Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes that:

(1) on the eve of a federal election, the Albanese Government has been forced to work around their own Environment Minister in an attempt to fix a political mess of their own making;

(2) the Government remains bitterly divided on the future of salmon farming at Macquarie Harbour and has unleashed 15 months of anxiety and uncertainty on thousands of workers, families and communities who rely on the salmon industry, including voting against a Coalition bill to improve the reconsideration process in the most recent sitting week of Parliament;

(3) this legislation is not needed to provide lasting certainty to the Tasmanian salmon industry, and instead the Government should simply have ended the Minister for the Environment's disastrous 2023 review of salmon farming's future at Macquarie Harbour;

(4) the Government, and particularly the Environment Minister, must guarantee to not instigate other forms of legislation or regulations that will impose new controls or reviews on the salmon industry, including through the return of their Nature Positive legislation, Federal EPA or use of other forms of the EPBC Act, such as directed environmental audits; and

(5) the changes to the reconsiderations regime in the Bill should be substantially strengthened to ensure that all assessments of all projects, across all industries, do not remain subject to the open-ended review processes that currently exist".

The coalition will support this bill. We do so in recognition of the urgent need to put an end to the living hell that salmon businesses and workers in Tasmania have endured under this Albanese government and, in particular, through the actions of its environment minister. We have made the decision to support the bill's passage because it provides at least some small measure of comfort and relief to the Tasmanian salmon industry and its workers after a truly harrowing period. However, no-one should be fooled into thinking that this bill is to the Labor Party what its drafting may suggest.

By way of this bill, Tasmanian salmon businesses and workers are being used as a bargaining chip in Labor's intensifying internal war on environmental issues. To Labor, this legislation isn't principally about Tasmanian salmon workers and their families; it is about factional games, internal warfare and political fixes inside Labor itself. It's a reflection of a longstanding and intensifying feud not just between Prime Minister and environment minister but between many in the ranks of the Labor caucus on environmental policy.

We have recently learnt about a heated debate within caucus itself where the Prime Minister has seemingly traded off. On one hand, he has won his desire to end the minister's review on the future of salmon farming in Tasmania, but on the other he has agreed to the minister again pursuing the creation of a federal environment protection authority and, of course, the disastrous nature-positive agenda. This approach, if implemented, will cause another massive rise in green tape, severely damage investment in jobs and cause many further cost-of-living increases in the process.

So it may look at first blush as though the Prime Minister has to find a way around the minister in order to close off this review, and there is indeed truth to that; there really is. But it is far deeper than even that. This is all about something far darker, and it is yet another marker of the dark arts of the Albanese Labor government playing politics for internal political processes, because a dirty deal has clearly been done.

Putting the miserable internal machinations of the Labor government to one side, the very fact that salmon companies and workers in Tasmania need relief is a direct consequence of the minister's reckless decision to launch a full-throttle attack on this industry in the first place. For nearly 15 months, the government has left the industry exposed to a review that has placed their entire future in jeopardy, and it should be noted that it has resisted all sensible offers and advice from the coalition to set this right. As recently as the very last sitting week of this parliament—on 12 February, in fact—the Labor government voted against this very kind of legislation, when it was the coalition which brought it forward through a bill to help the salmon industry and change the EPBC reconsideration process. Any pretence from Labor that they really want to help the salmon industry and the workers in Tasmania is a sick joke, because history exposes the truth.

It is for these reasons and more that I moved an amendment at the front end of this address. The purpose of that amendment is to try and redress some of Labor's many errors and missteps in association with the bill they put forward today and to try to provide more certainty to communities across Tasmania, particularly the West Coast, north-west, east coast and beyond. Of course, those errors and missteps trace all the way back to 2023, when the environment minister acquiesced to the wishes of three activist groups—the Bob Brown Foundation, the Australia Institute and the Albanese government funded Environmental Defenders Office—to place the entire existence of the industry, its workers and regional communities under severe threat. Outrageously, the minister has kept this review running right up until now and had no plans to end it even before the election. In the process, she created for Tasmanian workers, especially in the state's West Coast, what the local mayor Shane Pitt has described as 'cruel' and a 'living hell'. Clearly a lot of MPs in Labor would have liked the review to continue, but at least it does appear that this bill finally puts a halt to it.

Let me echo the point made by Salmon Tasmania CEO Luke Martin on 21 March that this legislation is not by any means a complete fix. The legislation is also a long way from perfect with respect to the reconsideration regime in the EPBCA. It still needs several changes before it fully and adequately addresses the relevant matters, and we are, therefore, putting forward a series of amendments. If passed, the amendments we're putting forward will improve the reconsideration rules in the act to provide more certainty for everyone and will certainly reduce the ad hoc green lawfare that now proliferates against EPBCA decisions that have been settled—some, many years ago.

Ours include a pious amendment that gives expression to some of the most immediate problems that would loom on the horizon for the industry and its workers, especially if the Labor Party were to win the next election and particularly if it were ultimately to form a minority government with the Greens. Each of our amendments is being moved not just in an attempt to better insulate the salmon industry from further outlandish reconsideration requests but also in recognition of the increasing vulnerability of all industries, companies and jobs that either have been implicated to date or are at risk of being targeted further in the future. Believe it or not, there are still some companies that have been waiting for the minister to finalise reconsideration processes for nearly the entirety of this term of government and, therefore, of her term as the relevant minister.

Now, if, by way of this legislation, the Albanese government, albeit after being dragged kicking and screaming, has admitted that it has made mistakes, then you would think it should at least commit to serious reforms and not be half-hearted about it, as they are being, as evidenced through this bill. Being so half-hearted only has the implication of introducing further uncertainty about the rules for this industry and others well into the future. It won't surprise anyone—certainly, it won't surprise the people of Tasmania, especially those in the salmon industry—that Australia now suffers from the second-highest level of green lawfare anywhere in the world.

On the environment moreover, let's be clear that Australia should always strive to ensure that whatever we do in our country has minimal adverse impact on our unique and precious natural environment, and that includes ensuring that endangered species are protected. However, the Albanese government has completely failed to take the relevant steps to help improve the future prospects of either the species in question or the salmon workers. Reductions or closures of the salmon-farming industry's operations on the west coast of Tasmania, as seems to have long been the minister's plan, would cause thousands of direct and indirect job losses.

These impacts would be devastating at a local level, including by threatening the entire existence of the town of Strahan and other nearby regional communities, because there are simply no obvious replacement industries or adequate employment possibilities in those areas. The coalition have said on many occasions that we believe this minister's approach has been reprehensible. It has provided none of the necessary urgency or certainty and, in the case of the salmon workers in particular, has only created heightened anxiety and stress.

Science should have been better respected. In keeping with this point, it is very important to note the significant findings of a wealth of scientific studies and observations over the last 15 months. These have included reports from the Tasmanian Environment Protection Authority, the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies and Dr Ian Wallis and commentary from the University of Tasmania's Professor Barry Brook.

Among other conclusions, these studies and observations have pointed to manifest improvements in water quality in Macquarie Harbour, to no further declines in recent years in numbers of skates, the threatened species, and instead to stabilisation and positive signs for growth and to major flaws in some of the original modelling that was provided to the Threatened Species Scientific Committee. They also indicate that any threat to the existence of skates is due to a multitude of many different factors. Such findings are obviously also underscored by the fact that, unlike in Macquarie Harbour, the skate became all but extinct many years ago in Bathurst Harbour. That is an area of Tasmania in which salmon farming has never been practised. For all these reasons and many others, the strong view of the coalition is that the skate population and the salmon industry can clearly coexist sustainability at Macquarie Harbour, and that this provides the most balanced and positive outcome for everyone.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Stephen Bates (Brisbane, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move the amendment to the amendment circulated by the member for Fairfax in my name:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"The House declines to give the bill a second reading and notes the government is using the cover of the budget to rush through legislation that trashes environment laws instead of passing laws to cut student debt and triple the bulk billing incentive for GPs".

Yet again we have this Labor government rushing through a dirty deal with the coalition. This legislation seeks to trash our environment laws and push our precious native species to extinction. The Australian Conservation Foundation said today that this bill will mean nature is more poorly protected at the end of the Albanese government's three-year term than it was at the start of it. This prime minister came to office with claims that the captain's calls had ended. But today, with this bill, we see the Prime Minister rushing through legislation, all to placate polluting industries and lock in species extinction.

Australia is facing an environmental crisis. We have one of the highest rates of species extinction in the world and ongoing destruction of our natural ecosystems. There is no question about it; our current environmental laws are failing to protect our biodiversity. Despite promises from this government, critical reforms continue to be delayed, all while leaving species and ecosystems vulnerable to further degradation. If you want to halt the extinction crisis then saying, 'We will get to it later. We will do it next time,' is not going to cut it. We must implement stronger enforceable environmental protections as a matter of urgency. But instead, this proposed legislation has sidelined science and sends our wildlife into extinction. It undermines legal protections and has far-reaching consequences for our community and planet. Environment laws are supposed to protect the environment, not greenlight destruction and extinction. Rushing these laws through under the cover of tonight's federal budget without proper scrutiny or consideration is disgusting.

Australia is a country that is rich in biodiversity but poor in its protection. We are home to over 10 per cent of the world's biodiversity with unique species that exist nowhere else on earth. We have already lost multiple native species since European colonisation began, and hundreds more species are at risk of extinction, yet deforestation, habitat destruction and climate change continue largely unchecked due to weak environment laws and poor enforcement.

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conversation Act, the EPBC Act, is supposed to be our primary environment law designed to protect these species and ecosystems but, for decades, it's failed to prevent environmental destruction. Loopholes, weak regulation and lack of political backbone from both major parties have allowed industries like fossil fuels and logging to push full steam ahead with projects that harm biodiversity. This bill would limit the ability to challenge fast approvals of harmful projects, making it even harder to protect endangered species and ecosystems from destructive developments. And if passed, this bill could prevent the legal review of past approvals that have contributed to environmental decline such as the expansion of the salmon industry in Tasmania's Macquarie Harbour, which has devastated the critically endangered Maugean skate's habitat.

This Labor government came into power promising to strengthen environmental laws and establish an independent EPA to enforce them. But, of course, these critical reforms have been postponed or canned entirely and instead we have the proposed bill threatening to weaken environmental protections further. In what is expected to be our final sitting of this parliament, instead of working with the Greens and the crossbench to pass laws that will actually help Australians, Labor's working with the coalition to gut our environment laws. This bill could stop the Australian public from being able to demand coal and gas corporations be held accountable when their destructive projects are shown to be destroying nature. There would be no recourse or potential for course correction.

There is nothing in this bill holding back the expansion of fossil fuel projects that will be a disaster for the climate. This bill is deceptively vague in its detail, and there are no explicit provisions excluding coal and gas approvals from this weakening of the environment laws. The government simply does not currently know what environment approvals this bill will apply to, and it certainly has no idea of the true scope to which it may apply. The government has given us merely hours to review this shameful bill. The initial analysis shows that decisions on up to 100 projects, including coal and gas mines, could be impacted.

This bill is setting an unacceptable and destructive precedent to exempt polluting industries and actions from national environment law even when all the available scientific evidence shows those actions will likely send endangered species into extinction. Environment laws are supposed to protect the environment, not provide certainty to industries that they can continue to trash it. It's shameful that the Prime Minister is championing an industry that poisons our waterways and drives ancient wildlife into extinction. This proposed legislation that sidelines science will send the Maugean skate into extinction and likely will have far-reaching consequences way beyond Macquarie Harbour, all in the name of corporate profits.

What this government should be doing is closing the loopholes that allow bypasses of environmental protections and ensuring that all major projects undergo rigorous environmental assessment—strengthening the EPBC, not weakening it. Without urgent action, Australia's extinction crisis will only get worse. The government must fulfil its promise to strengthen environmental protections before more species and ecosystems are lost forever.

Now we have Labor promising they will fix our environment laws in the next term of government, after they promised to fix them in this term of government and now sit here in this chamber weakening them. If you're confused, it's because it's confusing. Australia needs stronger environment laws, not weaker ones. The government must abandon this bill and deliver on its promise to end the extinction crisis.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It beggars belief that, in the dying days of this parliament, in the middle of a housing crisis, a climate crisis, an environmental crisis and a cost-of-living crisis, rather than working with the Greens to pass urgent, much-needed legislation on reducing student debt or ensuring people can see their GP for free, instead what Labor are doing is teaming up with Dutton's Liberals to do a dirty deal to weaken Australia's environmental laws. The weakening of these laws may make it easier—

Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Community Safety, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I raise a point of order on correct titles.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you for that reminder, Member for La Trobe. The member will refer to people by their correct titles.

Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It beggars belief that, in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, a housing crisis, a climate crisis and an environmental crisis, in the dying days of this parliament, when Labor could work with the Greens to pass much-needed legislation to reduce student debt or allow people to see their GP for free, instead what Labor are doing is a dirty deal with the Liberals and Nationals to weaken Australia's environmental laws. It's disgraceful. In the context of a climate and environmental crisis devastating this country, a series of weakening laws will be passed through this parliament in a deal between Labor and the Liberals and Nationals that may well make it easier for coal and gas projects to continue into the future even where the science proves they're having a devastating impact on our environment.

Why is this happening? Basically it seems to be about ensuring the destructive salmon-farming industry can continue down in Tasmania, which is leading to the destruction and extinction of a precious Australian species, the maugean skate. The problem is that it's not just this; it's even worse than that, because the way these laws are written is so broad as to weaken Australia's environmental laws and, again, make it easier for the expansion of coal and gas in this country, cooking the planet.

Why on earth in the dying days of this parliament has Labor chosen to do this? When an Australian species faces extinction, they should be going out of their way to protect that native species, the maugean skate. Instead, what they're doing is pre-empting legal challenges from environmental groups that could have successfully protected this species and then changing the rules under the feet of these environmental groups just to make sure the salmon industry can continue. What is the point of having environmental laws if, every time it looks like an environmental or climate group might successfully challenge a coal or gas project or successfully challenge the salmon-farming industry and protect a native species, Labor, at the behest of those corporations, turns around, works with the Liberals, changes the rules and screws over our environment, our nature and our climate?

Don't take the Greens' words for it; this is what the head of the ACF has said about this disgraceful betrayal of Australia's environment and climate:

Labor came to government in 2022 promising to strengthen Australia's failing nature laws, but ends the term rushing through a bill to weaken them …

This amendment knowingly risks the extinction of a unique, irreplaceable Australian species. The Maugean skate survived the mass extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, but it may not survive the Albanese government.

Carve-outs for particular industries are bad news for nature.

The logging industry's broad exemption to this law has resulted in untold damage to nature over 25 years.

Just to be clear, in many respects, as a result of these changes, environmental laws were stronger under Morrison than they are under Labor. Not only this but the Labor Party promised to introduce an environmental protection agency, where the Greens had secured a deal, where the environment minister had written to the Greens praising the deal with the Greens. What happened? The mining industry and the WA Premier teamed up to force the Prime Minister and this federal Labor government to renege on a deal to improve and strengthen our environmental laws. That's genuinely shocking because it begs the question: who runs this country? I thought it was meant to be this parliament, not the mining industry, not coal and gas corporations, not the salmon-farming industry. Why is it that, every time the coal and gas corporations or the mining industry ask for something, they get it?

What about the millions of Australians right now struggling to make ends meet? The head of Santos can ask for a rule to be changed or the law to be changed in this country, and the Labor government will go out of their way to do it. What about the millions of people in this country begging for more cost-of-living relief or the renters begging for help? They never get what they want. Why is it that, always in this place, big corporations and billionaires get rules changed overnight? This bill is ultimately a demonstration of the fact that big corporations and billionaires wield far too much power over this place, time and again in this term of parliament.

When the Greens secured a deal to introduce million-dollar fines for bankers, all it took was the head of the Australian Banking Association, former Labor premier Anna Bligh, to pick up the phone and force Labor to renege on the deal in under 24 hours. Why is it that, when we were pushing to raise taxes on coal and gas corporations and make them pay their fair share in tax, we found out that when they were writing these rules there were representatives from Santos, ExxonMobil and Chevron in the room providing advice on how those corporations would be taxed?

Now we come to this. In the last week of parliament the Labor Party, the Liberal Party and the Nationals are bending over backwards to serve the interests of big business at the expense of our environment, our climate and the millions of Australians who just want to see our environmental laws strengthened. It's genuinely shameful. I know there are Labor members in this place who are not happy about this move. As I understand it, there had to be three emergency meetings over the course of the weekend just to convince the Labor caucus to agree to these changes. I understand the need to maintain unity and things like that, but now is the time to speak out. How many times do we have to see the Labor Party renege on the principles they claim to represent for the interests of big corporations before Labor members in this place stand up and speak out against these actions? As long as Labor members refuse to speak out, the Labor Party is not going to change.

What's clear now is that, if we want stronger environmental and climate laws in the next term of parliament, if we want to break the hold that the big corporations and the big coal and gas industry have over the Labor Party, the Liberal Party and the Nationals, and, as a result, this parliament, we need to break the stranglehold that the major parties wield over this place. The only way we are going to get stronger environmental laws, stronger climate laws and a parliament that is prepared to take on the power and interests of billionaires and big corporations is if there is a powerful crossbench made up of progressive Independents and Greens willing to push Labor to properly act on the climate and environmental crisis. That is the only way it's going to happen.

There's been one government in the last few decades that has taken real, substantial action on the climate and environmental crisis with world-leading climate legislation, and that was the minority Gillard government, with the Greens and Independents in the balance of power. It took the power out of the factional bosses in the Labor Party, who far too often represent the interests of billionaires and big corporations, and put that power in the hands of the Australian parliament and, ultimately, the Australian people.

If anything has been made clear over this term of parliament it is that, as long as the Australian public is forced to rely on the Labor Party, the Liberals and the Nationals, we're not going to get the urgent action we need in this country. And it starts, ultimately, by breaking the power that big corporations wield over this place. Isn't it fitting that, at the end of this term of parliament, once again we are reminded who ultimately runs the Labor Party, the Liberals and the Nationals—not the interests of the environment, not the interests of the climate, not the interests of the Australian people but the interests of big corporations? When they tell the government to jump, the government jumps and if they need to do it with the Liberals and Nationals then so be it.

If you wonder why so many Australians are fed up with politics and you wonder why so many Australians are switching off politics right now, it's because they watched things like this happen. They watched the Labor Party get up and say they care about the environment, care about environmental laws, and then do two things. First, they reneged on a deal with the Greens to strengthen our environmental laws, the laws the environment minister praised as a matter of public record in the Guardian. The Prime Minister turned around and killed the deal at the behest of the mining industry and the WA Premier. And now this. Now this!

But I have genuine hope that in the next term of parliament we can reverse this disastrous decision and we can start to strengthen our environmental and climate laws, protect the Maugean skate and, more broadly, protect Australia's nature, environment and climate that is currently straining under the pressure of decades of terrible decisions by both major parties in this place.

I live in Brisbane, and we have just experienced a so-called natural disaster in Cyclone Alfred, but isn't it abundantly clear to everyone—certainly to all the climate scientists and a lot of the people I speak to—that this is going to happen more and more frequently until this parliament is willing to stand up to the climate-destructive coal and gas corporations and the big corporations, who far too often get their way in this place?

Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is one week left before parliament dissolves, and this is how the Labor government wants to spend it—not on expanding free GP visits, cutting student debt or things that will actually help the citizens of Australia but teaming up with the Liberal and National parties to rush through environment-wrecking 'reforms', special carve-outs for multinational corporations in the salmon industry, making it, by the way, easier to approve new coal and gas.

I hope everyone watching this remembers the priorities of the major parties. Are they working for the people who elected them? They're clearly working for the corporations that fund their campaigns, and they're relying on people being too distracted—so hammered and so busy trying to scrape enough cash together to see the doctor or pay the rent or just survive—to actually notice. Well, we're noticing. Labor's hoping that you didn't notice this bill. Under the cover of the budget they've just introduced some of the most environmentally destructive laws I've seen in this place, and, sadly, there have been a lot of them. As the ACF said just today, this actually means that our environment laws are weaker than they were when Labor took office. They're weaker than under the coalition. The Prime Minister has done a deal—this happens way too often—with the Leader of the Opposition and the coalition to ram these destructive laws through in this last sitting week of the 47th Parliament. They think they can get away with it. They think they can do this under the cover of darkness. No—we're not going to let them.

Australians deserve political leaders who keep their promises. Labor promised to protect our environment, and they were actually elected on that promise. Clearly, that's a hollow promise now. They have just capitulated, yet again, to industry. This is for the second time in as many months. Last month they withdrew their proposed EPA at the behest of the Western Australian mining lobby; it just took a phone call from the Western Australian Premier. That EPA, which in reality was only going to enforce existing laws, was hardly a radical proposal.

This time, they're bowing to the salmon-farming industry, an industry that's polluting our waterways and sending an ancient species to extinction—a foreign owned industry that, by the way, pays no tax. Is this really what Australians want—to be taken for a ride, yet again, by for-profit industries that have the government and their coalition cronies by the you-know-whats?

It's not just salmon. These laws have far-reaching consequences beyond the salmon industry, creating massive loopholes for other environmentally damaging industries—loopholes big enough to drive a coal truck through. These loopholes for the other environmentally damaging industries allow coal and gas to proliferate, to keep on polluting. This is a trojan horse for that, and we should all be alarmed.

Here are some facts about the foreign owned corporations—toxic, polluting multinationals—Labor and the coalition are bending over backwards for and buddying up with to protect with this bill. So-called Tassal, Tasmanian Salmon, is not in fact owned by Tasmanians. It's controlled by foreign owned corporations. It was acquired by Canadian salmon producer Cooke Aquaculture in 2022. Cooke is not pure. Cooke has a history of environmental controversies. In 2017 hundreds of thousands of fish escaped one of its net pens in Washington state. This escape caused such significant environmental damage that Washington not only ceased Cooke's operations but also banned the entire industry there. In fact, net pen farming has been banned across all of the west coast of the US and Canada. Cooke is currently the subject of a lawsuit in Maine, where it operates 13 locations. The lawsuit alleges at least 735 violations of the US Clean Water Act over the last five years, including discharging 'blood, sea lice, disease, and undisclosed chemicals from delousing boats and barges', exceeding limits on effluents and nutrient buildup, and reporting violations.

Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is the company—

Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is. This is the company in Tassie. Here's another: Huon. Huon was taken over by Brazilian company JBS in 2021. Again, it's not a pure operation. This company was the subject of a huge corruption scandal in Brazil which helped finance its first acquisitions in Australia. There's not a clean history here. JBS is not very well regarded globally. JBS was also fined US$8 million for deforestation in the Amazon back in 2017.

Lastly, Petuna, a company that was taken over by New Zealand-based Sealord in 2020, has also attracted significant criticism and controversy in their home country for trawling environmentally sensitive seamounts. Here's the kicker—the Tasmanian salmon industry has paid no income tax, zero, since at least 2019, despite selling over $4 billion worth of product. That's who Labor and the LNP are spending the final week of this term of the Australian parliament bending over backwards for. Fishy is a good word for it. This whole sorry saga is a great illustration of exactly why people actually hate politics. Let me explain. It's broken promises, dirty deals and media spin to cover it all up. In 2022 Labor promised that, if people elected them, they'd overhaul and strengthen environmental laws. It is the last week of parliament before the election, and Labor just broke that promise.

First, they scrapped their promised environmental protection agency after a phone call from the Premier of Western Australia—anything to protect corporate mining profits, right? But it doesn't end there. They're now teaming up with the coalition for a new deal to weaken our environmental laws. They promised to strengthen them, and now they're working with the coalition to weaken them. Labor and the coalition team up to protect a destructive industry that is threatening species extinction. Did they ever plan to keep their promises in the first place? Now they seriously expect people to trust them after all this. It's absolutely shameful. Frighteningly, this isn't just a carveout for the salmon industry. It weakens our environmental laws across all of the industries. The mining industry, coal and gas companies, and logging companies will all benefit from these changes—free reign to trash our environment with absolutely no oversight. In the mere 24 hours we've had to review this shameful bill that's being smashed through the House, initial analysis has indicated that decisions on up to 100 projects, including coal and gas mines, could be impacted. It's had no scrutiny, rushed through in the final sitting week of the 47th parliament, all under the cover of a federal budget. It smells fishy indeed.

Here's what should really terrify us; the Prime Minister has now set the expectation that any industry can exert pressure—dollars—to get a legislative exception to environmental laws. What ordinary person in Australia gets to choose which laws apply to them? None. Ordinary people don't have the ear of this government because they're not funding it. They're not funding it. Big corporations are funding this government. The mining companies must be absolutely ecstatic about this as it reminds them that they effectively own this government—let's face it, a government that claims to care about the environment while actively destroying it. The Prime Minister today has literally halted the other business of parliament when we could be passing cost-of-living relief, we could be putting dental cover into Medicare or we could be scrapping student debt. We could actually be helping the citizens of Australia. The Prime Minister has halted the other business of parliament to give environmental destruction the green light. Shame!

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let's be perfectly clear about this fact; if the parliament legislates today and tomorrow to give exemptions from the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to projects and industries, it will be one of the most egregious acts of environmental vandalism this parliament has ever been responsible for. In fact, I would say it would be second only to the Abbott government removing the price on carbon in late 2013. The enormity of what this parliament is doing here cannot be underestimated. This country already has weak environmental laws, and, if the parliament passes this bill, they will be even weaker, because it means that, starting with the salmon industry and Macquarie Harbour on the West Coast of Tasmania but extending to perhaps hundreds of projects that were given the go-ahead more than five years ago and which have been in operation ever since on a continual basis, none of them can ever be reviewed by any future environment minister or any future government. For the Prime Minister to come in here in question time today, to ridicule the crossbench and to claim that you must vote for the Labor Party if you care about the environment is just absolutely ridiculous! Is the member for Grayndler the Prime Minister or the 'Propaganda Minister'? It was just patent nonsense, and it disappoints me because the member for Grayndler is better than that. I know he's much better than that, and he diminishes himself when he comes in here and says such absolute nonsense.

The severity of what this parliament is in the process of doing cannot be underestimated. It will be a complete failure of governance. What happened, for heaven's sake, to the promise by the Labor party in the lead up to the last election that, if elected, it would strengthen our environmental framework? It turned out to be just a con job. What about public opinion? What about the fact that the vast majority of Tasmanians, when polled, want the salmon industry kicked out of Macquarie Harbour because of the environmental damage it's doing and the fact that it has helped take the maugean skate to the edge of extinction. Since when are less than 100 jobs in Strahan as important as they are? Since when are those jobs more valuable than dealing with the extinction crisis? Of course, we must do everything in our power to deal with the extinction crisis. For this parliament to be in the process of legislating killing off one of the planet's most prehistoric species—to knowingly do it with legislation like this—can't be described as anything less than egregious environmental vandalism.

What about the groundswell of dissent within the ALP? You can't tell me there are not a lot of good hearted, intelligent ALP backbenchers who are in barely silenced revolt at the moment. What about them? It's a matter for the Labor Party, but it does call into question the integrity of the Labor Party when it's putting Tassal, Huon and Petuna ahead of the grassroots membership of that party.

What about the environment minister? I've got a lot of respect for the current environment minister, and none of my comments are directed at the member for Sydney. In fact, I feel a certain sympathy for the member for Sydney because she's been so ruthlessly sidelined and was made to come in here and read out that speech that she read out earlier today. You could just look at the expression on her face. It was like she was talking while simultaneously sucking on the most bitter lemon this country has ever produced. That is no way to treat a frontbencher.

What about the industry itself? It's a curious thing that the people who are trying to do, in their minds, the right thing by the salmon industry by effectively carving it out from the EPBC Act—what they're actually doing is hastening the demise of the industry, and I'll tell you why. The salmon industry in Tasmania is an important economic driver. It is a significant employer, and I actually support it. I actually want it to survive and achieve its full potential. But it will only achieve that potential if it is transparent, if it's very carefully regulated and if it's put on a genuinely sustainable footing. Leaving it in Macquarie Harbour to kill off maugean skate is not putting it on a sustainable footing. What it's doing is just trashing the industry's reputation even further and hastening its demise. If anyone comes in here later today to vote for this bill and claims they're a friend of the salmon industry, they're the complete opposite, because, one day, the salmon industry will be on its knees, and the people who support this bill will be the ones to blame.

Let me talk about the maugean skate for a moment longer, and I proudly wear a little decoration of the maugean skate on my lapel. It is one of the most historic species on the planet. It is a remarkable creature. It survived for millions of years—millions of years. So what does it make of all this talk about us dealing with the extinction crisis? When we come in here and we're going to vote on this, seemingly the government, maybe with the opposition—hopefully they will see sense and oppose it—are going to knowingly vote to make one of the oldest species on the planet extinct. It's just breathtaking. It's absolutely breathtaking. It makes a complete mockery of everything that people say when they're wringing their hands and talking about the environment and how good they are on the environment, saying, 'If you care about the environment, you've got to vote for the Labor Party.'

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's bollocks.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, what bollocks! It's just garbage. Let's wrap a bit of context around this, because it's not just about Macquarie Harbour and it's not just about the maugean skate. At the moment, Tasmania is confronting the largest mass farmed fish die-off in the state's history. I'm sure by now many honourable members would have seen photos or footage on the telly perhaps of, literally, tip-truck loads of dead fish being taken somewhere to be buried on someone's farm or at a toxic waste dump or something. What we're also seeing from video footage that has been obtained and what I'm also hearing from whistleblowers is exactly what's in these industry documents. Let me tell you something about the character of the industry. This document is noted from 2014, but it was actually in use as recently as 2018. The relevant company claims there's a newer version of this document but refuses to release it to the ABC when pushed. It's titled Mass mortality. That sounds very relevant, doesn't it? Mass mortality—as Tasmania goes through the largest mass mortality in the industry's history. It says:

In any large mortality event, as many fish as possible should be recovered for harvest and processing. Any fish—this is any dead fish that has died in a mass mortality event, which at the moment is called the Rickettsia bacteria—in which the gills can still bleed is potentially recoverable …

Gross! By the way, this document, Emergency procedure in the event of significant risk to fish health, says:

WHENEVER AFFECTED FISH ARE > 3KG, ROLLOVERS SHOULD BE BLED AND PLACED INTO ICE SLURRIES SO THAT THEY CAN BE PROCESSED IF APPROPRIATE

In other words, at the moment, in Tasmania, fish that have died from Rickettsia bacteria in this appalling fish die-off, so long as their gills are still pink, with a bit of blood in the gills, and so long as the fish aren't already rotting on a beach somewhere, are being put in an ice slurry, taken away and processed for human consumption. Even the fish that are apparently not infected by Rickettsia and are being harvested and processed are not being tested for Rickettsia. Given that it can take up to two weeks for the symptoms of Rickettsia to present themselves and given that we know as a fact that all of the farms and all of the farm sites and all of the pens now are infected with Rickettsia, you can draw no other conclusion than the fish companies in Tasmania are selling and consumers are purchasing and eating infected fish.

How on earth does that help maintain the reputation of Tasmania or the reputation of this industry? It doesn't. I make the point again—I want to labour this point—that the people that are running a protection racket for the salmon industry in Tasmania are actually going to be part of its demise. What we should be doing is coming in here and making sure we have the very best environmental safeguards possible at a federal level and pressuring the state and territory governments to make sure they have the very best environmental safeguards and that they have the very best environment protection agencies so that we can have absolute confidence we're not eating fish that died in a bacterial outbreak and looked good enough with their gills pink enough to be processed and sold at Coles or Woolies.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yuck.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yuck, yes! It's gross. It's really gross. That's not as gross, believe it or not, as the images I'm sure some honourable members have seen of the beaches on the east coast in Tasmania and on Bruny Island in recent weeks with rotting fish carcasses and globules of fish oil—up on the beaches, which the Tasmania government said are completely safe. 'The water is clean, and the beaches are fine, but do not touch the fish.'

Do these people know how silly they look? It would be funny except it's so serious. It's serious insofar as ensuring the industry is sustainable. It's serious insofar as ensuring the environment is protected and safe. And it's serious when it comes to the very pointed matter here tonight of the extinction crisis. This is the context in which we're saying: 'The fish farms can stay in Macquarie Harbour,' and the government and—I don't know—I think the opposition are saying that they don't give two hoots about one of the planet's oldest species becoming extinct.

Why is all this happening? Why are the government and the opposition acting so patently at odds with the best interests of the natural environment, and of a threatened species in particular, and so at odds with the public interest, so at odds with the groundswell of discontent on the backbench and so at odds with having the best reputation for the industry in the future? It is for one reason: to harvest a few hundred votes in the electorate of Braddon. It is that crude, that blunt and that ugly. The government is happy—well, it is prepared, I should say—to drive the Maugean skate to extinction because it might improve its chances of winning the Tasmanian north-west and west coast seat of Braddon.

When you think about it in that context, it's all the more ugly. I suppose the government might hope there's some benefit in the seat of Franklin and in the seat of Lyons, both of which also have fish farms. But, oh, the irony of it! The member for Franklin is the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, and the Tassal factory has a lot of Huon aquaculture farms down the channel and down the Huon River. Oh, the irony of it! That minister is going to be in here voting in favour of this, even though it is actually hastening the demise of the industry by the trashing of the industry's reputation.

I struggled to get my head around this. For one seat—which, by the way, Labor has almost no chance of winning, so the whole exercise becomes even more ludicrous—they're taking a species closer to the edge of extinction. They are annoying the majority of Tasmanians who want fish farms kicked out of Macquarie Harbour, all to chase some votes that ultimately won't see them win the seat anyway. It's just bizarre behaviour. It's just crazy behaviour. It's inexplicable, but that's what raw politics is like. To echo my colleagues behind me, it helps to explain why the primary vote of the major parties is collapsing and why, at this federal election, again, a third or more of the country will vote for someone else. They will vote for people who will fight for the environment, fight for the public interest, fight for their communities, fight for rational policies to grow industries, not to kill them.

I hold out some hope that the opposition will oppose this bill, probably for their own self-serving interests by trying to trip up the Labor Party before the election. But I don't care what their motivation is. I just hope they oppose it and vote against it.

Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my limited time I want to tell you what Labor is doing to regional Australia through the words of a constituent of mine, Kate Vance of Landsborough West. Kate came up to me at the Wimmera field days recently. By her own admission, she isn't political. It was only when she opened her mouth to speak to me that she broke down in tears with her children at her side. It was when Kate, a deep thinker, actually verbalised the impact of Labor's railroading of regional communities for its dystopian vision of the nation that the tears started flowing. This is what she had to say:

I do not wish to take sides in the renewable debate. I believe most people, rightly or wrongly, make the best decisions they can. I can speak only for what my own lived experience has been, viewed through the eyes of my passion which is health. I have experienced within myself, and witnessed in my family, my friends, and my community the mental anguish that is becoming synonymous with renewable energy. The political paraphernalia sold to those in the city is peppered with catch-cries of saving the planet, but at present, this seems to be at any expense to the wellbeing of the people. Are the people not the planet too?

The structure of the current system allows private companies to approach landholders, encourage them to make life-changing decisions, and then have them sign confidentiality agreements preventing them from discussing these decisions with close family, friends, or neighbours. This is not nurturing the mental health of rural people.

She goes on:

How on earth did I allow myself to be controlled to the point where I cried alone for weeks because I felt I couldn't speak to my own parents about the sale of a neighbouring farm that belonged to my own family? I had a basic human need to talk to the people I love and a piece of paper prevented me from feeling worthy enough to do so.

She goes on:

The microtrauma of the constant presence of ever-encroaching infrastructure involving regular and unpaid interactions with paid liaison personnel is draining and costly. We know that trauma has lasting effects. What is happening below the surface that we are yet to see in a measurable health sense in rural areas?

She goes on:

The government spends millions of dollars on mental health campaigns encouraging people to ask one another "are you okay?", and yet when the farming community is crying out—in the best voice they know how—that they are very much not okay, the response has been to treat them like dangerous extremists. This hurtful hypocrisy, and the emotions that flare as a consequence, are polarizing and dividing our communities.

Kate says:

I have sat in community groups where people are too afraid to even consider applying for windfarm grants because of the potential for angry divide amongst the people they are trying to represent. Some groups would simply rather have no money. I want to be able to exist in my local area where people are free to speak openly and honestly about the things affecting them and their families. Suppression of truth always has a cost somewhere. The suicide statistics of farmers suggest this is one population that has nothing left to cover that cost.

She says:

I have witnessed good people on both sides of the debate forget their most basic human kindnesses in the midst of all of this. Is this really who we are? This behaviour is not a reflection of what has bonded rural communities together over a long time. We have become what we are by supporting one another through hardships, and banding together in the toughest of times.

I continue to see the most incredible advocacy and a beauty in unity that perhaps some of rural Australia has never before known. But I have also been present in a roomful of angry people and wondered if some of those bearing the brunt of this public vitriol felt as sick as they looked, only to eventually realise I was the one feeling sick. I have hated seeing and hearing people turning on one another in desperation and divisional defence of their own positions. We all need each other right now. We need one another's kindness more than ever. We need one another's respect. We need to value ourselves and our communities, no matter what is happening around us.

I have needed to hear myself acknowledge that no matter how much understanding I have shown for the process of what is happening, there have been times when I was very far from okay. I think the collective voice that many farmers are not happy has been heard. There are also some very happy farmers who have been public in their support for what is happening and appear, at face value, to genuinely believe renewable energy infrastructure has placed them, their families, and their farms and businesses in a better position.

But how many people, like me, have cried alone feeling like they were cut off from their support people by a rollout binding them to dealing with life-changing decisions in lonely and isolating circumstances? … Thank you …

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In accordance with the resolution agreed to earlier, the time for the debate has expired.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question before the House is that the second reading amendment moved by the honourable member for Brisbane be agreed to.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question before the House is that the second reading amendment moved by the honourable member for Fairfax be agreed to.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the bill be read a second time.