Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Biodiversity has been seen as the poor cousin of climate change in recent years. The world's waking up to the impact of climate change and the need to respond. but declining biodiversity is also urgent and dramatic. It's not happening somewhere else; it's happening here, in places we know and love. The government knows that the 20-year-old Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act is in need of a significant overhaul and has committed to doing this and ending extinctions. But it's taking a while. While I acknowledge that getting it right is essential, my community is begging for updates on when the new legislation will be introduced, and I don't want to keep telling them: 'Wait. Be patient. It will be here soon.' After years of inaction, the protection of nature is now urgent.

I come from a really special part of the world. The south-western corner of Western Australia, which includes my electorate of Curtin, was the first global biodiversity hotspot to be recognised in Australia and it's one of only 36 in the world. This means it has a high percentage of plants that are found nowhere else on the planet. More than half the plants in our south-west forests and woodlands exist nowhere else because they developed in isolation, separated from the rest of Australia by the wide Central Desert. They are irreplaceable. Once gone, they're gone forever. We have jarrah and marri forests and tall blackbutt in river valleys. The Tuart woodlands and forests of the Swan Coastal Plain are critically endangered. We have critically endangered fauna, including the numbat, the woylie, the exquisite red-tailed parrot, the squelching froglet, the yellow wart burrowing frog and the western swamp turtle.

So why does it matter if some obscure frog or turtle becomes extinct? Some would say that each species has intrinsic value and a right to exist. Others would talk about the delicate balance of the planet and the fact that everything is interconnected. Our ecosystems are complex and fragile. We know so little about the interconnectedness that we don't know if we can afford to lose a species without adverse impact on its ecosystem.

For these and other reasons, people in my electorate and across Australia are deeply passionate about protecting our environment and biodiversity. Within my Curtin community, we have many of Australia's leading experts in the field of biodiversity, including four members of the threatened species advisory group. At my regular community catch-ups and in speaking with constituents, the protection of our biodiversity comes up again and again.

Australia has become a global deforestation hotspot, with the worst rate of mammal extinction in the world. Over the last 200 years, one in 10 of Australia's endemic terrestrial species have become extinct. In comparison, only one native land mammal from continental North America has become extinct since European settlement. A further one in five Australian endemic land mammal species are now assessed to be threatened. Climate change makes it harder to protect these species, with modelling predicting severe to catastrophic losses in high-altitude tropical rainforests, alpine environments, tropical savannas of northern Australia and coastal areas. When you look at lists like that, it feels pretty dire.

So what's happening? The government's ambitious Nature Positive Plan, released in December last year, was a welcome first response to the comprehensive Samuel review. But that was more than nine months ago. We are all waiting for the department's reform task force to release a comprehensive exposure draft. I urge the government to do this soon and in a manner that provides for adequate and significant consultation. We urgently need to establish a new set of codified national standards with the stated purpose of achieving measurable environmental outcomes—not processes or checklists but outcomes.

Our approach to biodiversity protection must also be part of a holistic response to climate change. We only have one proven technology that removes carbon from the air. It's called the tree. We face some difficult trade-offs ahead between critical minerals development to replace fossil fuels and protecting biodiversity. We need a strong environmental protection framework in place to ensure that we make these decisions wisely and well. The hot summer and bushfire season ahead will provide a backdrop to the urgent work that needs to be done on the EPBC Act. We must do this now. Every day counts.

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