Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to make a contribution on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Amendment (Standing) Bill 2015 and strongly support its intent in restoring greater certainty to the EPBC Act. Let me begin by saying that my home state of Tasmania is undoubtedly a world-renowned environmental jewel. A commitment to its protection is not the exclusive domain of any group or political party. All sensible Tasmanians are conservationists at heart. But, regrettably, Tasmania's environmental virtues are not matched by its economic health. After 16 years of Labor government in Hobart and a disastrous six years of Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government here in Canberra, Tasmania lags behind the nation in far too many economic benchmarks. Too many of our local communities have been impacted by both unemployment and underemployment.

With this reality in mind, my contribution on this bill recognises the inextricable link between the environment and the economy. Finding an appropriate balance between these two important priorities informs the future of every Australian. To focus inordinately on one—either the environment or the economy in isolation—without equivalent and serious consideration of the other is both short-sighted and costly.

So there is no doubt in my mind that we must act when some choose to game or exploit the legal system to disrupt and delay infrastructure that is so vital for Tasmania's and Australia's future prosperity. We must act. The disastrous Labor-Green partnership in the last parliament did nothing to stop these legal shenanigans, and, judging by the contributions of those opposite that I have heard this afternoon, that symbiotic relationship between the Labor and Greens parties remains, sadly, into the current parliament. They are united in supporting measures that continue to damage my home state of Tasmania, and it beggars belief that Labor has learned nothing from its poisonous relationship with the Greens in the last parliament, which the Australian people so explicitly repudiated with the lowest Labor vote in 100 years. The people can see that the only reason why Labor supports the ideological excesses of the Greens party is Greens preferences. Almost every Greens preference in Bass in the last election and previous elections went to the Labor Party, demonstrating quite clearly that a vote for the Greens is in fact a vote for the Labor Party, and vice versa.

But I ask you this, Deputy Speaker: how can the Labor Party with any conscience, on any reasonable assessment of the national interest, put their political ambitions ahead of the hardworking people of our country? How can they justify helping the Greens and their litigious activist mates damage our forestry industry, our mining industry, and our fishing and aquaculture industries? It is abundantly clear on all of the evidence—the speeches that I have heard on this bill, including the one by the member for Moreton earlier today and others—that Labor put their relationship with the Greens and militant unions like the CFMEU ahead of Tasmanian businesses, particularly when it—

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