Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

'Goldstine'. As the member for Goldstein, every time we mention the word 'Goldstein', we're honouring the legacy of the suffragette Vida Goldstein, and that's the basis on which I always correct members. When you think about Australian political history, you have a limited number of Australian political figures who are honoured by the name of electorates, and that includes one of Australia's greatest suffragettes. Apart from when I was doing research for my first speech, where I found an article where she specifically explained how to pronounce her name, and in both of the books that have been published in recent years, You Daughters of Freedom and Vida, where it was explicitly explained how to pronounce her name correctly, it's important to get right.

Australians simply want to make sure we have stewardship of our natural environment. They want a sense of protection and balance to conserve the environment for future generations while building the jobs and economic opportunity for Australians to be able to go on and live successful lives. We are blessed with bounty. We are blessed with opportunity. It's our responsibility to harness that in a way that continues to grow out the economic potential for our nation and for all. To do so requires having a sense of balance in our laws so that we seek to do it in a way that is measured and proportionate and protects our environment, powers our country and propels us forward to be part of contributing to a global economy and to provide the affluence and improvement in standards of living that Australians reasonably expect to enjoy. Lessons of history show that there is nothing that will corrode the health and wellbeing of the environment more than when people have declining standards of living. When they do, particularly in situations of poverty, they turn to the environment as the point at which they try to improve them. Stewardship is understanding that prosperity and environmental conservation can be in opposition, or they can be intrinsically linked. Good nations design laws that intrinsically link the potential of economic opportunity with stewardship so that we're able to hand down to future generations a better environment than we inherited ourselves.

There is one problem with our current environmental framework—multiple problems, in fact. The current laws are slow, cumbersome and expensive. When I say they're expensive, it's not because they cost businesses money. Businesses obviously have an obligation to spend the money necessary to preserve and protect our environment. They're slow and expensive because they delay the potential for investment in our environment in order to harness its bounty and its potential. And it's not just in dollars; it's also in time. It can take decades for mining projects, which we desperately need to start developing now, to come to the table. We have duplicative and overly cumbersome regulation which often replicates activities of state and federal governments for largely little benefit. And, of course, it's slow, and there are huge costs involved. What we end up having is a huge deadweight loss to our economy. It makes us less competitive in the global market and we all pay the price through declining living standards because we're not getting the investment capital we need in an efficient way to grow the future of our economy. So there are plenty of reasons to reform the EPBC Act. That's not in question. We just want it to be done in a balanced and measured way.

One of the problems we've got right now is that the government is seeking to ram legislation through and bully the parliament into compliance. As I've said so many times before, the Prime Minister has come back from his visits overseas and wants to treat this parliament like it is the National People's Congress, where nobody dare ask questions. In fact, he shut down question time when I got up to ask a question in question time today—perhaps legitimately, because it went to some very difficult and uncomfortable truths at the dark heart of this Labor government, but we'll leave that to the side. A reality we have is that critical minerals projects, which are desperately needed, could now be 15 to 20 years away simply because this government hasn't got the legislative framework right. The same is true with lots of other mining projects, which we use to grow the bounty and wealth of our nation so that we can afford things like our health system and our education system and so that Australians can get jobs so they can afford to buy their own home and save for their retirement. It's enormously important.

In addition, we have environmental laws which are weaponised by people who have no interest in advancing environmental causes. They seek to corrode and attack economic progress. I'm reminded of the recent example of the Environmental Defenders Office. In the Senate there's recently been an inquiry looking at different components of climate misinformation and disinformation. We can debate the relative merits of that inquiry, but I seek not to indulge in that in the context of this legislation. But it never ceases to amaze me that the Greens called for an inquiry into climate misinformation and disinformation, when the most obvious example we have had in this nation's history—and the EPBC Act has been an enabler of this—is the Environmental Defenders Office taking Santos to court. They literally made up Indigenous traditions that didn't exist—even local Indigenous people acknowledged they didn't exist—as a basis to weaponise and shut down gas projects. It is extraordinary that the law would enable them to deceive the public, to lie to the public through a government-funded entity, to try and stop a project on not dubious but deceptive grounds, harming both Indigenous communities and the economic progress of the nation. I think that one case alone has demonstrated that the EPBC Act needs some pretty significant reform, but it has to be done from a position of integrity, trust and balance.

It is simply impossible for any member at this point, with the way the government is trying to bully and ram this legislation through the parliament, to have actually gone through it and done the proper work necessary to pass it. We can have our debates about what should be included or not included—I fully respect the fact there will be a diversity of views across the crossbenches, the members of government and the opposition. But with what they essentially tabled in the last week, we now have 1,500 pages of legislation with the explanatory memorandum. How on earth is anybody supposed to understand what the practical consequences are for small businesses, the flow-on consequences for large projects and mining? I see the member to my left—what about the impact it's going to have on farmers and her community? How is she supposed to be able to have that conversation and do a proper consultation? This is what this parliament is being asked to vote on.

Meanwhile, we have a process in the Senate which is designed to actually review the laws and give the Australian people—you know them, the people we're supposed to be representing—some input into the process and for them to highlight some of the deficiencies in these laws, which is quite important. I heard the member for Moore before, celebrating the legislation, saying how important it was and how we've just got to smash it through, but seeming completely indifferent to the fact that we need to have a conversation with the Australian people about the consequences. No matter how arrogant a government may be at any given time, every government makes mistakes—in legislative drafting, in unintended consequences, and where they design laws which have a flow-on effect that was not fully appreciated.

I don't think for one second that when the original Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act was designed anybody thought, 'I know what's going to happen; the Environmental Defender's Office, which the current Albanese government funds, is going to use that act to take action against a gas project, using a dishonest, deceptive and lying campaign on the basis of a mythical, invented, Aboriginal songlines campaign, and use that to take it all the way up to the Federal Court.' I don't think anybody thought that. It's kind of why you have to review legislation and go through the proper process.

There will be a record about how everybody voted on this bill, but make no mistake: to vote for 1,500 pages of legislation—which I'm willing to bet to a tee that any single member on the government benches has not read, and certainly has not consulted their community. They certainly don't understand the consequences outside of the three-page talking points, no doubt issued by the whip. There has to be a sobriety with this legislation and what it is we need to do. So when the Albanese government continues to treat this House of Representatives and this parliament like the National People's Congress, and thinks we're all just a bunch of applauding eunuchs rather than standing up, speaking out, scrutinising legislation, asking questions, challenging legislation and debating legislation, we know we have a problem.

How about we have this Senate inquiry? How about we have input from the Australian people? How about we have input from groups like the Business Council, as some members have raised? How about we have input from farmers groups? How about we have input from industry associations? How about we have input from environmental groups too? Well-designed laws will involve consultation. Just because people have input, doesn't mean we're guaranteed to listen to it—or include it, I should say more correctly—but people should be able to have a say in their democracy. How about we have a bit of input in the process?

But we haven't seen that. Instead, what we've seen is a bullying approach by this government towards this House of Representatives. Some of us aren't trained eunuchs. Some of us aren't just going to applaud the Prime Minister along. Some of us are going to stand up and speak out about it, because there are important issues that are on the table. From looking at the ministerial discretion that the minister wants in this legislation—and it's pretty wide ministerial discretion, which is raising concerns across the chamber about what the minister will be empowered to do and what the minister will not be empowered to do—to the capacity for this whole process to duplicate what happens in state as well as federal regulation. Instead of streamlining and speeding up the process of environmental regulation, it could have the reverse effect, where it actually increases the burden, the costs and the compliance. Remember, this isn't for some sort of mystical benefit, except for people whose sole purpose is to be paid to process paperwork.

Then, of course, there are other important issues, like the extent of offset arrangements that have been established under the legislation to make sure that we conserve the environment, but in a way that encourages and incentivises project development, because in the end that's what we should want as a country. It doesn't really matter how we design the law; we have to make sure that we're stewarding the environment to a better future, but it has to be through acknowledging that we have to manage our challenges for the environment as well.

Those groups haven't had their say. So far, they're saying this legislation's a dud. They're saying it's a dud because it actually makes the problems worse, and stakeholders who have had the chance to speak up in the public square are calling out the Albanese government for its ramrod approach.

The question is why members of the government feel so fixated on and obsessed with wanting to override rational conversation in this legislation. You can see it, going back to question time, where all the ministers get up and praise their Prime Minister. He's obviously got a dirt file that has something on all of them, because there's no other basis that anybody would get up and be so sycophantic. When it comes down to it, the reality is that backbenchers, particularly, have a responsibility to ask basic questions of ministers and, of course, of the legislation they put forward.

My recommendations to the minister are to fix the laws, listen to the public, take input and views, and allow a reasonable, proportionate amount of time for 1,500 pages of legislation and explanatory memoranda to be properly considered. If you don't, and if the minister gets this wrong, the consequences for the environment could be profound, the consequences for economic development for Australia could be profound and the consequences for Indigenous communities could be profound. But, at the moment, all those calls are falling on deaf ears.

That is another emblematic example of the arrogance of the Albanese government and how it has slowly been manifesting since about 3 May, where you see the Prime Minister fly in, as obliged, if he occasionally has to appear before the parliament, to answer at least to the people who are elected by the Australian people. He certainly does it very dismissively, particularly when it's not on topics he likes. More importantly, he gets up with his boastfulness and arrogance and throws barbs and sharp lines, which, I've no doubt, make him feel chipper and good in the process, but that isn't necessarily improving the governance of this nation.

We all face choices. The choice before the parliament right now is: Do we pass this legislation, or do we review it and improve it? Do we make sure that we get the balance right? Do we make sure that we create the legislation this country so desperately needs, so that environmental regulation can steward the environment, and empower the economy and propel it forward to the future? Or do we continue to accept the arrogance and indulgence of this government and vote for legislation, ram it through, without any concern for the consequences of its impact—which could very much lead to disastrous consequences for the people of Australia?

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