Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

In Australia, an area of forests and bushland the size of a football field is logged every two minutes. This is wanton, government sanctioned destruction of our environment by rapacious big corporations in pursuit of profit. We have the highest rate of mammal species extinctions in the world. The Labor government has approved 31 new fossil fuel projects since coming into government, including an extension to the Southern Hemisphere's largest fossil fuel project, Woodside's North West Shelf—fossil fuel projects by big corporations that pay little in tax and royalties while wrecking our environment, wrecking our planet and exporting the profits overseas. This is all happening under the current environmental legislative framework, which, it seems, everyone acknowledges is not working for business or the environment.

The sad reality is that these new laws are actually worse. These proposed laws are worse. They've been, seemingly, drafted with only big business in mind rather than designed to actually stop environmental destruction. Previous versions of environmental laws from the last term of parliament were quashed after lobbying from the logging sector and the mining sector and their chief political mouthpiece, Western Australian Labor premier Roger Cook. One of the very first things that the new minister for the environment and water did this term was fly to Perth to consult with the mining sector again—the first consultations—with, apparently, his No. 1 priority being to speed up approvals for big business. That priority could not be clearer in the legislation that's been presented to parliament.

Let's just break it down. There are two big failures to address existing gaps in our environmental laws. Firstly, the generous exemptions for native forest logging remain. They remain. It is absolutely crazy that we are still logging native forests in 2025—destruction of our precious natural environment, in many cases subsidised by Australian taxpayers. These native forests are incredibly important wildlife habitat and crucial carbon sinks as well. Secondly, there is no climate trigger in this legislation. That means that the carbon emissions produced by a project which has a direct environmental impact are not considered under environmental laws. This has, obviously and tragically, resulted in dozens of coal and gas projects gaining approval under the existing laws, and they will continue to be approved under the proposed legislation. Nothing in this proposed legislation will stop that.

But the problems, the failings of these laws, don't stop there. It's not that this legislation just fails to protect nature and the climate; it is actively taking us backwards, because there's another tranche of inclusions. They are a bit technical, and Labor are hoping you don't notice them, but I'll go through some of them. There are multiple new pathways to streamline approvals for the benefit of big polluters. This proposed legislation allows the minister to delegate approvals to the states so projects can bypass federal regulations like the water trigger in the existing EPBC Act. Horrifyingly, in Queensland, it means delegating to the climate-denying LNP government. There's also a new pathway for offshore oil and gas to exempt them from these laws, and, perhaps most concerningly, there are new pathways for ministerial exemptions: a broadly defined 'national interest test', including for projects in apparent no-go zones or that cause an unacceptable environmental impact.

The national environment standards that underpin this whole piece of reform have not yet been made public. We're expected to pass the bill without actually having seen them. This legislation also reverses an earlier restriction on environmental offsets, which we know are more than questionable. The Biodiversity Council has criticised this offsets principle as weakening the current like-for-like standard, which forces offsets to account for the ecological character affected. Offsets should not be allowing big corporations to simply pay to keep destroying the environment.

Labor are prioritising the interests of big corporations over the environment and over the planet, and it couldn't be clearer when you look at who is backing their environmental law reform. Chevron? They support these laws. Australian energy producers, the oil and gas lobby? They said:

Australia's oil and gas industry supports the government's commitment to deliver faster and simpler environmental approvals …

BHP 'welcome the strong signals from the Australian government'. The Association of Mining and Exploration Companies welcome the bill and commend the minister. The-Minerals Council of Australia were very happy that a climate trigger was ruled out and said that there were 'a range of measures in the package which will help development in the long term'.

So what are the experts on the environment saying? The Australian Conservation Foundation says, 'These bills do not protect nature,' and that they provide 'a rubber stamp for species extinction'. Greenpeace said that the proposed laws 'fail to address deforestation and climate change', and they also raised serious concerns about the level of ministerial discretion included. The Wilderness Society said the new laws would increase political interference and create 'new loopholes to weaken nature protections'. So who should we trust? I know I'd rather trust those environmental organisations over the coal and gas corporation lobby groups.

Some conspiracy theories are real. Here's one you'll want to hear: big corporations really do control our government. Here's the story. Labor promised environmental law reform when they came into government in 2022. The Greens said we were happy to work with them to protect nature and the climate. But, at the eleventh hour of negotiations, the mining industry—companies like Woodside, Santos and BHP—decided they weren't happy. They got on the phone to Western Australian Premier Roger Cook, who then lobbied the Prime Minister to tell him to kill the deal, and he did. Then, under pressure from the same big corporations, in February this year the bill was withdrawn from parliament altogether. One of the first things that the new environment minister did was to fly to Perth to consult with mining companies on the new version of the laws. His No. 1 priority was to speed up approvals so big corporations can wreck the environment even faster. BHP have said they welcome the strong signals from the government. I'm sure they and the other mining companies are happy that they can keep making mega profits, paying minimal tax and getting their approvals fast-tracked, without worrying about that pesky environment or climate.

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