Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party, Shadow Minister for Youth) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) the Government's environment credentials are all washed up;

(b) after refusing to even meet with scientists regarding the spread of toxic algal bloom in South Australia for over 18 months, the Minister for the Environment and Water has made a last minute dash in a desperate attempt to avoid scrutiny over the Government's lack of leadership on the matter; and

(c) from recycling to Indigenous cultural heritage and environment protection and biodiversity conservation, the Government has failed to deliver on any of its major promises; and

(2) calls on the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Water to attend the chamber to explain the Government's failures on the environment.

Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is there a seconder?

Tom Venning (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party, Shadow Minister for Youth) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This government's record on the environment is similar to that of the West Coast Eagles this season—it's pretty damn poor. Just last week, the South Australian algal bloom was labelled one of the worst recorded harmful algal blooms in the world. Dr Donald Anderson, an international scientist and Director of the US National Office for Harmful Algal Blooms, expressed concern that this bloom has become so large that it may no longer be logistically possible to neutralise it. It's now one of the most harmful algal blooms in the world, covering 4,500 square kilometres of South Australian coastline. It's twice the size of the ACT, it can now be seen from space, and it's devastating. But it could have been avoided if the state and federal Labor governments had taken some action, just some action, when they were first warned—earlier than the 150 days it took their prime minister to go to South Australians when they needed him the most. It's both the Malinauskas and the Albanese governments' inaction and delay that has allowed this environmental disaster to spiral out of control, with all its impacts to the ecosystems of the Gulf St Vincent and Adelaide's beaches.

Australian scientists warned the government over 18 months ago of the impending disaster but were ignored, and funding to monitor this disaster was denied. Five months ago Australian scientists again raised their concerns with this government. Crickets. Tin ears. Since then, marine creatures started washing up dead on South Australia's beaches. To date that death toll has reached 14,000 and is climbing. Local fishing and tourism businesses have gone broke, hitting rock bottom. Only on the eve of parliament returning last month did the minister finally take some notice, scuttling down to South Australia at the last minute to see this catastrophic disaster. The Prime Minister and the environment minister have a lot to answer for—answers that were not given to the good people of South Australia on the scuttle down to the state last week. The Prime Minister secretly jetted over to Kangaroo Island before posting about his visit on X. No media were forewarned—nothing—and when he did finally address the media hours later he delivered absolutely nothing of substance. But that's classic Labor. They are all spin, no substance.

I have visited affected areas on three separate occasions, one of which was with the Leader of the Opposition a week prior to the Prime Minister showing his face in South Australia. Now let's be frank about this harmful algal bloom. It's a natural disaster and it's an absolute disgrace to see the lack of funding and the inaction by this government. The Albanese government can find $600 million for a Rugby League team in Papua New Guinea but it could barely scrape together, at the Prime Minister's press conference, an adequate funding package to immediately support South Australians. That is a slap in the face—to those opposite who are having a giggle—for communities living through an environmental crisis that is devastating ecosystems. If the Prime Minister genuinely cared about this issue, he wouldn't have taken so long to act: remember, 150 days. He would have made himself available to those severely impacted areas of Goolwa and those on the Yorke Peninsula. Labor continues to fail in delivering anything of substance when it comes to the environment. There's simply no accountability and it's simply not good enough. It is too little too late for those coastal communities, families, businesses and fishers, and thousands of dead marine creatures affected by this harmful algal bloom.

Don't forget, the scientists were asking 18 months ago. Those opposite will come in here and try and spruik their environmental credentials, but they have failed. They didn't turn up and when they did it was too little, it was too late, and their credentials are absolutely all washed up. Shame on you, Prime Minister. Shame on you, Murray Watt, the environment minister—Senator Watt—for not being there for South Australians when they absolutely needed you to turn up and show leadership on this disaster for their ecosystems, this disaster for their families and small businesses, this disaster for the tourism businesses on the Yorke Peninsula. And let's not forget that the Gulf of Spencer is just around the corner, Prime Minister, so look out for South Australians.

Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Tom Venning (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak later.

Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sometimes you see a motion from the opposition and you just scratch your head, and that's exactly what happened as I saw this on the Notice Paper a couple of weeks ago. It gives me the opportunity to talk about the government's environmental credentials at a time when the opposition don't even have an environmental policy. They're tearing themselves apart over environmental policy, and here today we've got this motion. This motion lays bare the arrogance and hypocrisy of those opposite who try to call out a government that's actually doing something about the environment when they did nothing to protect it in their nine years in government. As I said, this is all at a time when they're tearing themselves apart over net zero.

Let's be very clear. Australians rejected the Liberals' and Nationals' environmental vandalism at the ballot box not once but twice because they saw a decade of climate denial, division and delay. They axed climate laws. They sabotaged the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. They cut funding to the environment department by 40 per cent. They halved marine parks, ignored Indigenous water commitments and left the Great Barrier Reef on the brink of being listed in danger. That is the coalition's legacy, and it continues. It didn't end at the 2022 election, which you thought it would. It didn't end at the 2025 election, when they were thumped.

Just this weekend, the Queensland Liberals voted to dump net zero as their major environmental policy—gone. That follows on from the Liberals' and Nationals' state divisions across the country—in New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory—all dumping net zero. They can't even agree on that. Sometimes I don't even think they can agree on what day of the week it is, but they can't agree on net zero. They're in here today feigning outrage and saying that we don't have environmental credentials, and we're actually doing something about it. Australians do not trust them on the environment, and that's why they've been rejected at the last two elections.

Since coming to office, our government has overturned nearly a decade of denial and delay and put Australia back on track when it comes to taking action on climate change. The results are clear. We've legislated stronger emissions reduction targets: a 43 per cent cut by 2030 and net zero by 2050. We put those targets into law so no future government can walk them back—

Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party, Shadow Minister for Youth) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Did you meet that target?

Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and we're on track to achieve that target. I'll take on that interjection. We're on track to reach that target because we've unlocked billions in renewable investment. In the year to March 2025, emissions fell by 6.5 million tons, putting Australia 28 per cent below its 2005 levels. Preliminary data for the financial year ending June 2025 shows an even bigger reduction in emissions of 10.6 million tons—that's 29 per cent below 2005 levels—with more than 40 per cent of the electricity in our grid coming from renewable energy, further driving down emissions and helping our environment. That's not spin. That's not fake outrage. That's delivery. It's happening because of the safeguard mechanism, which we reformed, which forces our biggest polluters to cut emissions by nearly five per cent every year; it's happening because we've added over 18 gigawatts of new solar and wind since 2022; and it's happening because of popular policies like our cheaper home battery subsidy, with over 33,000 batteries installed in a matter of weeks adding more storage so that people can use the solar panels on their homes to reduce emissions as well. We've protected an extra 95 million hectares of bush and ocean, we've doubled funding to national parks like Kakadu and Uluru, and we've invested more than $600 million into protected threatened species. We've supported Indigenous rangers with a record $1.3 billion program, doubling their numbers to care for country. But we're not stopping there.

Australians are telling us and people in my electorate are telling me they want us to keep lifting our ambition. In fact, recent polling shows that 44 per cent of voters support stronger 2035 emissions reduction targets of between 65 and 75 per cent. I'll be one of those MPs pushing our government to go further on the environment and not take lessons and lectures from those opposite who did nothing in their near 10 years in power.

Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll remind members from both sides that members deserve to be heard in silence.

Tom Venning (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the shadow minister for the environment—the member for Moncrieff, Angie Bell—in her urgent call for the environment minister to attend this chamber and explain the Albanese government's catastrophic failure in environmental management. To speak of fake outrage, how about someone show up and actually come to the electorate of Grey, where the epicentre of the algal bloom is?

The simple truth is this: the government's environmental credentials are not just in question; they are, as Ms Bell rightly said, completely washed up. Let's begin with what's unfolding right now in South Australia. For over 18 months, eminent scientists were warning of the growing risk of the toxic algal bloom. They sought meetings; they sought engagement; they sought leadership. What they received from the government was silence: no meetings, no action, no leadership.

The consequences of that neglect are being felt across South Australia, but nowhere more severely than in my electorate of Grey. The epicentre of the bloom lies in Gulf St Vincent, and it is now spreading into the Spencer Gulf, home to Port Lincoln, the seafood capital of Australia and the base of the Southern Hemisphere's largest fishing fleet. More than 14,000 marine animals have died. International experts have described the outbreak as one of the world's worst algal blooms. Our fishing and tourism industries are on their knees, and families who have made their living from the sea for generations are now watching hopelessly as their catch disappears before their eyes.

And what was Minister Watt's response? A last-minute dash to South Australia on the eve of parliament sitting—a photo opportunity dressed up as leadership. Just days earlier, he dismissed the crisis as merely a state issue, sending only a departmental official to witness the devastation. Then, last week, we saw the same pattern repeated by our prime minister. He flew into Adelaide for barely an hour and scraped together $6.2 million for South Australians, while at the same time giving $600 million to a PNG rugby team. That is not leadership; that is evasion.

I want to be clear. This disaster is not just about algae; it's about accountability. It is about a government that ignored scientists, ignored fishers, ignored local communities and ignored its own responsibility to act. The human impact is heartbreaking. I have spoken to fishers who have not caught enough fish to make pay for three or four months. They tell me they feel physically sick, not just because of the financial strain but because every day they go out into the sea and are confronted by the sight of dead or dying marine animals—garfish, squid, dolphin, shark, ray. For some species, it is as though they have disappeared entirely from the Gulf. Small family businesses in the marine scale fishery are facing financial ruin. The social and emotional toll is profound. This crisis is not just about ecosystems. It's about people. It's about livelihoods. It's about communities up and down the South Australian coastline who rely on the ocean not just for food but for their future.

The government support to date has been too little, too late. Access to assistance programs have been riddled with restrictive criteria, leaving many fishers unable to qualify. The federal government has refused to declare this disaster a national emergency or natural disaster, which would unlock the scale of funding and resources truly required. This is not an isolated issue. From recycling reform to Indigenous cultural heritage protection, from the environmental protection laws to biodiversity conservation, this government has failed to deliver on every major environmental promise it has made to the Australian people. We've seen slogans, we've heard speeches, but when it comes to substance—nothing

This is why the coalition has fought for a Senate inquiry into the algal bloom. The inquiry has bipartisan support, and it will investigate not just environmental devastation but also the government's inadequate response. But accountability must also come here to this chamber. The environment minister must explain why the government ignored scientists for 18 months. He must explain why it took the death of thousands of marine animals and the collapse of local industries to force any action. He must explain why communities like mine in the electorate of Grey have been abandoned to fend for themselves. Australians deserve better than delay, denial and disaster. They deserve a government that values science, listens to communities and protects both our environment and the livelihoods that depend upon it. The Albanese government promised leadership on the environment. Instead, it has delivered crisis after crisis. Its record is one of broken promises. That is why I support this motion. I call on the Minister for the Environment and Water to come before this House and account for the government's failures. Our communities deserve answers. Our fishers deserve support. Our environment deserves better stewardship than this government has provided.

Matt Gregg (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak against this motion moved by the member for Moncrieff, which appears, really, to be a stew of vague topic references smothered in boilerplate hyperbole and canned indignation. It is quite incredible for this to come from the party that's just looked to ditch net zero and hasn't for 18 years had any kind of cohesive environmental policy which they've managed to coalesce around for more than two minutes.

The recent algal bloom in South Australia is a devastating environmental event; there's no denying that. It's having a massive impact on the South Australian marine environment, businesses and the local community, and the Albanese Labor government has announced $14 million in support for the South Australian government's efforts to combat the effects of this devastating algal bloom and to improve our preparedness for future events. The funding will invest in the scientific research, business assistance and community awareness and support that are needed now, as well as immediate clean-up efforts. We're also investing, in the longer term, in the tools to help improve the ability to forecast climatic events and monitor ocean conditions, including turning a successful trial of a marine heatwave forecast tool into an ongoing service to help governments, industry, decision-makers, researchers and the public better understand ocean temperatures and forecast them accurately.

Labor's environmental record is far from a failure. Since 2022, the Albanese Labor government has passed strong laws to force big polluters to cut emissions so Australia gets to net zero carbon pollution by 2050. This and other actions have reduced Australia's emissions by 29 per cent below 2005 levels. We've also protected—including planned additions—an extra 95 million hectares of ocean and bush, an area the size of Germany, Italy and Norway combined. We've invested $1.3 billion to support the successful Indigenous Rangers Program, including doubling the number of Indigenous rangers, who help manage the feral animals and weeds killing our native species. We've invested over $600 million to better protect our threatened plants and animals and tackle the feral animals and weeds devastating our native species. We've increased recycling capacity by more than 1.5 million tonnes a year, stopping tyres, glass, paper and soft and difficult-to-recycle plastics going to landfill. We've established the world's first nature repair market, making it easier to invest in nature protection. We've lifted our country's emissions targets by half, from 26 per cent to 43 per cent by 2030, and established the target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050, and we've enshrined those targets into the law of the land, sending a message to renewable energy investors around the world that Australia has changed and is open for renewable investment—a stark contrast to what we've seen from the coalition, which seems to engage in self-destruction every time the word 'environment' or 'science' comes up.

Right now, we have this kind of flimflam McFlurry of a motion, feigning concern about the environment at the same time the party has just announced it's ditching net zero. It really hasn't had anything resembling a sensible approach to climate or the environment. We could see the Liberal Party being hijacked by the National Party when it comes to the environment as well. At two elections in a row, the people have overwhelmingly rejected the coalition's approach to environmental policy. The coalition have spent weeks talking about ditching net zero while, at the same time, feigning outrage about the credentials of the Labor Party, which has not only talked about taking action but taken concrete steps over the last three years and which continues in its work towards improving our environment and the sustainability of our sectors. On the Leader of the Opposition's watch as environment minister, the Great Barrier Reef was almost listed as endangered. We've taken steps to protect that environment, among others. If we listened to the coalition and took their path, we wouldn't exactly call that science based.

In the motion, there's criticism about there having been no diary meeting for 18 months, without producing any kind of cause-and-effect argument as to how anything the Albanese government has done has contributed to the algal bloom. It is a horrible event. It is one we need to understand better. We need to make sure that we are doing all we can to protect our local environment. But this is just a very strange approach. When I first read the motion, I thought, 'Oh, the Greens have gone a bit crazy in how they're drafting motions.' But then I was shocked to realise that it's the coalition pretending to care about climate policy.

Well, I guess there's a first for everything, and I am actually comforted by the notion that someone in the LNP cares about the environment and environmental policy. If only that care and concern could be extended to the rest of the party and perhaps used to persuade fellow party members that it's time to act on climate change and improving our environmental policies! I can only hope, from the fact that they have raised their concerns about the environment, that we'll have steadfast supporters for the further actions being taken by the Albanese government over the next three years and we can perhaps be on a joint ticket in our efforts to make sure that we have the best environmental protection laws possible and that we're doing everything we can to address climate change. But right now it just reeks of hypocrisy to see that the party of ditching net zero is talking about the Albanese government's record on the environment. If there's failure on environmental policy, it would definitely be the coalition's, and it's one that has been around for 18 years— (Time expired)

Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The allotted time for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned, and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.