term potential and minimal ecological harm. This isn't about the national interest; this is about vested interests, and it's shameful that both major parties are lining up to serve them. This bill is the latest in a disturbing pattern of this government working with the coalition to fast-track legislation, sideline scrutiny and avoid accountability. A month ago, it was electoral reform, pushed through without consultation. Before that, we saw the federal EPA shelved to appease the fossil fuel and mining industry lobbyists in WA. Now we see this legislation, introduced on budget day, in the final sitting week of parliament, with no committee scrutiny and no opportunity for community input—just a rush to the finish line, no matter the consequences. That's not how environmental law should be made. It's not how public trust is built; it's how it's broken.

This chamber deserves better than to be treated as an inconvenience to executive power. The Australian people deserve better than a government that says one thing before an election and does the opposite after. Our environment, nature in Australia, the places and species that we love and that make this place unique deserve better than the legal carveout that would send them into oblivion. This bill shouldn't pass, because once a species has gone it is gone forever. Once trust in environmental law is lost it's very hard to restore. Once we start letting governments change laws for the benefit of a single industry without scrutiny, without consultation and without accountability we are not just failing environment; we are failing our democracy.

I oppose this bill and I would urge other senators to think about what you are voting on this evening. Think about the future of this country. Think about a species that has been around for 100 million years and is unique to Macquarie Harbour. It is found nowhere else. You with your vote will very likely send it to extinction. It's a very different thing to have some skates being bred in a tank versus a species living in its habitat where it has been for 100 million years.

We've got to start making better decisions as a country, as a Senate. Let's think longer term than this. This is the worst of politics—the absolute worst of politics. It stinks to high heaven. I hope when you vote you know what you are voting on, and if this thing does go extinct I hope it haunts you.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It almost feels surreal to me that I am standing here on the last morning of the 47th Parliament to vote on a bill that will be signing the death warrant for a species that has literally lived on this planet for millions of years—the maugean skate. This is a shameful moment for this parliament, for this government and for senators in this chamber who will condemn the skate to extinction.

I've been raising the plight of the skate in this parliament, in this chamber, at question time, at every estimates. I initiated a Senate inquiry in 2015 into Macquarie Harbour, which, in the industry's own words, was a 'ticking time bomb' for the maugean skate. This is not something that has happened overnight—a quick political fix for the Albanese government; this issue has been bubbling away. There are a lot of good people in the environment movement and in the community who care deeply about this issue and have been campaigning to try and get the skate protected. For the life of me, I can't understand why we are doing this, when all the best science tells us that this skate is endangered, almost certainly critically endangered, when the uplisting process to 'critically endangered' is underway at the moment and when the evidence is unanimous. This bill means that, under federal law, this skate is on the path to extinction. That's the definition of endangered.

The science tells us that salmon farming is the cause of the skate's rapid decline, and yet we are exempting the salmon industry from federal environmental laws. What gives? I'll talk about the politics of this in a second. But if, from listening to her, Senator Urquhart—who I have no doubt is going to become known as the 'senator for extinction' in this place—believes this is really about jobs, then I would say to the Senate that the government's own advice to the minister, their own briefing, said there were 20 jobs in Macquarie Harbour. Every job is important. There are 20 jobs, so I have a couple of questions for senators to consider before they vote for this: What's the price of the extinction of a species? Are 20 jobs worth us knowingly, actively driving a species to extinction? This is a serious moral question, and I don't ask it lightly. This is a clear-cut case. What we are about to do today, I've no doubt, will be looked at all around the world. I guarantee it. It has already been commented on in social media accounts all around the world today. It's going to resonate. If this is about protecting jobs at Macquarie Harbour, let me tell Senator Urquhart, the Prime Minister and all those in the Labor and Liberal parties: if you care about workers and jobs in the industry, the worst thing you could do is what you are doing right now. You are lighting a match under this issue. It is now on every TV screen around the country. Australians are starting to wonder whether they should be eating toxic Atlantic salmon from Tasmania. This is on the national agenda now, and it's not going to go away. This is going to spread like wildfire.

The worst thing they have done is to bring this stupid, dangerous, immoral legislation before this chamber, before this parliament. If it's not about the workers, is it about the politics? Well, there's no doubt the Labor Party want to win the seat of Braddon. But, as Senator Lambie said in here yesterday, they need to get out more often and talk to people. This is not a popular issue in Braddon or anywhere else in Tasmania. The fact that the government would bring special legislation for their mates in the salmon industry into the parliament, as the last thing they do in the 47th Parliament, and the fact that they would give more than $40 million in handouts to foreign owned multinational companies who do not pay any tax suggest institutional corruption. This is the institution of parliament and big political parties in bed with big, multinational salmon companies. It is cronyism. By any definition, this is straight-up cronyism and institutional corruption. It is the Prime Minister and the Labor Party saying: 'We'll give you money and we'll pass special legislation for you so we can win a seat.' That doesn't pass the pub test. That is corruption, whichever way you look at it. You are pushing a species to extinction and you're prepared to say: 'We don't care about extinction. We believe that a few jobs in the salmon industry and protecting its profits is more important.'

I would urge senators to look at the scientific advice of the Threatened Species Scientific Committee. They have made very clear what threats there are to the skate and to the World Heritage values of Macquarie Harbour, which is now known internationally as a biodiversity hotspot that needs to be protected. I would ask you to look at the evidence, please, before you sign the death warrant for this creature that has been with us since the age of the dinosaurs.

When I initiated a Senate inquiry into this issue 10 years ago, I had a manila folder put under my door with leaked emails from CEOs of Tasmania's salmon companies to the Premier at the time. They were saying: 'Regulate the industry. Do more to protect the skate, because, if you don't, this is going to blow up in everyone's face.' We had a Senate inquiry into that. Four Corners did an expose of it. That was 10 years ago, and the environment in Macquarie Harbour has only got worse because of climate change, extreme weather events and a lack of dissolved oxygen. The salmon companies are losing millions of fish in single upwellings, where the nitrogen load becomes so high and the oxygen levels become so low, because of the warming oceans and farming practices, that millions of fish are literally drowning in their own shit. That is what this is.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think you should withdraw that.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will withdraw it and say 'faeces' if that would make senators happier. But you get the point—imagine dying that way.

As Senator Hanson-Young said in her contribution today, those fish are washing up on our beaches in Tasmania. They're polluting our waterways. Come down to Tasmania, the clean, green and clever state, but just don't go for a walk on the beach—you might tread on rotting salmon carcasses. This is the industry and the industrial activity in the pristine Macquarie Harbour—or it was pristine, before the salmon industry came in—this parliament wants to protect with special legislation.

What happened after they leaked these dossiers to me and we had a Senate inquiry into this 10 years ago? The industry went to war. They took each other to court. Huon Aquaculture took Tassal and the Tasmanian government to court to try and improve practices in Macquarie Harbour. The industry themselves recognised this problem. This is not the Greens or green groups, which is the way Senator Duniam and others try to label this. The industry themselves went to war over this, and nothing has come of it. The salmon industry formed an association to speak on behalf of themselves. They've been bought out, now, by foreign owned multinational companies, and they have plans to expand—not on our watch.

This legislation will, no doubt, pass today, because the Labor and Liberal parties don't care about the extinction of a species. They aren't prepared to listen to the science. But it's not going to stop here today. I haven't seen Australia's environment movement—and Senator McAllister is close to a lot of our environment groups in Australia, so she understands—so united on an issue as they are on this. I have never seen them so angry—and rightly so. After coming into this place year after year and fighting, lobbying and advocating for strong environment laws, what do they see? They see a government weaken environment laws for the salmon industry. You have done what many of us couldn't do—you, the Labor Party and the Prime Minister, have united Australia's environment movement behind this.

Expect this to be an election issue, an issue after the election and an issue in a balance-of-power arrangement. This is not going to go away. This is one of the stupidest strategic political decisions I've ever seen. This is actually, for me personally, coming up to 13 years in this place, the lowest moment, to see two major political parties get together to protect a polluting industry that's about to push a species to extinction. You will get contacted by your constituents. There will be a lot more than 20 workers you'll be hearing from. You'll get contacted all around the country about this. You'll get international pressure from international agencies who care about the world heritage values of Macquarie Harbour. The damage that will be done to the salmon industry and its workers from this will far outweigh any economic damage to the salmon industry from withdrawing from Macquarie Harbour.

I have a timeline here going back to when the salmon industry rapidly and aggressively expanded in Macquarie Harbour in 2012 without doing the required work. That was opposed by the Greens all those years ago in 2012. They have bulldozed all obstacles in their way, because of the cosy relationships they have as cronies with the Labor and Liberal parties at both state and federal levels. It stinks. The politics on this are as rotten as the stinking fish washing up on Tasmanian beaches, and Tasmanians and Australians can smell it.

But that's enough of the politics; let's just look at the science. I heard the Prime Minister, at a press conference the other day, say that a new report has been released by the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, at the University of Tasmania, saying that skate numbers are back to what they were in 2014, 11 years ago. Guess what? That is disputed. There is considerable uncertainty in the science. The most eminent scientists in this area have provided advice to the Threatened Species Scientific Committee that is different to that, and that's not to mention it was IMAS themselves that rang the bell on this, by saying this species is one extreme weather event away from extinction. That's what has triggered this whole process. That's the science.

Even if the Prime Minister was right and the numbers are back to what they were in 2014—and I hope he's right; I genuinely do—it is still endangered. The number of skate left in the harbour before the 2022 report was believed to be 1,200, and it's the only place left on earth where this dinosaur lives. And it is actually a dinosaur. That's why Macquarie Harbour has World Heritage value; it's because of this skate. There are 1,200 skate left, so, if the Prime Minister is right, we are still talking about an endangered species on the brink of extinction. That is the definition of 'endangered' under federal environment law—on the path to extinction. So that is meaningless.

He also talks about the money they have committed to oxygenation in Macquarie Harbour, turning a World Heritage harbour into a giant oxygenated fish tank. Well, guess what? Labor's own pilot study as to whether that will work doesn't finish till the end of this year, but they've already committed the money. How bloody cynical is that? And then he talks about the money they're putting into the captive breeding program. So there we go—we're going to have the maugean skate, one of the last dinosaurs left on this planet, in a bloody aquarium! These skates are fed a brew they don't get in the wild, and the females are laying eggs which hatch into baby skates, but they can't tell us whether the eggs had already been fertilised before the females came into captivity. This is what the Prime Minister has been saying to try and defend this toxic legislation that we have before us today.

I was feeling pretty speechless this morning; I really was. I can't tell you how angry and disappointed I am, after all my time in this place, to see this in the last moments of this parliament. You guys are a bunch of cynical, mean—I've got to try and control myself here—heartless, mongrel bastards.

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Whish-Wilson, in the interests of the chamber, I would ask you to withdraw that last comment.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry, Acting Deputy President. It pains me to say this, but I can't withdraw it in good conscience, because that's how I feel, and I believe that is the truth.

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For the goodwill of the chamber, I would ask you to reconsider using unparliamentary language. I already have people on their feet for a point of order—Senator Ciccone—so I would ask you to reconsider that and please withdraw.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw because you are in the chair, Acting Deputy President.

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. Senator Polley.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would just make the point, in my point of order, that who is in the chair should not determine whether you're going to withdraw.

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Polley, you do have the call, but could you just take a seat. Minister.

Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Emergency Management) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think Senator Polley was in fact rising on a point of order rather than to seek the call. I rise on the same point of order. A withdrawal, conventionally, in this place is unconditional. You asked Senator Whish-Wilson to withdraw, and he has given you a conditional withdrawal. I don't think that's consistent with the practices in our chamber.

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pretty sure that you heard me twice invite Senator Whish-Wilson to withdraw his comment on the basis of the language used that I considered unparliamentary. I would ask him to do that without condition.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw.

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Whish-Wilson. Senator Polley, you have the call.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Reconsiderations) Bill 2025. This bill is very specific. It's a minor change with extremely strict criteria, focusing on giving Tasmanian workers certainty while government investments protect the maugean skate. As a Tasmanian, I know and understand how important this industry is to our economy, to the people who work in this sector and to the communities that support those workers. As a government, we have invested $37.5 million as a priority for maugean skate conservation actions, including successful captive breeding programs and expanding the oxidisation program in Macquarie Harbour.

I understand what's going on here and what's going on back in Tasmania with the Greens political party. They see this as an opportunity because their support base is fading away because they are too extreme on all the issues that they are trying to pursue. They need to actually raise their profiles again because Australian people understand how they have blocked investment in housing in this place purely for their own political reasons. They're not just environmentalists; these people are elected to the Senate, their party is a political party and they will take up whatever issue they believe will be to their advantage and become very political. It's all about social media grabs for them and trying to secure elected positions, which is what political parties do. That's what the Labor Party does and it's what the Liberal Party does. But they have no shame. They will put at risk Tasmanian jobs, our economy and our communities for their own political advantage.

Everyone agrees that our nature laws need reform. We want to see laws which provide better environmental protections and faster decision-making, and we are very much still committed to achieving that. Unfortunately, the Liberals and the Nationals teamed up with the Greens political party here in the Senate to block our laws, including to establish an independent environmental protection agency. They come in here today shedding tears and being very dramatic, but, when they had the opportunity to support good legislation to protect the environment, what did they do? They teamed up with the Liberals and the Nationals.

As I've said many times before in this place and outside it in my home state of Tasmania, I stand with those workers very proudly. I am proud of the Tasmanian aquaculture industry, particularly what's occurred and the opportunities that have been presented to young Tasmanians within the salmon industry across the state. Too often it's the minority, noisy protesters that seem to get the ear of the government. This time, our government, the Albanese Labor government, has actually brought forward legislation to give security to those communities. Macquarie Harbour is at the centre of this, but it's not just about Macquarie Harbour; it's about the attack on businesses and retail outlets and protesting outside them for selling Tasmanian salmon. If that is not undermining the Tasmanian economy and the opportunity to expand and have more jobs, I really don't know what it is.

I've spoken to many families when they've been here in Canberra and back home in Tasmania, and I understand how important this industry is to regional areas of Tasmania where there are some good job opportunities within this industry. From the outset and over the course of this debate around salmon farming and the skates, the Albanese government has always been committed to balancing economic prosperity, environmental sustainability and community wellbeing, and we stand by that today and every day. The salmon industry is an important part of Tasmania's economy. As I said, it supports regional jobs, businesses and families and is a big part of so many people's way of life. If we don't have those jobs in regional Tasmania, we lose those communities. Businesses won't open. There are those who try and trumpet that they're small-business supporters, but the reality is that they're not, because they attack small businesses, rallying outside and preventing people from going into those very important small businesses because they are selling salmon grown in Tasmania.

I had the good fortune to travel to Norway in December last year and meet with people from the salmon industry there. We are, in fact, world leaders; they acknowledged that. We know that they've been the world leaders in the production of salmon for a very long time, and now even they concede the quality and the environmental protections that we have for the salmon industry in Tasmania.

I'm very proud of our government for standing up for these communities and taking the challenge of the Greens. But what I really don't accept is the misinformation, the manipulation of photos, and going out into the media and scaring people about the dead fish that are washing up on the beaches. It's just nonsense. These are the extremes that they will go to to get a political opportunity that is all about their own political interests. When we're talking about scientific evidence, it doesn't matter that scientists will put a position that is supportive because of the evidence that they have gathered to support the industry. The Greens will never accept it. It won't matter what you do; the Greens will never accept salmon farming in Tasmania or anywhere else. As a Tasmanian, I—probably more than most—have seen, over decades, the environmental issues that the Greens have used to their own advantage. They start off here and then they want to go all the way. They wanted to stop logging in Tasmania. Then they were all for tree farming; now they're against that. What they say to people in the community should in fact be the truth.

This government has recognised that there needs to be a small amendment to allow this legislation to go through and give certainty and security to that industry. Have they made mistakes? Yes, of course they have made mistakes. But they have also acknowledged that and learnt from it. We have always stated that transparency and compliance are non-negotiable, and any company operating in Tasmania must meet strict legal and ethical standards. They also need a social licence, and I can tell you that, when you go down to the West Coast of Tasmania, you will find that that industry has the support of that community. Obviously, if there's any evidence of misconduct or breaches of the regulations, that should go to the appropriate authority.

Our approach as a government has been to work collaboratively with the workers, businesses and communities to ensure economic resilience and long-term sustainability of the salmon industry in Macquarie Harbour and across Tasmania. I have difficulty with any suggestions that decisions regarding the salmon industry, or in fact any industry, are influenced by politics, because we have always stood up for workers. It's in our DNA. We stand up for workers every single day, and I will never apologise for standing up for the salmon industry workers. It's also impacting on their families, as I said, and their communities. We base our policy decisions on expert advice, and we need to balance that with environmental, economic and social considerations. The integrity of governance is paramount, and any claims of unethical influence should be substantiated through the proper channels.

It's time to put facts on the table in this debate. Aquaculture now provides more than 50 per cent of Australia's seafood and is acknowledged around the world as being the fastest-growing food sector, with global production expected to double by 2030. But ensuring that Tasmania's industries operate sustainably while protecting our world-class environment is a responsibility that we as government members and the government as a whole take very, very seriously. Even if the Greens say differently, that doesn't mean it's right. People have to make their decisions based on fact and expert advice, and a government has to take responsibility for the legislation that it puts through this place. We will be judged by that. But the hysteria, misinformation and untruth that have been spread around this debate are just typical of the Greens political party.

As I said, the Greens will always use the opportunity to politicise an issue when they believe it is in their best interest to do so, even when it comes to people not being able to have a home. They refused to support us and they actually teamed up with the Liberals and the Nationals. For a whole week we were in this chamber ready to actually vote on legislation that was going to inject billions of dollars into the housing industry through affordable and social housing, and what did the Greens do? They voted to stop us having a vote. That's how they use politics. They're not as pure as they like to convince the community they are. They are a political party that will seize every opportunity. But, if we're going to have a genuine debate about the future of any industry, we should expect nothing less than the truth being told and not misinformation. It will always be fundamental to our government that we make those decisions in the interests of the Tasmanian community. Of course, I would have liked to have seen this legislation come before the parliament earlier, but we also have to act within current legislation.

When we're talking about how important this is to the Tasmanian economy, let me remind people that the annual total gross catch is worth over $1 billion and the total processed and packed value is almost $1.5 billion. We're talking about a huge contribution to the Australian economy and the Tasmanian economy. Further to this, Tasmania really is the food bowl of the nation, with more than 90 per cent of seafood products sold domestically and the possibility for greater export opportunities with favourable trading partners. According to industry, at the current rates, salmon production is expected to grow to be worth more than $1 billion. It will grow and it will continue to grow. With that responsibility and this licence that they are going to be given with the passing of this legislation, they know that the community and governments, including the state government, will be watching and ensuring that they remain good corporate citizens.

At the end of the day, it's not always easy for a government to balance the responsibility of protecting the environment and people's jobs. I am very proud to be part of this government, which has actually listened, has visited and has learnt. Now we are able to give that certainty to those workers and their families and those communities. This is the right decision, and I urge people in this chamber to support this legislation. It is important not just for the Tasmanian community but for the Australian community as well.

Perin Davey (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let's make no mistake as to why we're here today debating this bill, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Reconsiderations) Bill 2025. It is because the coalition has led on this issue. For the last almost 18 months, the coalition has been leading the way to support the salmon industry in Tasmania and in fact right across Australia. Labor has been brought kicking and screaming to the realisation that something needs to be done to protect the salmon industry. But, even in trying to do something right by the salmon industry, they're not getting it right. They can't do it. They can't bring themselves to do it. What Labor is trying to do with this bill today is to win votes, not to support a vital and crucial industry for the Tasmanian economy. The Prime Minister is about saving his own job, not about saving the Tasmanian salmon industry—and, let's face it, this bill is certainly not about saving the job of the Minister for the Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek. This is just the last round in a long-running stoush between the Prime Minister and his environment minister and, to a wider extent, the clearly divided views within the Labor Party itself on environmental policy. This legislation is about factional games. It's about dealing with internal warfare, and it's about political fixes inside the Labor Party—a party absolutely desperate to cling to government at any cost.

The salmon industry in Tasmania has been dragged through green tape, red tape and sheer obfuscation by this government, and, at the heart of it, it is the workers who have been living with the uncertainty. It is the workers who have had concerns about their future and the future of the industry that they love and that they are rightly proud of, and it is about the future of those workers who secure such an important economic industry for Tasmania that is—let's face it—enjoyed by all Australians. Who doesn't love a good Aussie smoked salmon blini? The environment minister has been sitting on this review for 15 months. The industry has been living with that uncertainty for those 15 months.

Let's go back to why this review started. The Bob Brown Foundation, those doyens of consistency who are so consistent in their environmental beliefs that a wind farm on the mainland is fine but a wind farm in Tasmania is absolutely sacrilegious and cannot go ahead; the Australia Institute, the institute of balanced research; and then, of course, the Albanese government funded Environmental Defenders Office, the organisation that happily takes government money so that they can sue the government—they're the people who instigated the review of the salmon industry in Tasmania, an industry that has operated for years under environmental approvals. This industry has now been sitting with 15 months of uncertainty from a minister who has form for listening to the wrong people and choosing the wrong pathway, pathways that impact negatively not only the environment but communities and regional economies.

Look at the track record of this minister. She chose to listen to an Indigenous group that's not registered, not legislated and not formally recognised even by their own land councils on a very questionable submission about a very pretty native bee and put the kibosh on the Blayney gold mine, the McPhillamys gold mine. That's one example of this minister listening to the wrong group. We've seen the ongoing, dragged-out, start-again, stop-again—will we, won't we?—nature-positive legislation that was listed and then not listed and pulled. We've seen the Prime Minister withdraw the legislation from the Notice Paper, the environment minister put it back and then it was withdrawn again. Don't even get me started about this minister and how she listened to the views of environment groups over and above communities, industries, local government and even two of her state government colleague ministers to pursue water buybacks over and above supporting industry. My question to the Prime Minister is: if you can do it for the salmon industry, why can't you do it for the irrigation industry too? Protect the irrigation industry. This government is spending millions of dollars to rip water away from and to undermine the irrigation industry.

This bill that we are debating today doesn't even provide the salmon industry with the certainty they need or want. It doesn't prevent a future request for a review. It only gives them enough certainty to get from this side of the election to the other side of the election—and we've seen that from this government before. We've seen the Prime Minister say whatever it takes to win votes. He says, 'We won't touch your superannuation'—until he gets elected, and then he brings in a retrospective tax on unrealised gains for superannuation. He says, 'We won't touch your franking credits' on one side of the election, and then on the other side he makes those tweaks. He says, 'We will support the stage 3 tax cuts' on one side of the election, and then post the election he says, 'No, we won't; we'll change it and we'll throw it all on its head.' And we now learn that, over days of heated caucus meetings, the Prime Minister has again traded off: 'I'll say what I need to say on this side of the election to get those votes to try and win seats in Tasmania, but I will do nothing to give them long-term protection because I'll make an agreement with the environment minister to allow her to again pursue the creation of a federal environment protection agency, which will open up the capacity to review the salmon industry again.' So the Prime Minister has already begun to strip away what it looks like he's giving the salmon industry today through a dirty backroom deal with his minister.

The Tasmanian salmon industry deserves to be protected and isolated from future potentially endless reconsideration requests. So, too, I might add, do all the industries that are currently operating in Australia with environmental approvals and have been for multiple years. It is not fair on them that they always have this question mark hanging over their heads, that they could have their right to operate ripped out from under them on the whim of organisations like the Bob Brown Foundation or the EDO. As we've seen through the aforementioned Blayney goldmine exercise, trying to work with activist groups is an expensive and futile exercise.

Australia currently suffers from the second-highest level of green lawfare anywhere in the world. Our companies are under siege. In the interests of the overwhelming majority of Australians, who want us to have a high-functioning economy, who want us to have high levels of employment and who—unlike this government—want us to have a high productivity level which will help reduce the pressure on inflation, we need to stop enabling organisations like the EDO to trash our financial and social wellbeing as a nation, supposedly under the guise of doing it for the environment. We know that you are better off working with industry to maximise sustainability than trying to kill off industry, which is not a viable, long-term solution.

Let's not forget the poor red herring or, should I say, Maugean skate, in all of this—it's another fish, but not a fish. The poor skate has been used as the enemy of salmon farming. This totally ignores all the steps the industry is taking, and has taken, to improve water quality in Macquarie Harbour and to work to improve outcomes for the skate. I acknowledge that Senator Whish-Wilson, while saying that the science identifies that skate numbers have increased over the years, doesn't accept that that science is robust enough. But others have provided that modelling and indicated that the existence of the skate is not under threat exclusively from salmon farming. So let's look at what other threats there are. Instead of killing off an industry that is actively trying to take steps to help to protect the skate, why don't we work with them to identify what other threats there are? Maybe we can find workarounds there as well, because we need industries like the salmon industry, like broader primary industries—agricultural industries, livestock industries. We need our resources industries. We need projects like the McPhillamys goldmine to go ahead, because it is those industries that underpin the Australian economy, not the green lawfare industry.

I call on the government to support the amendments that we will be bringing forward, which will give the salmon industry the certainty that it deserves and needs, so that we can finally put this issue to bed and can get on with trying to increase productivity in Australia, focusing on relieving the cost-of-living pressures, focusing on relieving inflationary pressures and moving this country forward.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Reconsiderations) Bill 2025. Let me start by congratulating Senator Duniam and the entire Tasmanian Liberal team for the work they've done in this area, dragging this government kicking and screaming to make a sensible policy decision in this area. I won't say this bill is a sensible policy decision, because there are many flaws with it, but I do congratulate Senator Duniam and the entire Tasmanian team for the work they've done in standing up for their home state of Tasmania.

Well, there's a whiff of desperation about this government. An absolute stench is emanating from this government. We saw it last night with the budget, where they threw economic responsibility out the window in an attempt at a headline reading 'Tax cut' when all they are delivering to the hardworking people of Australia is less than a cup of coffee a week. It just wanted the headlines, because that's all this government does. It's based on political expediency: attempting to get its own ideological ideas up whilst retaining power at all costs.

We saw it with the EPA discussion, when the Prime Minister, with great fanfare, took the cabinet to my home state of Western Australia and very clearly stated that plans for things like the EPA and nature-positive laws had been shelved. Premier Cook made a big show of strength out of it, about how he'd forced change on the federal government—for his own electoral purposes—and the Prime Minister seemed to back him up.

Then we get back to this place, and revealed through freedom of information, just a few days after that visit to Western Australia, was this correspondence between the Labor government and the Greens—two groups that have been fighting like Kilkenny cats in here today—undermining what the Prime Minister had publicly said, seeking to do a deal about the EPA, when that had already been ruled out. I'm going to quote from this document. This is coming from the government:

I would be grateful for your confirmation that the Australian Greens will support the bills, including the amendments above—

We're talking about the EPA bills here—

when they come before the Senate. I also seek confirmation, as discussed—

So, the deal was being done—

that you will support the Government on all procedural votes required to ensure the timely passage of the bills through the Senate as early as possible this sitting week, including on a guillotine or similar motion.

There were dirty deals between Labor and the Greens, in here fighting like Kilkenny cats today but doing these dirty deals behind closed doors, saying something very different in my home state of Western Australia.

Senator Cash is in the chamber, and Senator O'Sullivan is in the chamber. When we look at this bill, it begs the question: what about the North West Shelf? In the dead of yesterday, in the cover of the budget, the decision on the North West Shelf under the EBPC Act was pushed out until after the election—pushed out again, delayed again. How long has this project been waiting? What state approval process has this project been going through? It's not one year, Senator O'Sullivan—you know this—and not two years, Senator Cash; I know you know this. It is six years—six years through a state approval process. Yet the Labor government still kicks the can down the road. They pretend to support Western Australia. They pretend to support the gas industry. But do they really, when they've got secret deals being done with the Greens over the EPA bills, when they've got the nature-positive bills tucked in the back drawer, just waiting until after the election, when they know they've got to do a deals with the Greens on the crossbench to retain government—or they think they might have to?

Well, there's only one way for Western Australians to stop this, and that's to make sure we don't have a minority government after the next election, that we don't have Labor and the Greens doing deals after the next election, whether it's in this place or the other place. The only way we can ensure sensible policy outcomes that support the jobs of all the FIFO workers in Western Australia and that support the jobs in Tasmania that Senator Duniam has talked about is actually to vote Liberal, to make sure we get this government out and we have a majority Liberal government in place, if you care about things like the North West Shelf project in Western Australia, if you know that those jobs are vital to the economy in Western Australia, if you know that the continuation of that project is vital to energy supplies in Western Australia. Western Australia hasn't faced the blackouts, the failures of the energy system, that places like South Australia have faced, because we have access to abundant, cheap gas. But the Labor government is putting that at risk for their own desperate electoral outcomes.

We've seen this government betray Western Australia so many times. Close to my heart is the betrayal of the sheep industry in Western Australia. For a few Animal Justice Party preferences in the eastern states, they have forsaken the Western Australian sheep industry, a sheep industry that has already declined, under their watch, by more than 25 per cent and looks like it will decline by 50 per cent over this term of government into the early part of the next term of government.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Brockman. You'll be in continuation. I shall now proceed to senators' statements.