Matt Smith (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Kennedy agrees. Our beautiful natural wonders—all of it is critical. Seventy-seven thousand jobs are connected to the Great Barrier Reef. Over $90 billion it is worth to this nation. That makes it the biggest employer in the country by a not-insignificant margin. It is a great thing to have and a great thing to protect, and that's what these laws are about—making sure we can have one and the other. It is not binary. It never has to be binary, and to argue that it is is a fabrication.

These reforms will deliver better protection for everyone. The Business Council of Australia accepts this. I've been meeting with mining companies. I've been meeting with environmental groups. Everyone understands the desperate, desperate need for these laws so that there is understanding and clarity moving forwards. Clarity is fine. Clarity is what anybody wants at all times: 'Give us the superstructure and we can work within it.' But, at the moment, it is higgledy-piggledy. They don't know whether they're coming or going. It makes it hard. Investors lose billions of dollars on projects that go nowhere. This will give our investors surety. Environmentalists are pushing for the protection of areas that don't require it, because they don't understand the nature of it all. The far north is wild—some of it pristine, some of it not so much. Some of it can be mined; some of it cannot. Some of it is prime agricultural land, and it needs to stay that way. We need to give that protection to our people.

So this will give us, as led by the review by Professor Graeme Samuel, stronger environmental protection and more efficient and robust project assessment, with greater accountability—'accountability' being the keyword. It always has to come. The buck needs to stop somewhere. I'm sure that people have different views. We're going to hear from many of them. But this bill works for Leichhardt. It works for my area, and it will work for the rest of the nation too. Not everywhere has the same sort of balance that I have to maintain, but trust me: on some level you certainly will.

If we look at the content of the bills, we see the first national EPA, a clear Labor commitment, which will bring the regulatory functions and natural environment laws into a single independent agency. That's the accountability we're talking about. It provides transparency in the decision-making. It allows people confidence. We will ensure that a new ministerial power to make national environmental standards will be inserted into the EPBC laws to give more certainty for environmental laws, and we'll deliver improvements in the offsets framework to get a net gain that ensures environmental offsets support restoration rather than just mitigating harm. Restoration is great; going further is better.

As to the risks that people talk about for the food bowls, they will remain. Farmers will remain farmers because farmers want to remain farmers. If they make a commercial decision elsewhere, that's good for them; they're doing what is good for their family, the way every single Australian should, and it's their right to do so. We are giving them more options.

The assessment pathway will be streamlined, with the removal of three to six existing pathways and the introduction of a new streamlined assessment pathway providing a fast approval process for proposals, which will provide better information upfront. The member for Kennedy would know—he comes from a mining area—that sometimes things get bogged down, get buried or go sideways. This is going to make it easier—track projects and get them started, get us jobs and get us minerals that are going to make us not just a power but a superpower in renewable energy. We have that potential. That one measure alone, of streamlining proposals, is estimated to save as much as $7 billion. That goes back into those companies—more R&D, more research, more product, more jobs. There will be a clear set of enforceable rules. Once you know the rules you can always play the game.

The renewable energy transition is upon us. Minister Bowen gives us an update daily, much to the joy of those of us on this side of the House. Living in a unit, I was thrilled to know that I will now get three hours of free power because I don't have access to my roof. We are bringing it further even faster—69 projects generating more power, and 15 providing energy storage such as batteries. This government has given the green light to 29 projects to support the energy transition, including four hydrogen power projects that help set up Australia's renewable future. The Albanese Labor government has a clear plan to replace our ageing coal generators with cleaner, cheaper renewables and is making huge progress.

This is about creating jobs and creating our future. We on this side want Australia to thrive in a modern economy in a modern world that is heading towards net zero and is embracing renewables, and we have the technology, the space, the minerals, the resources and, frankly, the people to get it done. We should be proud of what we're putting forward today. We should be proud of the clarity we're giving business and the environment, and the ability that we're giving people to move forward and move this great country forward as well. We will fight for these reforms to deliver better environment protections and more certainty for business. Nobody wants broken environmental laws, which is, by unanimous consent, what we have had for the last 20 or 30 years.

We can get this done and delivered to the people of Australia. We can do what we were put here to do and guarantee our nation's future. Every day we delay, we degrade our environment and we make it harder for business to succeed. We deserve better.

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