Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank all of my colleagues who clearly have given up a bit of time in their day to come and listen to the contribution on the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025. I'll start my remarks by saying that I'm very fond of the member for Monash and hold her in high regard, but her comments about rushing this bill through the House is actually quite ironic. A bit of history for the member for Monash is that when the Leader of the Opposition was the then environment minister, she too brought a bill that was meant to be the then federal government's response to the Samuel review that they commissioned. What did the Leader of the Opposition do? She brought in a bill that undermined the key principle and the key recommendation of the Samuel review, which is that the federal government and this place need to have strong federal, national environmental standards that are upheld by the federal government and by the parliament. What did the then minister for the environment, now Leader of the Opposition, do? She brought in a bill that would have given all of the powers to the states, completely taking the federal government away from environmental standards and away from environmental decision-making.

There's worse than that. When the member for Monash talked about rushing through, I looked at this speaking list, and there is ample opportunity for any single member on that side of the House to contribute their views to this debate. In fact, we welcome the contributions of those opposite and we have extended the sittings to ensure that every member of this place gets a chance to contribute to this debate. Of course, that wasn't the approach of the former government. That wasn't the approach of the Leader of the Opposition when she was the environment minister, or when Christian Porter, who was the then Leader of the House, used the numbers of the Morrison government to crunch debate and to ensure that members didn't get a say on the government's environmental approvals and didn't get a say on the government's proposed environmental laws, which were completely ignoring the Samuel review that they commissioned. Thankfully, the Senate decided to throw those environment laws in the bin where they belonged. But never forget that their attempt to ram through environment laws was a last-ditch attempt by a government that was on its last legs, by a person who's now the Leader of the Opposition and who ignored the very recommendations that her government asked for.

But that is not the approach that we have taken. This set of bills sets out a strong regime of environmental protection that this parliament should absolutely vote for. The EPBC reforms contain a number of huge steps forward, including setting out federal, national environmental standards—something that will be made possible by this bill.

This bill also creates an environmental protection agency. This bill responds to a number of the recommendations of Professor Samuel. This bill also creates a whole range of different policies that will ensure that the environment benefits from potential applications, including a net gain principle. This bill will speed up approvals. This bill will ensure that there is transparency and accountability in environmental decision-making including, for the very first time, that proponents submit the amount of emissions that will be included as part of any proposal in any application for federal environmental approvals.

This bill seeks to do the genuinely difficult thing of balancing the interests of businesses with the absolutely essential responsibility that we all have as custodians of our environment to adhere to and uphold our great national traditions.

The EPBC reform package that is before the House is one that every single member of this parliament should be voting for. I know that those opposite are in disarray. I know that the Liberal Party and the Nationals don't know whether they're Arthur or Martha at this moment. One thing that would be a great signal for the people that they are clearly making absolutely no sense to now is to say that, instead of walking away, just saying no and killing off the environmental protection reform bills, they are actually willing to be sensible and deal with the government to ensure that these bills can pass both houses of the parliament. But I am not hopeful. I am not hopeful that the Liberal Party and the Nationals are coherent or cohesive enough to actually form a position on anything, let alone something as important and complicated as environmental approvals.

Obviously, we will engage in good faith with the coalition and the Greens to try and ensure that there is a strong set of bills that pass through the parliament, but I am not hopeful, given the state of the Liberal Party and the Nationals coalition today, where lots of clandestine meetings are happening at restaurants in Kingston as opposed to actually coming together and forming some sort of coherent policy on this bill.

I represent the wonderful people of Macnamara. Everyone in this place knows that the people of Macnamara stand for strong climate action and that the people of Macnamara stand for protecting our environment. I have some of the most extraordinary environmental and community groups which I am so proud to represent, and we even have our own nature project—one of the largest projects of urban renewal in Australia's history inside a city, where we turned the old Elsternwick golf course into the Yalukit Willam Nature Reserve. We are seeing endangered species coming back. We're seeing growling grass frogs, come back. The community is building habitats for them and seeing the natural wildlife develop around this incredibly beautiful part of our local community. It's just inspiring.

We have the Port Phillip EcoCentre, which, of course, were proud to support as well. It is a hub of citizen science, community engagement and environmental lessons in education, which engages a lot of our local schools and so many different parts of our community. The people of Macnamara want to see John Howard's old environmental reforms updated. I want to see John Howard's old environmental reforms and EPBC bill updated.

The recent state of the environment report found that most indicators for the state and trend of plants and animals show a decline and that the number of threatened terrestrial and marine species has risen. We have a responsibility to act right now. That is why we have picked up the recommendations made by Professor Samuel, which were completely ignored by those who asked him to do that work, and put together a set of reforms that will improve the environmental protection and that will ensure that businesses have timely responses. If it's a no, it's a quick no. If it's a yes, it's a yes and work through those conditions. More importantly, it's to ensure that the environmental standards that we want to leave for the next generation are strong and adhered to and that the federal government is right in ensuring that there are national standards.

Professor Samuel's recommendations were important and he said himself:

There is no variation in any significant or indeed in any small way from the recommendations of the review. That's why I'm satisfied … after five torturous years.

We are going to set up the National Environmental Protection Agency, one that is going to be a tough cop on the beat to ensure that environmental standards, and the conditions in environmental approvals are adhered to and that, if someone is doing the wrong thing, there will be consequences. I take this opportunity to give a shout-out to the incredible activists of the Labor Environment Action Network, who championed the EPA. The National EPA is an agency that LEAN members have fought for for many years, and they have been critical in ensuring it didn't fall off the agenda. When the Liberals and the Greens teamed up to block a federal EPA last parliament, it was LEAN members who fought hard to ensure we recommitted to the EPA in these bills. When these bills pass through the parliament, as I hope they will, LEAN members will have cause to be very proud of themselves, having made this fantastic contribution to our environmental agencies and to our environmental regime.

There are so many other parts of this that I'm very proud of. Having national environmental standards for the first time, prescribed by the minister, is something that these bills will make possible, and hopefully we will see it become reality. I also take this opportunity to reaffirm the Minister for the Environment and Water's commitment that the RFAs, the regional forestry agreements, will have to adhere to our national environmental standards. That's something that has also been fought for for a long time by activists, and it will ensure that our RFAs are held to federal standards.

It's pretty simple: these bills are an opportunity that doesn't come around very often. Last parliament we saw the Liberals and the Greens team up to block the EPA time and time again. Last parliament we saw the Liberals and the Greens team up to block a whole range of policies. Right now, they can work together to block these environment bills. It would be unsurprising if the Liberal Party did that, and it would be a complete neglect of our environmental standards if the Greens were to work with the coalition to block this set of reforms that includes strong environmental approvals.

This parliament has a chance. Yes, there can be negotiations and amendments to bills, and that is what will happen, but right now we as a parliament need to take this opportunity to update our environmental protection. We need to ensure there are strong environmental standards, and we need a partner in doing so. I say to all members of this place and the other place: now is the time to improve our environmental regime. It'll be a great reform that we leave to the next generation. As Professor Samuel said, it is bitterly disappointing to see posturing and political games being played. We should put political games aside and get this done for this generation and generations to come.

Debate adjourned.

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