Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

Greg Mullins, former commissioner of Fire and Rescue NSW, has acknowledged that some of the worst bushfire seasons have followed a triple La Nina. The prolific growth and regeneration that occurs during La Nina allows us to then have high growth when we go into El Nino, and then we have intense heat and dryness. This has put my community on high alert.

I think it's fair to say that there is a real concern that the government is not prioritising environmental protection legislation, which is closely linked to climate change mitigation. My electorate of Mayo has seen firsthand the devastation caused by bushfires that have followed a triple La Nina event. Not only that; my electorate is full of biodiversity and many threatened species. The State of the environment report has exposed a crisis that is facing not only my electorate but Australia. The modelling suggests that we will be exposed to more extremes. We must have a legislative framework in place to properly address these threats.

Some suggest we are about to face our sixth extinction crisis. What is this, you might ask? It's like what we had with the dinosaurs and big bangs, but what we're looking at now is biological annihilation—the increasingly fast degradation of our ecosystems and decline in species. Have we seen extinctions before? Yes, but this is the first that has been driven by humans and human development. Land clearing and habitat loss are the big drivers of extinction. Between 2010 and 2018, more than 3.5 million hectares were cleared across Australia. That is extraordinary. That is so sad. In the 2019-20 bushfires, we wiped out approximately one billion animals. The glossy black-cockatoo, which has an endangered red-tailed subspecies living on Kangaroo Island, in my electorate, was practically wiped out by land clearing during the last half of the 20th century, and the bushfires that Kangaroo Island faced only a few years ago destroyed almost four in 10 of their nesting spots. The government needs to ensure we have legislation that can mitigate such biodiversity loss.

Australia is committed to the '30 by 30' framework, which is a start. The framework includes the pledge to protect and conserve 30 per cent of Australia's landmass and 30 per cent of Australia's marine areas by 2030. This will hopefully slow species loss and reverse habitat loss. Then, hopefully, we won't face the sixth extinction. However, this needs to not just focus on middle Australia. There need to be protections that are proportionate to the needs of regional diversity. Other parts of the world are also pledging to meet the '30 by 30' framework. The European Union's strategy has introduced strict protections for areas with high biodiversity. It has proposed binding natural restoration targets and restoring degraded ecosystems. However, we need to do better than the EU, because we are not on target to reach the goals by 2030.

In 2021 US President Joe Biden issued an executive order to tackle climate crisis, which was then followed by California implementing the goals of the '30 by 30' objectives. California has included input from government agencies, local tribes, experts and other stakeholders in their strategy consultations. Other countries are moving at pace, and we really need to do the same. Where is the EPBC amendment exposure draft? We need to make sure we get this legislation through the parliament. We need a national framework. We need to act because we just can't afford to lose this. We know that people visit Australia because of our unique flora and fauna, but it feels to me like we're not taking it seriously, like we don't truly value what we have. Perhaps we won't value it until we've lost it. What a great shame that would be.

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