Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Curtin for raising this issue and I respect absolutely that the role of offsets is something where integrity is critically important. As I've said in question time, the legislation also switches the concept from no net negative to net positive, which of itself is a significant change. The reasons the government won't be supporting these amendments are similar to some reasons I gave previously, but I'll give them now in response to the member for Curtin.

This government's environmental reforms will deliver better outcomes for the environment and industry. The bill's reforms will introduce new options for offsetting. Project proponents can either deliver an offset themselves or pay for the government to do it via a restoration contribution payment, or a combination of both. A new independent Restoration Contributions Holder will be able to use the funds to strategically deliver offsets to have greater environmental benefits, including through pooling funds or similar impacts. The government does not support these amendments because a new rulings power under the act fulfils the role of enabling the minister to determine that restoration contributions in all or particular circumstances are not appropriate as compensation for a particular protected matter. This mechanism does provide for flexibility and responsiveness by the minister as new information becomes available, including any advice of the Restoration Contributions Holder.

The proposed amendments would also remove flexibility and limit the environmental benefits of larger strategic restoration actions—for example, increasing connectivity or creating wildlife corridors. This approach would be better for the environment and better for business. We know the current offsets regime isn't working for industry or the environment, and we need to be able to do something differently to improve the system and deliver restoration at scale. The bill strikes a balance between allowing that to happen and learning the lessons from other offsets approaches that haven't worked.

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