Sally Sitou (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

For people who care about our natural environment, there is always an origin story, a time when they were struck by the awe and wonder of nature, and that moment came for me later in life. My husband and I were working in Samoa in our late 20s. Many of our Samoan colleagues at the time told us to go down to a local village to do some snorkelling and see the giant clams. I was sceptical about these clams—how magnificent and great could they be? We snorkellled out to the marine sanctuary, and it was there that I was struck by the wonder of these creatures because they were truly spectacular. They were really big, but what struck me most were the iridescent colours, which almost glowed through the water.

It's an awe and wonder that I shared with my son, Max. So, when I read last year that the conservation status for giant clams had moved from 'vulnerable' to 'critically endangered', it brought home the fragility of our environment and the urgency to protect it. I promised that, once Max learnt to snorkel, we'd take him to see the giant clams in Samoa. I've now brought forward that trip. I was struck by the wonder of nature because of those giant clams. I think, for my son, it was the trip to the Great Barrier Reef two years ago. He was blown away by the sea life and coral and became very fond of a big parrot fish called Wally, who swam alongside us as we snorkellled in the reef. Sadly, our much-loved Great Barrier Reef is facing severe threats.

Even in my own inner-city electorate, my community is surrounded by some of the most incredible natural environment. The wetlands in Sydney Olympic Park and Homebush Bay are home to 400 native plant species and 250 native animal species, including the endangered green and golden bell frog. I know how important it is that we protect and cherish our natural environment. It's what Australia is known for.

I'm the patron of the Labor Environment Action Network, something I'm incredibly proud of. I want to thank all the members and the leadership of LEAN, particularly Felicity Wade, Louise Crawford and Penny Pedersen. They have helped me better understand these bills and how this will help protect our environment. I think the entire labour movement are indebted to them for their extraordinary advocacy, because they know we owe it to our children to do what we can to preserve our natural environment for them and future generations.

We also owe it to them to build critical projects for the nation, like more housing, public transport and the renewable energy projects that we desperately need. The current environmental approvals are too slow, complex and expensive. For far too long, our environmental protection laws have been unable to protect the environment or deliver on critical projects, and that is why the Labor government has introduced the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025. The reforms we are proposing are about striking the right balance.

It's built around three key pillars. The first is stronger environmental protection and restoration. We will establish Australia's first-ever national environmental protection agency and set national environmental standards. The EPA will be an independent regulator that will make sure our environmental laws are enforced fairly and transparently. The national standards will protect and restore environmental areas and species by ensuring projects don't just offset their impact but leave the environment better off.

The second pillar is more efficient and robust project assessments and approvals. Australia's current environmental laws are slow, unpredictable and riddled with duplication. It can take longer to get an approval for a housing project or a renewable project than it does to actually build it. These reforms will change that. We will make decisions about approvals faster, clearer and more consistent. By improving cooperation between the Commonwealth and states, we can cut red tape and streamline assessments without cutting standards.

The third pillar is greater accountability and transparency in decision-making. Every Australian deserves confidence that, when projects are approved, they meet clear environmental standards and are assessed openly and fairly. These reforms will shine a light on environmental decision-making, ensuring communities know what's being approved, why it's being approved and who's responsible for upholding those standards.

We desperately need these environmental law reforms, and I thank the Minister for the Environment and Water for his engagement with me and so many stakeholders. It's thanks to his hard work and the work of so many people in the Labor caucus that this bill is being introduced with the backing of experts, environmental groups and businesses. Professor Graeme Samuel, the author of the Samuel review, has been unequivocal in his support. He said that the bill introduced by Labor implements the 'totality' of the recommendations he made in his report and that it is a 'quantum leap forward' for both environmental protection and business certainty. Environment groups have also engaged constructively with the government, and the Business Council of Australia has said the reforms 'present an opportunity to fix a broken system'.

Despite the broad support from experts, environmental groups and the business sector, those opposite continue to stand in the way. It's been five long years since the Samuel review was delivered, and who was the Minister for the Environment at the time? The Leader of the Opposition. She gave her support then, but what did she do with the report? Nothing. It stayed sitting on her desk for 500 days. Under the coalition's watch, the environment suffered, and we are paying for it. Professor Samuel himself described the opposition leader's opposition as a political game and said that it made him feel 'frankly, a little angry'—and, after half a decade of coalition negligence, who can blame him?

That criticism isn't just limited to those opposite; it also extends to the Greens, because they have a history of blocking sensible reform that would deliver stronger protections for nature and certainty for business. Here we have an opportunity to deliver better outcomes for the environment, and the Greens are refusing to support it. Australians hate it when political parties play politics instead of making progress, and, given the choice between politics and progress, the Greens always choose politics. They teamed up with the coalition in 2009 to block the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, setting back climate action for over a decade; they teamed up again with the coalition to prevent Labor's improvements to the Recycling and Waste Reduction Act; and now, again, they're standing in the way of strengthening our environment laws.

They're also making disingenuous arguments that it's a choice between certainty for business and the environment, and they're wrong. We don't have to choose, because Labor is delivering this bill to do both—to provide cleaner energy, more housing and stronger protection for the land and wildlife that we love. Australians have made it clear, twice, that when it comes to the environment they want progress, not politics. We can protect what makes Australia special while building the homes and clean energy projects that will shape our future by passing this bill. Every day we wait is another day our environment slips further behind. Every day we wait is a day we could be building the renewable energy projects and the housing our children need. Let's get this done to deliver on what Australians sent us here to do: to build a cleaner, more livable future for future generations to come.

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