Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker Claydon, congratulations on your return to that role. It's good to be back in the first week of a new parliament. We come to the new parliament with a hope, on behalf of the Australian community, that all of us return here with a commitment to work with a sense of shared purpose, and there's no more important area for us to apply that shared purpose than the protection of our environment and action on climate change. I waited for 10 minutes to hear a commitment from the shadow minister to reforming Australia's national environmental protection framework. I waited for 10 minutes to hear the shadow minister say anything about their commitment to taking action on climate change and their commitment to net zero—and we know that, all week, parts of the coalition have been tearing themselves apart in a desperate attempt to throw that commitment into the bin. But we got 10 minutes of nothing.

I was glad to hear that the shadow minister for the environment is concerned about the algal bloom in South Australia. That's a concern that is entirely shared by the Australian government. That's why the Minister for the Environment and Water went there as a priority. That's why we've already committed $14 million; that's been matched by the South Australian government. It follows the $25 million we invested, in the previous term, in science that is specifically dedicated to the restoration of environmental conditions in the Great Southern Reef, and the $5½ million we committed through the National Environmental Science Program.

We know that that algal bloom is influenced by climate change. We are a government that takes climate change seriously. We are a government that increased Australia's emission reduction commitment by more than 50 per cent the very instant we were elected in 2022. One of the first things we did in the new parliament in 2022 was to legislate net zero by 2050. The coalition are on the verge of abandoning their grudging commitment to net zero as we speak; they are going up into the Sky studios and tearing each other apart as they try to find ways to abandon climate change action and return to their natural condition, which is climate denialism. Nothing would be more dangerous for Australia than for that to occur.

It is a core responsibility of the Australian government to protect and conserve Australia's unbelievably precious environmental condition and biodiversity. We are, all of us, and especially everyone in this place, the stewards of a remarkably diverse continent nation with one of the largest ocean domains of all countries—a landscape and seascape that's home to ecosystems and species that are present nowhere else on planet Earth. The responsibility to protect our environment is an obligation to the proper care and good stewardship of country and the biodiversity that it sustains for its own sake on its own terms. But it's also an obligation to ourselves because there's no way that our human communities can be healthy and safe, and there's no way that we can maintain and advance our own shared wellbeing, separate from a healthy environment and a healthy climate. That's why it has been an article of faith for this Labor government to pick up from a period of extreme and extraordinary neglect by focusing on environmental restoration and conservation and by focusing on climate action.

It is abysmal that on this topic, of all topics, there should be no capacity for honesty or self-reflection from the shadow minister for the environment about their record. But, because I know the Australian community are sick of us going along with that kind of pointless aggression and sick of that kind of self-imposed amnesia just for the sake of trying to score political points, I'm going to talk about the positive; I'm going to actually talk about our program and our record. I could spend another 10 minutes, if I had another 10 minutes, detailing the abysmal failure of those opposite over nine long years, but I'm going to talk about our record.

We began, after our election in 2022, by reforming the EPBC Act. We strengthened and expanded the water trigger. We brought legislation in here to introduce an independent EPA; it was a reform that was blocked by those opposite and the Greens. We provided $550 million to better protect threatened species and animals. We provided $200 million for improvements to creeks and waterways around this country through the Urban Rivers and Catchments Program. We invested $1.3 billion to double the size of the Indigenous Rangers Program, an extraordinarily successful program both in protecting country and lifting up the wellbeing of First Nations communities. We provided $230 million for 12 new Indigenous protected areas; that covers country the size of Tasmania. We stopped uranium mining in Jabiluka; instead, we added Jabiluka to Kakadu National Park. We doubled funding to look after our national parks, including Uluru and Kakadu.

And, as the party that created the national network of marine protected areas when we were last in government, we came to government with a clear resolve and a focus to take that work further because we know how important our ocean environment is, whether it's off Queensland or Ningaloo and Exmouth Gulf in Western Australia—or in South Australia, as has been discussed today. That's why in 2023 we tripled the size of the Macquarie Island Marine Park. It was the largest act of ocean conservation in the world in the calendar year 2023. And then, in 2024, we quadrupled the size of the Heard Island and McDonald Islands Marine Reserve. That was the largest act of marine conservation anywhere in the world in the calendar year 2024. Australia now protects 52 per cent of our ocean domain. We have one of the largest EEZs in the world. We are responsible stewards of one of the largest areas of ocean territory in the world, and we now protect 52 per cent of our ocean domain. That is better than any other country on the planet. We should be proud of that. We are proud of that.

But we know there is more work to be done. That's why we wholeheartedly support the ratification of the new treaty to protect the high seas. That's why the Minister for the Environment and Water continues to look at new programs to support our seascape, our coastal and estuarine environments and our terrestrial environment. But we can't allow those opposite to come in here in the first week with that pointless aggression, that self-imposed amnesia, that 'Let's treat the Australian community to a little bit of the Men in Black mind-cleansing device,' because that would be irresponsible. People need to know what the Australian government is doing on their behalf as stewards of our environment. It's the expectation the community has; it's an expectation that we will deliver upon. But they cannot be allowed to forget what happened under nine years from those opposite.

Forty per cent was cut out of the department of the environment. You cut funds to the CSIRO. You presided over an approval and compliance process that resulted in nearly 80 per cent of all approved activities failing to meet the conditions of their approval. You ran a threatened species strategy with 20 target mammal species where the trajectory of 12 of those species declined. For the eight species where there was an improvement in the trajectory, four of them had an improvement in the trajectory only to the extent that they declined less quickly. Sixteen of your targeted species actually declined in population under the strategy that you didn't properly apply and you didn't properly resource.

You utterly ignored the Graeme Samuel review, which you commissioned. You asked Graeme Samuel to tell you what needed to happen with our national environmental protection framework, and he told you. He said: 'It's failing. It is presiding over a trajectory of decline. You need to fix it. You need to introduce proper compliance and controls. You need to improve the standards.' What did you do? Nothing. You did nothing for nine years. You hid—

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