Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I second the motion. As we are looking to come out of the global health crisis of the pandemic and the recession that Australia is sadly in at the moment, we have an opportunity to build a better future. We have an opportunity to take stock and say: 'What sort of a country do we want to live in? What sort of a contribution do we want to make to the world?' It is absolutely clear to me, on behalf of the constituents of Dunkley, and it is absolutely clear to those members of parliament on my side of the chamber that one of the priorities for Australians is to have a country with a beautiful environment, with our iconic natural environment that is protected, and to be, as we have been under past federal governments, a leader around the world in the protection of native species, native plants and iconic environmental places. Sadly, it appears that we currently have a federal government who don't want to do that. They don't want to look forward to a great future with good jobs, good economic growth and a protected environment; they want to look back. We've heard in the last few days that the Morrison government wants to snap back to 2014, to the failed policies of Tony Abbott, when it comes to the environment.

The Samuel review of the EPBC Act is one of the most significant opportunities for reform in the past 20 years. When we face a sad history of extinction of our native animals in Australia, when we are looking at the devastation of the Great Barrier Reef, when we have a government that has not only failed to act on climate change but dismantled previous attempts by Labor governments for Australia to be a leader on climate change, it is deeply and devastatingly disappointing that we also have a government that is failing to take the opportunity for review and substantial reform that the Samuel review gives us. Many of us have spoken in this chamber before about our commitment to a greater future, a commitment to an environment that is protected, an economy that grows and jobs that are based on renewable energy and policies that are good for the environment. It's not just a trite saying that, if you don't have an environment, you don't have an economy—it's true. What is also true but seems to be failed to be recognised by those on the other side of the chamber is that protecting our environment can also be a driver of economic growth and a driver of jobs.

We hear a lot, as the review into the EPBC Act has gone on and the minister has rolled out responses, about getting rid of green tape, about how important it is to have infrastructure and development being able to progress without all of this green tape. But, when you peel away the rhetoric of green tape, what you actually find is that, under this federal government, the delays have been caused by blue tape. They've been caused by massive cuts to the department of the environment. They've been caused by policies and attitudes of this government which have slowed down proper assessments of projects from an environmental perspective. They have not been caused by so-called green tape.

The World Wide Fund for Nature has said that we lost three billion animals in the recent bushfires and that 49 threatened species had 80 per cent of their habitat burnt in the bushfires. For many of us around Australia, the pictures of koalas screaming in pain from their burns and Australians risking their own skin and lives to save those koalas are seared into our understanding of why we need to protect our environment. We know that climate change increases the risk and the likelihood of catastrophic events like bushfires. There are many people in the community who perhaps before didn't have such a razor-sharp interest in environmental laws, but they do now because they've seen about the risk that's posed— (Time expired)

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