Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) Share this | Hansard source

This bill, the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025, and the related bills come as we grapple as a nation with tumbling productivity. Under Labor productivity is down five per cent. Green tape has been identified as a major impediment to major projects going ahead. On this side of the House we are concerned this bill package is introducing even more green tape, not less.

I'll talk further about productivity in a moment, but I want to begin by talking about what the Nationals put forward on Sunday, just days ago, as sensible energy and, in turn, environmental policy. As part of our proposal for cheaper, fairer and better energy, we will do environmental stewardship our way. We will reward landholders for regenerating their land. We will strengthen Australians' connection to nature through use, not locking farmers out. We will expand access to nature for recreation, hunting and fishing. We will empower local communities to lead real environmental action. The Nationals will bring back the Emissions Reduction Fund, which rewarded farmers, landowners, communities and industries for finding smart ways to cut emissions, such as planting trees and improving soil. The potential to store carbon through these initiatives is significant and can alleviate the burden of our energy system to reach better environmental outcomes.

We all know Labor can't reach their 2030, 2035 or 2050 emissions reduction targets—it's fantasy. Labor are throwing regional Australia under the bus so the Prime Minister and the climate change minister can strut at an international climate conference. There's no problem for Aussies at home, apparently. Those opposite like to paint regional Australians as dopey, but I surveyed over 5,000 of my Mallee electorate voters, and they have worked this government out. A total of 67 per cent of them oppose net zero by 2050, while 82 per cent do not want to pay more than $50 a year for it. Well, what they don't understand is that they're already paying far more than that every year.

Net zero has been a drag on our productivity because energy is the economy—we keep saying it. It is not the cheapest form of electricity, and a rapidly growing number of Australians know it. On productivity, today the Reserve Bank of Australia kept interest rates on hold and we saw the RBA recently downgrade its productivity estimates to 0.7 per cent a year, rather than one per cent. The RBA advice from August, which they put in bold type, said:

Productivity is the key driver of growth in living standards over time.

The cry I hear all the time from every sector is to 'please reduce red and green tape'.

Yet this bill package comes with pages that are double the size of this year's budget papers. Can you imagine? Is it workable or does it create a lawyer's picnic—or, let's face it, a banquet—where lawfare already bogs down our productive economy? It's a rhetorical question. We're also being asked to debate this bill package today, despite an approximate 1,500 pages to consider, and a bill introduced on 29 October, just six days ago. The government wants this bill package through this House and passed by the end of the year, even though a Senate inquiry is underway and will not report until March 2026. Just to be clear, we have one week and two days left of sitting.

In my electorate of Mallee, I've had to repeat myself until I'm blue in the face that farmers are environmentalists. They care about their local environment. They are not the villains that others make them out to be in the environment debate. Concerning this package of bills, on 30 October the National Farmers' Federation said:

Farmers manage more than half of Australia's landmass. They live and breathe environmental stewardship every day …

Their budget depends on it. The welfare of their animals depends on it. Their crops depend on it. In fact, farmers and regional community members have come to me very upset about the destruction of migratory bird, snake and other habitats—in the name of what? Saving the planet, would you believe!

When it comes to the environment in Mallee, we have seen the environment thrown under the bus because of Labor's reckless renewables-only energy approach to reach unattainable energy targets, creating immense environmental, social and economic harm—and I've spoken to two farmers this evening about this very fact. In my home state of Victoria, in the electorate of Mallee, we have seen community concerns about the environment tossed to one side because the Allan Labor government—who are delusional about the future of gas in our energy mix—claim there's no gas onshore. They gaslight Victorians that it's renewables or bust. It isn't. And who's busting under Labor? It's regional Australians, their concerns about the environment set to one side, with the minister wielding enhanced powers to sideline proper planning processes in order to force transmission lines, wind turbines and blanket solar panels onto regional communities. And that's without adding in mining.

I refer again to the NFF statement on 30 October. They say:

Concepts like bioregional planning, offsets, net gain and 'unacceptable impact' tests need to be properly explained and practically tested. Otherwise, we risk creating confusion and unintended consequences. Further, we are very concerned about fast-tracking renewables, critical minerals or housing developments that could target agricultural land.

Any push for projects impacting agriculture must come with genuine consultation with farmers and regional communities. We must get the balance right between achieving environmental outcomes, social licence and keeping farmland in production.

Well, how sensible is that!

I want to zero in on key phrases there that get lip-service from those opposite: social licence and genuine consultation. Labor's track record on this front is absolutely abysmal. Labor's version of consultation on their reckless rollout of renewables is a toot of the horn, if you're lucky, before the policy bulldozer comes rolling through your gate and onto your property—and farmers in my electorate know this.

Make no mistake. We need to reform the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. As a coalition of parties that represents and listens to regional committees, small businesses and Australian businesses, the coalition are the best agents to reform the act. That's why, when she was Minister for the Environment, the now leader of the opposition commissioned the Samuel review in 2020—to frame the debate. The home truths about the need to reform environmental laws in the name of productivity and jobs have claimed one minister, Minister Plibersek, and now have the current minister for the environment and water, Minister Watt, hoping he doesn't get rolled by a Labor premier like Premier Cook in Western Australia—as his predecessor did.

I was in Western Australia last month, and, let me tell you, they are very happy that the resources industry is getting a fair go. A woman in Broome, quite unprompted, urged me to crack on with Woodside opening up development in the state. She believes it will deliver more jobs and opportunities for all Western Australians.

I have to add that we also have a serious fuel security problem. Productivity is one thing; our national security is another, and that is why a workable, national interest test through this legislation is critical. Australia's fuel reserves are critically low, with a reported 28 days of petrol left, according to reports last month, and just one months worth of jet fuel or diesel in storage. Leaving aside the existing contractual arrangements for fuel exports, we need to ensure we have a domestic fuel supply chain. Much as Minister Bowen might cross his fingers and hope otherwise while he throws eye-watering amounts of subsidies at Australians who can already afford to buy an EV, the reality is EV take-up targets will not be met. Labor are absolutely hopeless at picking winners. Consumer demand is not enticed by the subsidies. They want hybrids or diesel vehicles, particularly the latter in regional Australia.

We need to fully investigate biofuels, not just for our aviation sector but as a potential addition or even substitute for petrol or diesel. Tractors, harvesters, mining machinery and many more types of productivity-driving machinery cannot abide the glorious coming of Bowen's batteries. Productivity depends on fuel, and we have dangerously small amounts of it on shore.

Coalition governments understand productivity and job creation, and the resources sector is the economic golden goose in Western Australia that delivers them marvellous royalties and relative economic security. The construction on the Burrup Peninsula is a marvel to see, and it's an economic miracle that development has proceeded given the lawfare engaged in by groups like the disgraced Environmental Defenders Office, which Labor to this day continues to fund with taxpayer money. What a disgrace—an estimated $15 million by the end of this decade. Labor has not fully investigated the significant funding that the EDO receives from donors around the world and whether its connections to any of a vast network of international donors have breached Australia's foreign interference laws.

In January 2024, the Federal Court outed the EDO for its conduct and activities in a Federal Court case relating to Santos's pursuit of its Barossa gas pipeline project—the infamous songlines case. Justice Natalie Charlesworth found that the EDO's legal team disgracefully manipulated and coached a number of witnesses and fabricated evidence in the case, and their claims were so lacking in integrity that no weight could be placed on them.

Given Labor's form with the EDO, it is a worry that it might enable a potentially activist new National Environmental Protection Agency, if the vetting process isn't up to scratch, to be unaccountable to the minister. As one major stakeholder told me on Friday, constant unjustified lawfare is the No. 1 enemy of industry, with endless lawsuits and stop-work orders making industry unviable. We need to be vigilant when the prospect is a Labor-Greens slapdash deal before Christmas. The last thing Australian productivity and job-creating businesses need is more green tape, not less.

On this Melbourne Cup Day, Labor has a shocking record for picking winners, and I won't apologise for holding this Labor government accountable so we get this right in the national interest. The last thing Australia needs is for Labor to claim they have a winner because they hobbled the productivity horses. Basically, this legislation can only be described as a 6-7.

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