Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing and Sovereign Capability) Share this | Hansard source

If good policy is met with greater prosperity, this government seems intent on salting the soil. After three years of promises, backflips and bureaucratic composting, Labor has finally planted its so-called Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 and six associated bills. Make no mistake, this isn't a plan to make Australia greener; it's a plan to make Australia slower, poorer and tangled in so much red and green tape that no-one can tell where the vines begin or end. These bills, around 1,500 pages long, are a legislative jungle. They were dropped on the parliament floor like a storm-felled tree. Now Labor wants to rush them through before anyone has had a chance to read the warning signs carved in the bark.

The coalition cannot and will not support these reforms in their current form because, instead of protecting the environment, they threaten to choke our economy. This is the most significant environmental overhaul in a generation, yet the government is trying to push it through in just weeks. Stakeholders from the Business Council to the mineral sector, from farmers to housing developers, have all asked for more time to read, analyse and consult. They want to make sure this reform is workable.

The Business Council of Australia has been crystal clear: without significant changes, we risk embedding a system that is even slower, is more complex and lacks the clarity and certainty needed for investment. In other words, Labor's so-called reform is not fertilising growth; it's strangling it. Yet, after four years and two elections, Labor still haven't delivered the environmental protection agency they keep promising. They've had more false starts than a wind farm without wind.

In the last parliament, Minister Plibersek attempted to push through ridiculous reforms. They were so extreme left that the Premier of Western Australia contacted the Prime Minister, and overnight those bills were stopped. Wow! That's saying something when it's too left for the Premier of WA. That historical failure is a cautionary tale. It shows what happens when reforms are rushed and sets the context for why Australians should be rightly concerned today.

The coalition supports strong, sensible environmental laws, and we always have. When the Leader of the Opposition was minister of the environment, she commissioned the Samuel review, a practical road map for modernising the 1999 EPBC Act. It was based on balance—protecting nature, while enabling responsible development. The coalition government began the reform process by introducing streamlining pathways and bilateral agreements to cut the duplication between Canberra and the states. Labor blocked that reform, then rebranded it and called it their own. We say: 'Fine. If you want to recycle our policies, at least read the instructions before you throw them in the green bin.'

Let's be clear about what's wrong here. Firstly, there's the environmental protection authority. Under Labor's model, the EPA's CEO will hold enormous powers, including the ability to stop projects indefinitely, without clear accountability or ministerial oversight. That is absurd! There is no binding statement of expectations, there are no performance measures and there's no capacity for the minister to terminate the CEO for failure to deliver. That's not accountability; that's bureaucracy on autopilot. Graeme Samuel's review was explicit: the EPA's role should be compliance and enforcement only, while assessment and approvals remain with the department. Labor ignored that. They created a body that is both regulator and referee. And that's not environmental management; that's environmental mayhem.

Secondly, there's scope 1 and scope 2 emissions reporting. Labor's bill requires proponents to report their emissions under the EPBC process, duplicating the existing safeguard mechanism. But nowhere in the bill does it clearly say that this information cannot be used for decision-making or for imposing conditions. That omission is a lawyer's paradise and a miner's nightmare. It opens the door to endless green lawfare. Industry groups have told us that they could live with the reporting if there were guardrails, but in this version the guardrails are gone. It's a slippery slope straight to a climate trigger by stealth.

Thirdly, there are 37 definitions of 'unacceptable impacts' spread over eight pages—37. That's not law; that's a complicated maze. Even existing projects that were once approved could be ruled out under these new standards. Industry says the definition should be removed from legislation and placed in flexible standards, not set in stone. If Labor does not fix it, it could block development faster than a landslide on a rural road.

Fourthly, there are the penalties and stop-work orders. The bill allows fines of up to $825 million—nearly $1 billion—for a penalty regime with no appeal rights and no proportionality. The EPA could issue an environmental protection order on the flimsiest grounds, shutting down operations indefinitely—no checks, no balances, no sunset clauses. That's not justice; that's a kangaroo court with a green backdrop!

These bills are sold as protecting the environment, yet they risk opening the door to green energy projects in places that should never be touched. Imagine wind farms on the Great Barrier Reef—an icon of Australia's natural heritage—in the name of emissions reductions that would barely move the needle on global emissions. Across Queensland, fertile farmland is being swallowed up by massive solar arrays. This is land that should be used for feeding Australians but, instead, is being turned into industrial deserts of solar panels. Koala habitats are under threat. Wind farms are being built in areas critical to the survival of these iconic species. Wind turbines that barely spin due to inconsistent wind are causing more environmental destruction than benefit. How many ecosystems, how many more species and how much more farmland will be lost in the name of hitting this arbitrary emission target?

The government wants Australians to believe that more wind and solar equals better environmental outcomes, but the reality is that uncontrolled, poorly sited projects are causing irreversible damage—all this destruction for emission reductions that are almost meaningless when Australia contributes just one per cent of global emissions. Yet our landscapes and our livelihoods bear the cost. If the minister truly cared about protecting our environment, we wouldn't be bulldozing ecosystems. We must ask ourselves: where does this destruction end? If the goal is net zero at any cost, Australians, their land, their water and our wildlife are being sacrificed with zero meaningful global impact. These bills, in their current form, fail to protect what Australians truly care about. They incentivise environmental damage under the guise of progress, and that's why these bills cannot be supported.

These reforms were sold as part of Labor's so-called productivity agenda, yet every serious economist knows they'll do the exact opposite. They'll drive up costs, slow down approvals and scare away investors. Let's talk about productivity. Australia has now fallen to second last among OECD nations. Only Mexico ranks lower. Labor says we need reform to fix productivity, then proposes legislation that makes it harder to invest and harder to build, mine and manufacture. It's like telling a farmer to grow more crops but locking the gate to his paddock.

In the last financial year, mining companies contributed $59.4 billion in taxes and royalties—money that pays for hospitals, schools and roads. Yet these are the industries Labor is happy to sacrifice to appease the Greens, and a deal with the Greens is a deal to turn off the lights on Australia's economy. Let's remember that, when the coalition introduced reforms to streamline approvals, Labor said no.

Australians can see through this spin. If the government were serious about environmental reform, it would bring industry, farmers and conservationists together. Instead, Labor has divided them. The coalition believes in practical environmental policy grounded in science, not slogans. We support ministerial decision-making remaining with the elected government, not unelected bureaucrats. We support no climate trigger. We support forestry exemptions under regional forestry agreements because our forestry industry is sustainable, world class and essential to regional jobs. We support reducing duplication between state and federal systems, and we support a proper national interest exemption because sometimes projects are just too important to delay with ideology. That's what balanced reform looks like.

So why the rush? Why the mad dash to get through this before Christmas when even Labor's own minister said back in June that the legislation wouldn't be ready until next year? Because the government wants to declare a political victory, not a practical one. They think passing a 1,500-page bill before Christmas will prove that they can get things done, but getting things done isn't the same as getting things right.

Our nation's wealth was built on natural resources, innovation and hard work. Mining, agriculture, manufacturing—these are the roots of our prosperity. Labor's reforms dig up our roots and replace them with bureaucracy. This isn't environmental protection; it's economic deforestation—and, when the canopy falls, it's everyday Australians who are left in the shade. We want environmental laws that protect our biodiversity and our competitiveness. We want clean air, healthy soils and flowing rivers, but what we also want is factories that hum, farms that thrive and jobs that stay right here in Australia. That's not too much to ask. It's what every sensible Australian expects.

This parliament has a choice. We can nurture growth with balanced, sensible reform or we can let poor ideology fill the garden of prosperity with weeds. The coalition will work constructively to prune what doesn't work, graft in accountability and clarity and ensure the final product is something Australians can live with and live from.

Environmental reform shouldn't come at the cost of national prosperity. It should be about balance, not bans; stewardship, not strangulation; and a greener future that doesn't leave our workers, our industries and our regions out in the cold. Until that happens, the coalition will not support these bills, because, when it comes to Labor's environmental reform, the only thing growing right now is a list of the reasons to vote against it.

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