Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The motion that's just passed the House is emblematic of this government's approach to a lack of scrutiny—that same lack of scrutiny that we saw in this House in relation to the Freedom of Information Bill, where the government did not want that debate to be held in this chamber and moved it off to the Federation Chamber. It is the same sort of lack of transparency that this government is becoming renowned for. Of course, I am referring to the fact that the government refuses to debate other bills, like the Crimes Act—

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

Order, the member for Fisher! We're not talking about the general debate. We're on the bill now. You've been given the call about the second reading on the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025, so—

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, I am going to get to the substantive matters, Mr Speaker. I am only a minute and 10 seconds into my speech.

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

Yes, I know, but—

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But it goes to the point that this government continues—

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

Just pause. Resume your seat. I'm just saying: if you're going to give a general debate, make it relevant to the bill. Don't just go and talk about other bills or other topics or other things. Just be nuanced and make it relevant to the bill, not just a general slash and burn on a whole range of topics. Just make your comments relevant to the bill, and you'll be fine and within the standing orders.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Australians, by their very nature, want to protect the environment. I think almost everybody in this place would agree. But what we've seen, particularly over the last 15 to 20 years, is that the current law, the EPBC Act, is deficient in many respects. I was being specifically relevant to these bills before the House, all seven of them. Effectively, what this government is seeking to do is truncate debate on all seven of these bills, because this government wants to shut down debate. It doesn't want to see its legislative agenda being scrutinised a moment longer than it possibly has to, and that's why this government continues to play procedural games and to shut the opposition down at the first opportunity, despite them consistently having opposed that sort of stuff when they were in opposition.

The coalition government introduced legislation when the current leader of the opposition was the Minister for the Environment. She commissioned Professor Graeme Samuel to undertake a review of the EPBC Act. The coalition government introduced legislation to undertake reforms, including streamlining pathways, but that was blocked by Labor at the time. But, true to form, it's now putting this sort of stuff back into this bill.

When Minister Plibersek was the environment minister, she tried to introduce reforms in the last parliament. However, they were too left wing for Labor, which is why the Western Australian premier stepped in and contacted the Prime Minister. Just like that, overnight, the bills were stopped.

Labor have promised at two elections to deliver an environmental protection agency. After four years, they've not been able to deliver on that promise. Labor have now introduced proposed reforms in the chamber. However, in trying to ram them through, the bills have already been sent to a Senate inquiry, reporting back on 24 March 2026. I know that the people in the gallery right now, and anybody who might be watching or listening to this transmission, would be wondering: 'Hang on a minute. These bills, all seven of them, have been referred to a Senate inquiry. Why are we talking about them now on the floor of the House of Representatives?' And that would be a pretty reasonable question to ask because the whole idea of the Senate inquiry is to look in detail at the merits of these bills, specifically drilling down into detail on their provisions.

Yet here we are today, in early November. The Senate inquiry into the bill is not due to come back until 24 March 2026. How can it be that this chamber can have a meaningful debate without the scrutiny of these bills? How can that be? If anybody can explain that to me, I'm all ears. But this is emblematic of the way that this government operates—to ram legislation through at any cost.

And we've seen that. We've seen it, just in the last couple of weeks, in the national security legislation that I've had the carriage of. Ram it through; don't worry about it. The fact that there is a Senate inquiry on foot that hasn't even released a report? Don't worry about that; let's just get the bill through. That is what Australians are dealing with—an arrogant government with a supermajority. That's what happens when a government gets a supermajority and believes that it is beyond reproach and beyond being accountable to the Australian people. The coalition respects the outcome of the election, but what we are seeing is that this government is, increasingly, day in and day out, ramming through legislation in this place without proper scrutiny and without giving the coalition the opportunity to be heard and to properly scrutinise what is, in effect, 1,500 pages of legislation and explanatory memoranda. This bill was alerted to the coalition last Thursday, not nine years ago. This bill was provided to the coalition last Thursday. It's 1,500 pages. Just totally disregard the fact that there is a Senate inquiry on foot at the moment. The government says: 'Let's just ram this through. To hell with the opposition. To hell with the Australian people.'

The minister is looking to do a deal with either the coalition or the Greens in relation to these bills by calling back the bills from the Senate inquiry process to pass the legislation by the end of this year. They want this through the parliament by the end of this year. In their current form, the bills do not provide an improvement for business, and the coalition cannot support them as is. The Business Council of Australia, as the key public commentator to date, has been clear. And they've said that, without significant changes to this bill, we risk embedding a system that's even slower, more complex and lacking in the clarity and certainty needed for investment. So third-party stakeholders are saying that these bills are problematic. They're saying that these bills will create a whole new heap of bureaucracy which is even worse than what we've currently got.

I want to just stop and pause for a moment, because I want to tell a salient story about a road project in my electorate—in Caloundra, in the seat of Fisher. This is a project that was going to be—emphasis on 'going to be'—funded by all three tiers of government. It wasn't a big road project, like some of the projects that we get involved with at a federal level. It was a relatively modest project. If I remember correctly, it was certainly under $100 million, which, for a road project, is a modest project from the federal perspective, at least. When we were in government, we committed funds for this road project. It wasn't a lot of money. If I remember correctly, it was about $7 million. The rest was going to be paid for by the Queensland state government and the local government. Now, everything was going along quite well until we lost the election in 2022, and then the infrastructure minister decided to do her infrastructure review. Guess what? She cut the funding for this road project, which would have provided an alternative access into Caloundra, which was greatly needed by the people of the Sunshine Coast because that area around Caloundra, around the corner of Caloundra Road and Mickleham Way, is a car park at the best of times.

This project would have given an alternative road into Caloundra. It would have been great. Unfortunately, the infrastructure minister pulled the $7 million from federal funding, which meant that the state and local governments had to foot the bill for the balance. And they did. They do. That's what they're going to do. But, unfortunately, some genius in the Sunshine Coast Council referred the project to the federal environment minister under the EPBC Act. This was about two or three years ago now. And that's where it's gone to die. That project is now stalled under the current EPBC Act; it has literally stalled within the federal department of the environment.

It's interesting to hear the Business Council of Australia say these bills will create a legislative environment which will be even worse than that which we currently have. At home, it's five minutes to four—it's called 'No daylight savings', for those of you who don't know; Queensland doesn't have daylight savings, so it's five minutes to four back home. There'll be mums and dads picking up kids from school, and they will be in gridlocked traffic on Caloundra Road and Nicklin Way. My message to them is: if you think things are bad now under the current EPBC laws, with the traffic on the Sunshine Coast, the Business Council of Australia is saying that if these bills are passed things are only going to get worse. The times for approvals are only going to get worse.

As the Sunshine Coast moves to 2032, being one of the major host cities of the 2032 Olympic Games, the Sunshine Coast is grinding to a halt because of the amount of people who are moving there. And Sunshine Coast locals will have this Labor government to blame because of their incessant desire to drag things down with more red and green tape. And for what? What will be the appreciable benefits?

The coalition says there will need to be substantial amendments in relation to these bills. The deep concern is that the bills are more pro-green than pro-industry. There is enough here for Labor to do a deal with the Greens, and that should worry every Australian. These bills will put an unacceptable handbrake on the Australian economy; the government's pretty good at doing that already, but these bills will only amplify the problem we are currently experiencing.

Tom French (Moore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in strong support of the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 and the six associated bills. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix laws that are failing the environment, our economy and our communities. These bills are about balance and progress—protecting the natural heritage that defines us as Australians while enabling the clean energy industries, homes and infrastructure our nation desperately needs. The truth is simple: the environment and the economy are not at odds. If we get this right, they grow together—cleaner energy, stronger regions, more jobs and a healthier planet.

Labor has always been the party of the environment—as the member for Bennelong said, from saving the Franklin River and protecting the Daintree and Kakadu to building the world's largest network of marine parks and leading the national effort to tackle climate change. Today, Labor is leading once again, modernising our environmental laws to meet the urgency of the climate crisis and seize the opportunities of the clean energy transition.

The current Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act is not delivering. Professor Graeme Samuel's independent review said it plainly: our laws are failing the environment, business and the community. Five years after that review was handed to the then environment minister, now the Leader of the Opposition, the environment is still in decline and major projects still take too long to get approval. That's why these reforms matter. They're about ensuring our environmental protections actually protect and our approval system actually works.

These bills deliver on the three pillars recommended by the Samuel review: stronger environmental protection and restoration; more efficient and robust project assessments; and greater accountability and transparency in decision-making. It's a balanced, pragmatic package—better for business, better for the environment and better for the Australian people. We can't build a future made in Australia on a foundation of environmental decline. Our unique species and landscapes, from Ningaloo to the Great Barrier Reef, are irreplaceable.

This bill introduces national environmental standards, legally enforceable benchmarks setting out in plain language what must be protected and what cannot be lost. Those standards will cover matters of national environmental significance, offsets, First Nations engagement and data transparency, providing clarity for investors and certainty for communities. A key safeguard is the 'no regression' clause. Future governments cannot weaken these standards without improving environmental outcomes. That's an enduring legacy. This bill also defines unacceptable impacts, creating clear, up-front criteria for what simply cannot be approved, because some things, once destroyed, are gone forever.

Protection statements will ensure that decision-makers know exactly what they must consider when assessing risk to threatened species and ecological communities, cutting ambiguity and strengthening protection. For those who break the rules, penalties will be tougher, linking fines to the value of any illegal gain so no-one can treat environmental harm as just another cost of doing business. If you damage our shared natural heritage, you will pay for it properly. Most importantly, this bill replaces the weak notion of 'no net loss' with a higher bar: net gain. Every approved project must leave the environment better than before. That's a fundamental shift from merely avoiding damage to actively delivering restoration.

Through the new restoration contributions network, proponents can either deliver their own offsets or contribute to a national restoration fund that supports large-scale strategic recovery—less piecemeal rehabilitation and more genuine renewal. When we restore landscapes, we restore confidence. If we want to hit 82 per cent renewable electricity by 2030, we need environmental laws that are strong and streamlined. Right now, too many renewable and critical minerals projects are stuck in duplication between Commonwealth and state systems. This bill fixes that, reducing duplication by accrediting state and territory systems that meet our new national standards and maintaining protection while cutting red tape.

A new streamlined assessment pathway will fast-track quality proposals, reducing average assessment timeframes from 70 days to as little as 50 and saving the economy up to $7 billion a year, because time is money and delay is costing jobs, investment and progress towards our renewable targets. We'll also make bioregional planning a cornerstone of the system, mapping regions to identify both development zones and conservation zones. Projects in development zones can proceed with certainty about what's required. Those in conservation zones face a clear no. That gives industry clarity, gives communities confidence and gives ecosystems breathing space. Strategic assessments will complement this approach, allowing governments and proponents to plan across whole landscapes rather than project by project. This is smarter regulation—stronger at the environmental level and simpler at the project level.

The bill also strengthens the National Interest Framework, creating a transparent, limited mechanism if the project is of demonstrable national interest, such as emergency infrastructure or essential renewable transmission, to proceed with published reasons and conditions. It also mandates emissions disclosure. Proponents must report their scope 1 and scope 2 emissions and show how they'll manage them, aligning environmental approvals with the safeguard mechanism and national climate goals. That means every major project must be part of the decarbonisation story, not an obstacle to it. Australia is in the midst of an energy transformation unlike anything since the industrial age. The global shift to renewables is not a choice between the environment and prosperity; it is prosperity.

As of this month, our government has approved 111 renewable energy projects, generating enough electricity to power more than 13 million homes; 69 are already producing clean power, 15 provide grid-scale storage and 29 more, including four major hydrogen hubs, are building the backbone of a renewable energy superpower. In October, half of all electricity in the national grid came from renewable sources, the highest monthly share on record. Coal generation has fallen to 46 per cent, and renewable output is up by around 30 per cent since Labor came to government. That's progress, powered by the Capacity Investment Scheme, Rewiring the Nation, and the Cheaper Home Batteries Program.

But, to keep that momentum, we need planning laws that move as quickly as our ambition. If we don't pass these reforms we'll slow down the renewable rollout, the transmission lines, windfarms and community batteries already cutting across regional Australia. This bill clears the path, with faster approvals, better coordination and stronger investor confidence to build here in Australia. It replaces an outdated system that too often said, 'No, because it's hard' with one that says, 'Yes, if it's responsible.' That distinction matters, because the climate crisis doesn't wait for paperwork. We need transmission lines that connect regions, solar farms that power industry, and wind and battery projects that stabilise the grid.

The world is moving fast. Investors are voting with their capital. Communities are demanding action. Labor's reforms make sure Australia can lead, delivering renewable jobs, regional development and secure, affordable power to households and businesses. This bill gives the renewables sector the certainty it's been asking for: clear standards, faster time lines and integrity in decision-making. That's how we build confidence and momentum in the clean energy transition. Strong laws work only if Australians trust them.

That's why this bill delivers the third pillar: accountability and transparency. It establishes the National Environmental Protection Agency, our first truly independent national environmental regulator. The EPA will consolidate regulatory functions, ensure compliance and enforcement, and have the power to issue environmental protection orders when harm is imminent. For the first time, Australia will have an independent watchdog to hold rule breakers to account and restore public confidence. The EPA won't duplicate state agencies; it will complement them, setting consistent national standards and ensuring that accredited processes live up to them. Alongside it, we'll establish Environment Information Australia, a statutory body to improve the quality and accessibility of environmental data, because we can't manage what we don't measure. High-quality data means better decisions for government, businesses and communities alike. It means transparent, state-of-the-environment reporting and an end to the data gaps that have undermined trust. Together, the EPA and EIA will make our environmental system not only stronger but smarter.

The bill also deepens First Nations involvement in decision-making, embedding the Indigenous Advisory Committee at the heart of environmental governance. It requires consultation with First Nations peoples in developing standards and ensures that cultural knowledge informs species listing and conservation planning, because caring for country has always been about partnership—learning from the world's oldest continuous culture to protect Australia's oldest living landscapes.

These reforms also provide certainty for industry, reducing duplication, speeding up approvals and creating a level playing field that rewards responsible operators. When the rules are clear and consistent, investment follows. That means more renewable projects, more local manufacturing and more jobs, particularly in regional Australia. It means faster delivery of housing and infrastructure projects that communities desperately need. And it means that businesses can plan with confidence, knowing that their proposals will be assessed on transparent criteria, not politics or delay.

Environmental groups support this reform, because it strengthens protection. Industry supports it, because it streamlines approvals. That's the definition of balance, and it's exactly what this parliament should deliver. We've talked about reform for a decade. We've had review after review, report after report, while our natural environment keeps declining and the approvals pipeline keeps clogging. Every day we delay, another threatened species edges closer to extinction and another renewable project that could lower bills and emissions sits waiting. The Samuel review laid out the blueprint. This bill delivers it.

Now the choice belongs to this parliament: will we act in the national interest or let another five years pass while our laws fail both nature and the economy? I say to the opposition: you were handed the Samuel review five years ago and did nothing. Now is your chance to fix what you broke. Will you really vote against the faster approvals that industry has been calling for and against a system that cuts red tape and boosts productivity? And, to the Greens, will you oppose stronger standards, tougher penalties and the new EPA you've long demanded just to make a political point? Australians are tired of ideological gridlock. They want progress, not pointscoring. They want us to get on with it. Our door is open to anyone from any party who wants to protect the environment and deliver the projects Australia needs.

These reforms will unlock billions in clean energy investment, much of it flowing into regional communities. They fast-track transmission projects under Rewiring the Nation, create skilled jobs for electricians, engineers and apprentices, and open new opportunities for regional manufacturing through Future Made in Australia. They'll ensure environmental approvals support housing construction and renewable supply chains, the twin foundations of sustainable growth. They'll restore confidence in a system that too often divided Australians between environmental protection and economic development. In truth, those goals were never in conflict. Healthy landscapes sustain agriculture, tourism and regional economies. Clean energy underpins competitiveness and cost-of-living relief. This bill unites these priorities, protecting what makes Australia special while powering what makes Australia strong.

These reforms are about responsibility to future generations and the country we love. My electorate, like many others, is home to people who want practical action on climate and the environment, not slogans. They want to know that the wind farms on our horizon, the solar panels on our roofs and the nature reserves in our suburbs all form part of a coherent national plan. They want a government that can walk and chew gum, protecting the bush and building the future at the same time. That's what this bill does. It brings together environmental integrity, economic growth and climate responsibility into one clear framework. It restores trust that environmental decisions will be made on evidence, not ideology, and ensures that we decarbonise and also regenerate.

Australia's environment is one of our greatest national assets. It deserves laws that are modern, effective and capable of meeting the challenges this century. This bill strengthens protections, streamlines approvals and ensures accountability, all while accelerating the clean energy transformation. We can get this done to deliver on what the Australian people sent us here to do. Every day we delay, our environment degrades further, and every day we delay is one we could be building the renewable energy and housing our future demands. I commend the bill to the House.

Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for 'Goldsteen'.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'Goldstine'. As the member for Goldstein, every time we mention the word 'Goldstein', we're honouring the legacy of the suffragette Vida Goldstein, and that's the basis on which I always correct members. When you think about Australian political history, you have a limited number of Australian political figures who are honoured by the name of electorates, and that includes one of Australia's greatest suffragettes. Apart from when I was doing research for my first speech, where I found an article where she specifically explained how to pronounce her name, and in both of the books that have been published in recent years, You Daughters of Freedom and Vida, where it was explicitly explained how to pronounce her name correctly, it's important to get right.

Australians simply want to make sure we have stewardship of our natural environment. They want a sense of protection and balance to conserve the environment for future generations while building the jobs and economic opportunity for Australians to be able to go on and live successful lives. We are blessed with bounty. We are blessed with opportunity. It's our responsibility to harness that in a way that continues to grow out the economic potential for our nation and for all. To do so requires having a sense of balance in our laws so that we seek to do it in a way that is measured and proportionate and protects our environment, powers our country and propels us forward to be part of contributing to a global economy and to provide the affluence and improvement in standards of living that Australians reasonably expect to enjoy. Lessons of history show that there is nothing that will corrode the health and wellbeing of the environment more than when people have declining standards of living. When they do, particularly in situations of poverty, they turn to the environment as the point at which they try to improve them. Stewardship is understanding that prosperity and environmental conservation can be in opposition, or they can be intrinsically linked. Good nations design laws that intrinsically link the potential of economic opportunity with stewardship so that we're able to hand down to future generations a better environment than we inherited ourselves.

There is one problem with our current environmental framework—multiple problems, in fact. The current laws are slow, cumbersome and expensive. When I say they're expensive, it's not because they cost businesses money. Businesses obviously have an obligation to spend the money necessary to preserve and protect our environment. They're slow and expensive because they delay the potential for investment in our environment in order to harness its bounty and its potential. And it's not just in dollars; it's also in time. It can take decades for mining projects, which we desperately need to start developing now, to come to the table. We have duplicative and overly cumbersome regulation which often replicates activities of state and federal governments for largely little benefit. And, of course, it's slow, and there are huge costs involved. What we end up having is a huge deadweight loss to our economy. It makes us less competitive in the global market and we all pay the price through declining living standards because we're not getting the investment capital we need in an efficient way to grow the future of our economy. So there are plenty of reasons to reform the EPBC Act. That's not in question. We just want it to be done in a balanced and measured way.

One of the problems we've got right now is that the government is seeking to ram legislation through and bully the parliament into compliance. As I've said so many times before, the Prime Minister has come back from his visits overseas and wants to treat this parliament like it is the National People's Congress, where nobody dare ask questions. In fact, he shut down question time when I got up to ask a question in question time today—perhaps legitimately, because it went to some very difficult and uncomfortable truths at the dark heart of this Labor government, but we'll leave that to the side. A reality we have is that critical minerals projects, which are desperately needed, could now be 15 to 20 years away simply because this government hasn't got the legislative framework right. The same is true with lots of other mining projects, which we use to grow the bounty and wealth of our nation so that we can afford things like our health system and our education system and so that Australians can get jobs so they can afford to buy their own home and save for their retirement. It's enormously important.

In addition, we have environmental laws which are weaponised by people who have no interest in advancing environmental causes. They seek to corrode and attack economic progress. I'm reminded of the recent example of the Environmental Defenders Office. In the Senate there's recently been an inquiry looking at different components of climate misinformation and disinformation. We can debate the relative merits of that inquiry, but I seek not to indulge in that in the context of this legislation. But it never ceases to amaze me that the Greens called for an inquiry into climate misinformation and disinformation, when the most obvious example we have had in this nation's history—and the EPBC Act has been an enabler of this—is the Environmental Defenders Office taking Santos to court. They literally made up Indigenous traditions that didn't exist—even local Indigenous people acknowledged they didn't exist—as a basis to weaponise and shut down gas projects. It is extraordinary that the law would enable them to deceive the public, to lie to the public through a government-funded entity, to try and stop a project on not dubious but deceptive grounds, harming both Indigenous communities and the economic progress of the nation. I think that one case alone has demonstrated that the EPBC Act needs some pretty significant reform, but it has to be done from a position of integrity, trust and balance.

It is simply impossible for any member at this point, with the way the government is trying to bully and ram this legislation through the parliament, to have actually gone through it and done the proper work necessary to pass it. We can have our debates about what should be included or not included—I fully respect the fact there will be a diversity of views across the crossbenches, the members of government and the opposition. But with what they essentially tabled in the last week, we now have 1,500 pages of legislation with the explanatory memorandum. How on earth is anybody supposed to understand what the practical consequences are for small businesses, the flow-on consequences for large projects and mining? I see the member to my left—what about the impact it's going to have on farmers and her community? How is she supposed to be able to have that conversation and do a proper consultation? This is what this parliament is being asked to vote on.

Meanwhile, we have a process in the Senate which is designed to actually review the laws and give the Australian people—you know them, the people we're supposed to be representing—some input into the process and for them to highlight some of the deficiencies in these laws, which is quite important. I heard the member for Moore before, celebrating the legislation, saying how important it was and how we've just got to smash it through, but seeming completely indifferent to the fact that we need to have a conversation with the Australian people about the consequences. No matter how arrogant a government may be at any given time, every government makes mistakes—in legislative drafting, in unintended consequences, and where they design laws which have a flow-on effect that was not fully appreciated.

I don't think for one second that when the original Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act was designed anybody thought, 'I know what's going to happen; the Environmental Defender's Office, which the current Albanese government funds, is going to use that act to take action against a gas project, using a dishonest, deceptive and lying campaign on the basis of a mythical, invented, Aboriginal songlines campaign, and use that to take it all the way up to the Federal Court.' I don't think anybody thought that. It's kind of why you have to review legislation and go through the proper process.

There will be a record about how everybody voted on this bill, but make no mistake: to vote for 1,500 pages of legislation—which I'm willing to bet to a tee that any single member on the government benches has not read, and certainly has not consulted their community. They certainly don't understand the consequences outside of the three-page talking points, no doubt issued by the whip. There has to be a sobriety with this legislation and what it is we need to do. So when the Albanese government continues to treat this House of Representatives and this parliament like the National People's Congress, and thinks we're all just a bunch of applauding eunuchs rather than standing up, speaking out, scrutinising legislation, asking questions, challenging legislation and debating legislation, we know we have a problem.

How about we have this Senate inquiry? How about we have input from the Australian people? How about we have input from groups like the Business Council, as some members have raised? How about we have input from farmers groups? How about we have input from industry associations? How about we have input from environmental groups too? Well-designed laws will involve consultation. Just because people have input, doesn't mean we're guaranteed to listen to it—or include it, I should say more correctly—but people should be able to have a say in their democracy. How about we have a bit of input in the process?

But we haven't seen that. Instead, what we've seen is a bullying approach by this government towards this House of Representatives. Some of us aren't trained eunuchs. Some of us aren't just going to applaud the Prime Minister along. Some of us are going to stand up and speak out about it, because there are important issues that are on the table. From looking at the ministerial discretion that the minister wants in this legislation—and it's pretty wide ministerial discretion, which is raising concerns across the chamber about what the minister will be empowered to do and what the minister will not be empowered to do—to the capacity for this whole process to duplicate what happens in state as well as federal regulation. Instead of streamlining and speeding up the process of environmental regulation, it could have the reverse effect, where it actually increases the burden, the costs and the compliance. Remember, this isn't for some sort of mystical benefit, except for people whose sole purpose is to be paid to process paperwork.

Then, of course, there are other important issues, like the extent of offset arrangements that have been established under the legislation to make sure that we conserve the environment, but in a way that encourages and incentivises project development, because in the end that's what we should want as a country. It doesn't really matter how we design the law; we have to make sure that we're stewarding the environment to a better future, but it has to be through acknowledging that we have to manage our challenges for the environment as well.

Those groups haven't had their say. So far, they're saying this legislation's a dud. They're saying it's a dud because it actually makes the problems worse, and stakeholders who have had the chance to speak up in the public square are calling out the Albanese government for its ramrod approach.

The question is why members of the government feel so fixated on and obsessed with wanting to override rational conversation in this legislation. You can see it, going back to question time, where all the ministers get up and praise their Prime Minister. He's obviously got a dirt file that has something on all of them, because there's no other basis that anybody would get up and be so sycophantic. When it comes down to it, the reality is that backbenchers, particularly, have a responsibility to ask basic questions of ministers and, of course, of the legislation they put forward.

My recommendations to the minister are to fix the laws, listen to the public, take input and views, and allow a reasonable, proportionate amount of time for 1,500 pages of legislation and explanatory memoranda to be properly considered. If you don't, and if the minister gets this wrong, the consequences for the environment could be profound, the consequences for economic development for Australia could be profound and the consequences for Indigenous communities could be profound. But, at the moment, all those calls are falling on deaf ears.

That is another emblematic example of the arrogance of the Albanese government and how it has slowly been manifesting since about 3 May, where you see the Prime Minister fly in, as obliged, if he occasionally has to appear before the parliament, to answer at least to the people who are elected by the Australian people. He certainly does it very dismissively, particularly when it's not on topics he likes. More importantly, he gets up with his boastfulness and arrogance and throws barbs and sharp lines, which, I've no doubt, make him feel chipper and good in the process, but that isn't necessarily improving the governance of this nation.

We all face choices. The choice before the parliament right now is: Do we pass this legislation, or do we review it and improve it? Do we make sure that we get the balance right? Do we make sure that we create the legislation this country so desperately needs, so that environmental regulation can steward the environment, and empower the economy and propel it forward to the future? Or do we continue to accept the arrogance and indulgence of this government and vote for legislation, ram it through, without any concern for the consequences of its impact—which could very much lead to disastrous consequences for the people of Australia?

Trish Cook (Bullwinkel, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll just take a moment to get over that, before I go into my speech, because I'm just so shocked by the previous speaker's comments. I'd like to quote from Graeme Samuel, when he was asked recently about this review—oh, you're not going to listen to this? Goodbye! Maybe later—because he says: 'I can't understand why there's opposition from the coalition. It doesn't make sense, particularly as the then minister Sussan Ley embraced the report. She knew what was in it. Now, what minister Watt'—the quote goes on—'has produced is exactly what the report recommended. It's all there. I've been through and I've done a comparison between my report and the legislation and the environmental standards.' So it shocks me to hear the opposition speaking in such a tone and losing sight of the bigger picture.

The bigger picture is the environment, and I rise today to speak strongly in support of this historic reform to Australia's environmental laws. This is a great day! It's a great day for me, it's a great day for Labor government and it's a great day for hope for the environment. Here's a quote from Prime Minister Bob Hawke. It reads:

When the earth is spoiled, humanity and all living things are diminished. We have taken too much from the earth and given back too little. And it's time to say enough is enough.

My commitment to protecting our environment wasn't forged here in the halls of Canberra. It was forged at my home in the electorate of Bullwinkel, standing side by side with my community. It was forged walking through the degraded banks on the Darlington wetlands, championing the local volunteer groups who are rehabilitating this precious ecosystem. It was forged while kneeling in the soil of the Darlington Community Garden—another environmental project which I was proud to help establish—watching my community come together to build something sustainable, local and green.

My commitment was also tangible in the restoration of the Friends of the Native Triangle group to continue the environmental protection legacy and rehabilitate local grounds. Those local projects reinforced a fundamental lesson for me: a community's health, its ecosystem and the environment's health are inextricably linked. It is our duty to be good custodians of the environment that we all rely on, as has been done by First Nations peoples for millennia. We are unable to build a prosperous future for our children if we do not protect the air they breathe, the water they drink and the natural world that sustains us all.

I care for my community and I care for our environment. My own electorate of Bullwinkel is a truly beautiful electorate, filled with bushland and walking trails that trek beside the Mundaring weir, which is a protected drinking water source for Perth and the Goldfields region. It's filled with Australian natives, including fauna like the black cockatoos, which all need our protection. I'm proud to be part of the Labor Party that is doing just that.

This is why I'm so proud to be a member of this Labor government. When it comes to hard work, like the nation-building work of environmental reform, it's always Labor that delivers. Here's a little bit of history: Labor is the party that has delivered in every single major environmental reform in Australia's history. It was Labor that saved the Franklin. It was Labor that protected the Daintree and Kakadu. It was Labor that built Landcare, which is now an institution that is copied across the world. It was Labor that built the largest network of marine parks on this planet. And it is this Albanese Labor government that is finally, meaningfully, and ambitiously addressing the existential threat of climate change. These bills continue that legacy of environmental responsibility.

There is a clear and widely accepted need for this reform, which is why the opposition leader commissioned the report five years ago. For a decade, the EPBC Act has been failing. We know this for a fact because that 2020 independent review, led by Professor Graeme Samuel AC and commissioned by the now opposition leader, delivered a comprehensive and scathing report. The Samuel review found that the current EPBC Act is not delivering for the environment—which we all know—and neither is it delivering for business or for the community. It is slow. It is cumbersome. It is ineffective. And our environment is paying the price. The opposition leader was handed that report five years ago and, for all those five years, it sat on the shelf. Faced with a critical and urgent challenge, the coalition did nothing for the environment.

Well, we're not walking away. The Labor government tried last year with the nature-positive laws, and now we're doing the job this year. This bill delivers on the recommendations of the Samuel review. Our approach is balanced. It's pragmatic. And it aligns perfectly with the three pillars of reform that Professor Samuel recommended: firstly, stronger environmental protection and restoration; secondly, more efficient and more robust project assessments; and thirdly, greater accountability and transparency in decision-making.

This is about getting the balance right. It's about delivering laws that are better for the environment and better for business. This means stronger environmental protections to protect and restore our precious natural habitats. Together with our action on climate change, such as the safeguard mechanism, this means easier processes and faster decisions that are required for building homes, renewable energy infrastructure and critical minerals projects—all things our nation needs for our future.

As of 31 October, this government has approved 111 renewable energy projects, producing enough electricity to power more than 13 million homes. Under this government, renewable energy generation has reached new records. It's gone up in volume by around 30 per cent since we came to government. In October around half of all electricity in the national grid came from renewable sources—the highest monthly rate on record. Coal generation is down to only 46 per cent. Our plan is working. We need these environmental reforms to get quicker decisions so that we can deliver the energy transition faster, and that's what Australians voted for.

What do these reforms do? First, they establish a national environmental protection agency, the EPA. The EPA will be a strong, independent regulator responsible for education, compliance and enforcement, with powers independent of the minister. Second, we are inserting a new ministerial power to make national environmental standards. This was the central recommendation of the Samuel review. These standards will finally set clear, enforceable expectations for proponents and decision-makers. Third, we are fixing the broken offsets framework. We are moving from 'no net loss' to 'net gain' for the environment. Fourth, for the first time these amendments will define what we consider to be unacceptable impacts for each protected matter—clear no-go zones to prevent irreversible loss unless a project is proven to be in the national interest. Fifth, we're introducing new emissions disclosure requirements in line with the Samuel review. It's not a climate trigger. We have that covered by the safeguard mechanism, but we will require major project proponents to disclose their scope 1 and scope 2 emissions and their plans to reduce them, consistent with government policy. Sixth, we will codify the involvement of First Nations peoples in environmental governance, creating new statutory advisory functions for the Indigenous Advisory Committee. Seventh, we are streamlining access pathways, cutting green tape by rationalising three existing pathways into one. Eighth, we are reducing duplication by fixing the inflexible and unresponsive bilateral agreements with states and territories, ensuring they can deliver assessments and approvals if they meet our new national environmental standards. Ninth, we are delivering proper landscape-scale approaches through bioregional planning. By doing the upfront work to map areas, we can give certainty to industry about where development can and can't occur, while protecting areas of high environmental value.

This isn't trivial. Analysis shows that these efficiencies will deliver annual savings of at least half a billion dollars—and potentially as much as $7 billion—to the national economy. This legislation is not a tug of war between the environment and the economy. The coalition and the Greens may try to assert that, but it's not true. This reform delivers a balanced package. It delivers more efficient and robust project decisions, meaning more renewable projects can be decided on more quickly, helping with energy costs and lowering emissions. At the same time, it delivers stronger environmental protection and restoration laws.

The need for this change is urgent. Our environment cannot wait any longer, and neither can our economy. The message from environmental groups is also very clear. The three biggest environmental groups have welcomed the confirmation from the Minister for the Environment and Water, Murray Watt, that these amendments will improve the country's national environment laws. They're also happy about the inclusion of significant increases in fines and new enforcement powers. The Australian Conservation Foundation, Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund want the new EPA. They want environmental protection orders which will help stop potential offenders in their tracks and stop the excuses for not acting on their complaints. They support it, business supports it and the roundtable industries support it, and they want parliament to get on with this job.

Where are we now? The nature-positive laws got stuck in the Senate for six months. The Liberals wouldn't pass them; they said they went too far. The Greens wouldn't pass them; they said they didn't go far enough. We need to get this done. They have had plenty of time to digest the Samuel review, on which these bills are based; the opposition leader was in support of that review five years ago. Quite frankly, Australians are demanding environmental reform.

To the Greens: please do not let perfection get in the way of progress. Nothing has happened for the environment for some time. The EPBC Act is over 20 years old. We need to get on with this job. These reforms are pragmatic. They are strong. They are balanced. They deliver for the environment, they deliver for the economy, they deliver for community groups such as the ones I belong to in Bullwinkel and they deliver for the boardrooms in the city. Every day we delay is a day our environment is degrading further. I commend these bills to the House.

Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 and the six accompanying bills are part of a long-awaited package of reforms to fix our deeply flawed environmental laws. I want to talk about how we got here, the good parts of the bills and the most concerning loopholes that could undermine the bills' effectiveness.

Our environmental protection laws were written last century. Everyone agrees they are not fit for purpose. It's rare to find agreement in this building, but on this matter there is consensus. Our environmental laws do not protect nature and do not work for business. More than 48 per cent of the continent is now degraded, and more than 70 per cent of our most diverse regions are devoid of native vegetation.

Environmental protection is one of the top three issues constituents contact me about, with thousands of constituents writing to me in the last three years, concerned that the places they love are not being adequately protected. At the same time the timelines for development have blown out, in large part because of the duplication and inefficiencies in our environmental laws.

To meet the challenges our country faces today—climate change, cost of living and housing—we need to be able to build, and build quickly. We need renewable energy to reduce our emissions and bring down the cost of electricity. We need more houses for Australians to call home. Yet we're consistently underdelivering. In the last quarter, zero large-scale projects reached financial close. Nationally, we continue to underdeliver on housing targets. This is why EPBC Act reform is essential. With our natural world and ecosystem degrading and delays holding up vital developments, we need a change.

Despite the importance and complexity of this issue, the government dropped 1,500 pages of legislation on us on Thursday for debate this week. It's now Tuesday. This makes a mockery of the role of the House of Representatives, which is to deliberate on legislation and hold the government of the day to account. Despite this, I have done my best to review the legislation, speak to a wide range of experts, identify what's good and not so good in the legislation and propose and draft amendments. The Senate is due to report back in March. While these reforms are urgent, I urge the government to wait for the Senate inquiry. We've been waiting for these reforms for 25 years. It's worth waiting a couple more months to get this right.

There are some positive changes in this reform package for both business and the environment. For businesses, assessment pathways will be streamlined, with three different processes replaced by a single pathway. This will mean that businesses are spending less time and money on navigating the assessment processes and waiting for an answer. We'll have bioregional plans with 'go' and 'no go' zones. Not only does this more holistically protect nature; it also provides greater certainty and streamlined assessment processes for businesses.

And there are some wins for nature. For the first time, unacceptable impacts have been defined. If the damage is bad enough, a project should not be able to go ahead. That's a positive step. And we'll have a clear, legislated mitigation hierarchy for the first time. This means that project proponents have to try to avoid negative impacts and then minimise the unavoidable impacts, and only then can they go to restore or offset the residual impacts. Projects can't just jump straight to offsets. When they do go to offsets, proponents need to show a net gain for the environment. So the overall impact must be better for nature, not just slow the decline.

These are all good changes. But there are some very large loopholes that could undermine these benefits. The two I'm focusing on are the integrity of offsets and the national interest exemptions. I'm very open about how to deal with these problems, but they have to be addressed. On offsets, if a project proponent wants to use offsets, where they've tried to avoid or minimise the damage but there's a residual impact, there are two ways they can approach this. They can invest in an offset project directly, or they can pay money into an offsets fund managed by the Restoration Contributions Holder. The intention is that this offsets fund is used to purchase offsets to compensate for the damage caused by the proponents.

The EPBC reforms intend to include some good standards for direct offset projects, including requirements that offsets are like for like, additional, and ready to deliver compensation before the damage occurs. But it appears that these standards won't apply for projects funded through the offsets fund. This raises questions about how we ensure that this offsets fund delivers for nature. Funds like this have not worked in the past. We've seen funds in New South Wales, Queensland and the Pilbara that have failed to deliver real restoration of the environment.

But why does this happen? It's not about idea and principle. You make it easier for businesses to compensate for their environmental damage by paying into a government fund that can then use its fund—and, hopefully, its expertise in conservation—to strategically and more effectively invest in environmental offsets. But in practice they just don't seem to work. Developers damage the environment and pay into the fund, but the funds always seem to underdeliver on offset projects. This leads to a situation where developers effectively pay to destroy. They pass on their liability to the offsets fund, which then is unable to find suitable offsets. At the end of the day, it's nature that bears the cost. Globally, funds like these are increasingly considered inappropriate to justify the destruction of intact native ecosystems like we have in Australia.

I'll be proposing amendments to tighten up the use of this fund. If we consider the comparable funds in New South Wales, Queensland, the Pilbara and overseas, there are a number of consistent lessons to be learned. Firstly, we need to limit the use of the offsets fund. It should be a last resort for developers. Otherwise, the funds simply can't purchase enough offsets to keep up with the damage caused by developments. I'm drafting an amendment that requires projects to use the offsets fund only if they're unable to purchase offsets directly. Effectively this introduces another layer into the mitigation hierarchy: first avoid damage, then mitigate, then directly offset, and only then can you pay into the offsets fund.

Another potential solution would be to require large projects that have significant resources to directly offset rather than using the fund. While the offset fund is a great solution for small developers that don't have the capacity to find suitable offsets, large multibillion-dollar companies absolutely have the capacity to secure the offsets themselves rather than pay to pass the liability onto the fund. A cash payment is obviously easier than actually doing the work to offset damage. Without limitations on when the offset funds can be used, all proponents will go for the easy option. Both of these proposed solutions would reduce the use of the offset fund, minimising the risk that it's unable to deliver for nature.

Secondly, we've often seen that offset funds are unable to find suitable offsets for the damage caused. The developer pays into the fund for damage to a wetland and passes on its liability. Then, when the offset fund looks for a suitable wetlands offset project, it discovers that none are available. I'm introducing an amendment to ensure that the offsets fund is used only when it's likely that appropriate offsets will be available. If they're not going to be available, the project should be revisiting the damage it's causing. A second amendment creates an excluded matters list—a list of species and ecosystems that are so close to extinction that the fund will never be able to find suitable offsets. Proponents should not be permitted to damage species and ecosystems on the excluded matters list and then make it the fund's problem by making a cash payment.

Thirdly, we need to ensure that offsets are priced appropriately. There's a long history of underpricing environmental offsets, and it's always nature that cops the bill. Offsets need to be appropriately priced so that the fund has sufficient capital to purchase offsets that compensate for the damage caused and deliver a net gain. This legislation does not set out the price for offsets but provides for regulations that will determine the price. I'm introducing amendments that require a regular review of the offsets price calculator. I also believe the legislation should outline a set of factors that must be considered in the offsets price calculator, such as administration costs, logistical costs and accounting for the risk of failure. If we get the pricing wrong, the offsets fund becomes ineffective.

Fourthly, we need greater transparency on what this fund is actually achieving through public reporting. If it's not working, it must be changed. The offsets fund reports on the progress of its offsets to the minister every year, and I'm introducing an amendment to ensure that this report is made publicly available. It will be vital that there is scientific oversight of this process. I would suggest that the legislation should also specify that the restoration contributions advisory committee contain significant expertise related to threatened species and ecological restoration. There may well be other ways to improve the integrity of the offsets fund, and I'm very open to considering them, but we've seen, from a range of comparable jurisdictions, that these funds can often provide a cheap way out for developers at the expense of the environment. With this legislation as it is, this offsets fund represents a potential single point of failure for the entire reform package. We must get it right.

My second major concern is about the national interest test. There are two national interest pathways. The first is called the national interest exemption. It allows the minister to declare that a project is in the national interest and allows it to bypass all environmental safeguards. It's intended to be used for natural disasters and emergencies when we need to override environmental laws. This test has always existed and has mostly been used in good faith. But this package introduces a new exemption called the national interest proposal. This appears quite similar to the national interest exemption; it allows the minister to choose to bypass almost all environmental safeguards. But this new national interest proposal appears to be intended for a much broader range of projects, including housing or energy projects. There are no limits on what the minister can consider in determining whether a project is a national interest proposal. There's a real risk that a minister could use this exemption for political reasons. We don't need this additional separate pathway. It provides an opportunity for this or a future government to completely ignore the environmental protections and declare every project to be in the national interest. And it's not great for business. You can't make long-term investment decisions on the chance that the minister will consider that your project fits the vague definition of 'the national interest'. We should be accelerating approvals by streamlining the environmental assessment, rather than introducing a sneaky bypass that's completely left to the minister. If the government is unwilling to remove the national interest proposal then, at the very least, fossil fuel projects should not be able to bypass environmental protections. I'll introduce an amendment to this effect.

When the government does exercise its discretionary power to bypass environmental laws, there should be very strong transparency in relation to that decision. These reforms allow the minister to redact information from the statement of reasons required under the current EPBC Act when the national interest exemption is used. There's no reason for more secrecy under the new laws. If the minister is going to bypass the environmental laws, the public has a right to know why.

I have a series of other concerns about these reforms that I don't have time to address. These reforms do not deal with land clearing or native forest logging. There's a huge amount of ministerial discretion. The phrase 'ministerial satisfaction' appears over 600 times in the combined bills and explanatory memoranda. They do not introduce a climate trigger or introduce climate considerations, even though climate change is the biggest threat to the environment. There are also huge uncertainties around key features of the reforms, including the safeguards for the bilateral accreditation processes, which could be an opportunity for reduced duplication if we get it right, and uncertainties about the independence and power of the national EPA, about the rigour of the national environmental standards and about the process of and community engagement in developing bioregional plans.

Despite the ridiculous timeframes and the serious concerns in these bills, I would encourage every part of the parliament to contribute constructively to this process and accept that no-one is going to get everything they want. We need to make our environmental laws work better so we can safeguard the environment and build a future that we're proud to leave to our children and grandchildren. I implore the Greens to act constructively and not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. This is an opportunity to show that you've learnt the lessons of the last election. People want outcomes, and you have a chance to deliver. I implore the coalition to show that they can be an effective party of opposition and to focus on the need to improve the laws for the environment and for business rather than use this as a pointscoring exercise. Australians are sick of the petty politics. They want to see constructive engagement and results.

Perhaps most importantly, I implore the government to act in good faith to improve this legislation and get it passed. These bills require significant amendments. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reform the environmental laws that protect our environment and support our businesses. Let's get it right. I'll be working constructively with the government and others in the House and the Senate to come up with a package that can satisfy the twin imperatives of more certainty and timeliness for business and a better environment for our children and grandchildren.

I will now move a second reading amendment acknowledging the need for better outcomes for business and the environment and the need to work together and pass environmental reforms and calling on the government to amend this bill to resolve its significant flaws. I move the amendment circulated in my name:

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:

(1) acknowledges that we need to achieve better outcomes for business and the environment;

(2) further acknowledges it is in the interest of the Government, Opposition and crossbench to work constructively to pass these reforms; and

(3) calls on the Government to amend this bill to resolve significant flaws, including loopholes in the offsets framework".

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The amendment is seconded, and I reserve my right to speak.

Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 and associated bills—one of the major reasons I chose, in 2021, to give up a really meaningful job with St Vincent de Paul in South Australia and spend 10 months campaigning unpaid was the appalling record of the previous Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government on climate and the environment. This was a government who, in concert with the then SA Liberal environment minister, David Speirs, sabotaged the Murray-Darling Basin Plan to the detriment of South Australia's water security, our environment, our regional communities and our downstream agriculture. They cut funding to the environment by 40 per cent. They teamed up with the Greens political party to axe climate laws that would have seen Australia reaping the economic and environmental benefits of having cut emissions via an efficient market driven mechanism. The one thing they actually did well for the environment was the 2020 Samuel review, commissioned by the now opposition leader during her tenure as environment minister. Then they promptly ignored it. Professor Samuel says now that he's bitterly disappointed with their current position. Join the queue, Professor Samuel. Disappointing Australia seems to be the forte of the Liberal and National parties—a natural talent, if you will.

What I learned from campaigning in 2021 and 2022 was that I was not alone in Boothby in my sense of frustration about the then coalition government's lack of action and, indeed, actual sabotage of the environment. They had two record-breaking election losses in a row, but those opposite seem still not to be listening to what the Australian public is telling them or what the environment's telling them—or business, developers and investors.

The current environment laws are broken. They don't adequately protect the environment. But they also don't work for business developers or investors. We now have the opportunity to fix our broken environment laws. We have the opportunity to protect our environment, which we depend upon for our Australian way of life. We have the opportunity to make these laws work for business, developers and investors so that they have certainty for investment, so they can get to a fast 'yes' or a fast 'no' without wasting time or money on investments that are never going to come off.

This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix these laws and protect our environment, and we've waited too long already. The best time to have done this was perhaps a couple of decades ago. The second-best time was half a decade ago, when the Samuel report was delivered to the previous coalition government. The third-best time is now.

Labor is the party of the environment. Labor has delivered every single major environmental reform in Australia's history—Landcare; saving the Franklin; protecting the Daintree and Kakadu; building the largest network of marine parks in the world; and meaningfully addressing the threat of climate change. Since 2022, the Albanese Labor government has passed strong laws to force big polluters to cut emissions, so that Australia gets to net zero carbon pollution by 2050. We have reduced Australia's emissions by 29 per cent below 2005 levels already, and we're on track for 43 per cent by 2030.

We have committed to 82 per cent renewable energy by 2030, and we're well on the way. Already 18 gigawatts of renewable generation capacity has been installed across Australia since we were elected in 2022. We have approved 111 renewable energy projects, producing enough electricity to power more than 13 million homes, and we have approved a further 29 projects.

We've protected an extra 95 million hectares of Australian ocean and land, expanding marine parks around Macquarie, Heard and McDonald islands. We've established Environment Information Australia, to give the public and business easier access to the latest environmental data. We've doubled the funding to better look after national parks, including Kakadu and Uluru. We've doubled the Indigenous Rangers Program. We've invested over $600 million to better protect our threatened plants and animals and to tackle feral animals and weeds. And we've invested $200 million to clean up our rivers.

We've increased recycling capacity by more 1.4 million tonnes a year, diverting recyclables from landfill. We've established the world's first nature repair market, making it easier to invest in nature restoration. And of course let's not forget that our home battery scheme has delivered over 110,000 additional batteries in just over four months.

We've given the safeguard mechanism teeth, requiring net emission reductions from our 215 biggest emitters of five per cent a year—equivalent to taking two-thirds of the cars off the road by 2030. And we've brought in new vehicle emission standards, giving Australians more choice of cheaper-to-run cars.

We've legislated to bring the Climate Change Authority back, to play a meaningful role in advising government. We've put net zero in the objects of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and in the Australian Renewable Energy Agency Act and made it relevant to other key agencies, such as Infrastructure Australia and Export Finance Australia. Now, I know the concept of net zero is triggering for those opposite, but you can't say you understand the science of climate change, the impacts it's already having on our planet and our country, and what it will do in the future, if you then turn around and say, 'We want to slow down any action and turn a target into an "ambition".'

That brings me to this bill. The Environment Protection Reform Bill delivers modern, fit-for-purpose, national environment laws that ensure big gains for both the environment and business. The Albanese Labor government is committed to reforming our national environment laws to deliver stronger environmental protections, reduce duplication and boost accountability and transparency in decision-making.

It has been five long years since Professor Graeme Samuel tabled his report for the former environment minister Sussan Ley, and our laws remain broken. They aren't working for the environment, they aren't working for business or industry and they aren't working for investors.

Our unique natural environment is irreplaceable, and we owe it to our children and our grandchildren to do everything we can to protect it. But the Samuel review told us that the environment is going backwards. These reforms that we're presenting today are based on the recommendations from Professor Samuel in his 2020 report. Professor Samuel himself has publicly backed this bill as meeting all of the recommendations in his report.

These laws are a targeted and balanced package of reforms to the EPBC Act centred on three key pillars. Stronger environmental protection and restoration— (Quorum formed) As I was saying, I know that net zero is very triggering for those opposite, but you can't say that you understand climate science and that you understand and care about the impact that's happening on our planet and our country if you then turn around and say you want to slow down any action and turn a target into an ambition.

These stronger environmental protection and restoration laws won't just deliver better protections for our special places but restore and regenerate them for future generations, which those opposite clearly don't care about. More efficient and robust project assessments and approvals will allow us to better respond to and deliver on national priorities that work for the betterment of our country, like the renewable energy transition, a future made in Australia and the housing that we need, which those opposite don't seem to understand. It will also give business, industry and investors the certainty of a fast yes or a fast no for their proposals, and accountability and transparency in decision-making to give all Australians confidence in these laws.

And, of course, most notably, these laws will establish Australia's first-ever independent environmental protection agency, which will be a strong, independent regulator with a clear focus on ensuring better compliance with and stronger enforcement of Australia's new environmental laws. The reforms will also allow the environment minister to make national environment standards, standards that will set boundaries for decisions to ensure they deliver improved environmental outcomes. The standards will protect the environment, give business clear rules and help decision-makers be fair and consistent.

I know that my electorate of Boothby will be particularly interested in the remake of the environment offset system. Sometimes projects can harm the environment in ways that can't be avoided, and, when this happens, steps must be taken to compensate or make up for that damage—an environmental offset. The offset could take the form of an action, a payment or both. I constantly hear from people very concerned that the current offsets regime is not effective and has enabled polluters to consider paying for cheap and ineffective offsets as a cost of doing business that they're willing to pay. Under the new system, projects will be required in the first instance, by law, to avoid, mitigate or repair damage to protected matters where possible. Any residual significant impacts on nationally protected matters must be fully offset to achieve a net gain for the environment. They must leave the environment better off.

The current legislation requires no net loss, so moving to a net gain for the environment is a massive step forward. A net gain could be achieved either by the proponent delivering directly on an offset—a new and improved offset that is a real offset—or through an upfront financial contribution to a restoration fund. Proposed reforms will introduce new options for offsetting. Projects proponents can deliver an offset themselves or pay for the government to do it via a restoration contribution payment—or a combination of both. The proposed changes will also allow certain biodiversity certificates, issued under the Nature Repair Market, to be used for environmental offsetting, and this helps ensure that there are enough environmental offsets to provide real, lasting environmental benefits.

Part of the clarity the EPBC bill will bring includes a clear understanding of go and no-go zones. The reforms will include a new definition of unacceptable impact specific to each protected matter. This will set clear and upfront criteria for impacts that cannot be approved unless the project meets the national interest test. It will increase transparency, consistency and certainty of decisions. This applies to protected matters under the EPBC Act, including World Heritage areas, threatened species and wetlands of international importance.

Now, we'd like to think that all players in this area would value our environment—that they'd do the right thing; however, we do live in the real world. The Samuel review recognised that, for some bad actors, breaching the law is just the cost of doing business, so the reforms increase the penalties for the most serious and significant breaches of legislation, and they allow courts to respond proportionately to the most egregious breaches.

I'm so pleased that we've introduced this EPBC bill. This is really important legislation. This is legislation that my electorate—and in fact all of Australia—has been waiting for for too long. It responds fully to the recommendations of the Samuel review. It's legislation that the environment needs and that business, industry and developers need; it's legislation that this country needs. I commend the bill to the House.

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

In Australia, an area of forests and bushland the size of a football field is logged every two minutes. This is wanton, government sanctioned destruction of our environment by rapacious big corporations in pursuit of profit. We have the highest rate of mammal species extinctions in the world. The Labor government has approved 31 new fossil fuel projects since coming into government, including an extension to the Southern Hemisphere's largest fossil fuel project, Woodside's North West Shelf—fossil fuel projects by big corporations that pay little in tax and royalties while wrecking our environment, wrecking our planet and exporting the profits overseas. This is all happening under the current environmental legislative framework, which, it seems, everyone acknowledges is not working for business or the environment.

The sad reality is that these new laws are actually worse. These proposed laws are worse. They've been, seemingly, drafted with only big business in mind rather than designed to actually stop environmental destruction. Previous versions of environmental laws from the last term of parliament were quashed after lobbying from the logging sector and the mining sector and their chief political mouthpiece, Western Australian Labor premier Roger Cook. One of the very first things that the new minister for the environment and water did this term was fly to Perth to consult with the mining sector again—the first consultations—with, apparently, his No. 1 priority being to speed up approvals for big business. That priority could not be clearer in the legislation that's been presented to parliament.

Let's just break it down. There are two big failures to address existing gaps in our environmental laws. Firstly, the generous exemptions for native forest logging remain. They remain. It is absolutely crazy that we are still logging native forests in 2025—destruction of our precious natural environment, in many cases subsidised by Australian taxpayers. These native forests are incredibly important wildlife habitat and crucial carbon sinks as well. Secondly, there is no climate trigger in this legislation. That means that the carbon emissions produced by a project which has a direct environmental impact are not considered under environmental laws. This has, obviously and tragically, resulted in dozens of coal and gas projects gaining approval under the existing laws, and they will continue to be approved under the proposed legislation. Nothing in this proposed legislation will stop that.

But the problems, the failings of these laws, don't stop there. It's not that this legislation just fails to protect nature and the climate; it is actively taking us backwards, because there's another tranche of inclusions. They are a bit technical, and Labor are hoping you don't notice them, but I'll go through some of them. There are multiple new pathways to streamline approvals for the benefit of big polluters. This proposed legislation allows the minister to delegate approvals to the states so projects can bypass federal regulations like the water trigger in the existing EPBC Act. Horrifyingly, in Queensland, it means delegating to the climate-denying LNP government. There's also a new pathway for offshore oil and gas to exempt them from these laws, and, perhaps most concerningly, there are new pathways for ministerial exemptions: a broadly defined 'national interest test', including for projects in apparent no-go zones or that cause an unacceptable environmental impact.

The national environment standards that underpin this whole piece of reform have not yet been made public. We're expected to pass the bill without actually having seen them. This legislation also reverses an earlier restriction on environmental offsets, which we know are more than questionable. The Biodiversity Council has criticised this offsets principle as weakening the current like-for-like standard, which forces offsets to account for the ecological character affected. Offsets should not be allowing big corporations to simply pay to keep destroying the environment.

Labor are prioritising the interests of big corporations over the environment and over the planet, and it couldn't be clearer when you look at who is backing their environmental law reform. Chevron? They support these laws. Australian energy producers, the oil and gas lobby? They said:

Australia's oil and gas industry supports the government's commitment to deliver faster and simpler environmental approvals …

BHP 'welcome the strong signals from the Australian government'. The Association of Mining and Exploration Companies welcome the bill and commend the minister. The-Minerals Council of Australia were very happy that a climate trigger was ruled out and said that there were 'a range of measures in the package which will help development in the long term'.

So what are the experts on the environment saying? The Australian Conservation Foundation says, 'These bills do not protect nature,' and that they provide 'a rubber stamp for species extinction'. Greenpeace said that the proposed laws 'fail to address deforestation and climate change', and they also raised serious concerns about the level of ministerial discretion included. The Wilderness Society said the new laws would increase political interference and create 'new loopholes to weaken nature protections'. So who should we trust? I know I'd rather trust those environmental organisations over the coal and gas corporation lobby groups.

Some conspiracy theories are real. Here's one you'll want to hear: big corporations really do control our government. Here's the story. Labor promised environmental law reform when they came into government in 2022. The Greens said we were happy to work with them to protect nature and the climate. But, at the eleventh hour of negotiations, the mining industry—companies like Woodside, Santos and BHP—decided they weren't happy. They got on the phone to Western Australian Premier Roger Cook, who then lobbied the Prime Minister to tell him to kill the deal, and he did. Then, under pressure from the same big corporations, in February this year the bill was withdrawn from parliament altogether. One of the first things that the new environment minister did was to fly to Perth to consult with mining companies on the new version of the laws. His No. 1 priority was to speed up approvals so big corporations can wreck the environment even faster. BHP have said they welcome the strong signals from the government. I'm sure they and the other mining companies are happy that they can keep making mega profits, paying minimal tax and getting their approvals fast-tracked, without worrying about that pesky environment or climate.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call the member for Maribyrnong, and I should point out that one of her predecessors, Dr Moss Cass, was Australia's first environment minister.

Jo Briskey (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That may very well be in my speech, Deputy Speaker. Every day in Maribyrnong, you can see what's worth fighting for: the river, winding through our suburbs; the creeks, alive with birdlife; and the volunteers who spend their weekends planting trees and restoring country. That's what this reform is about—protecting the places we love while building a stronger, cleaner, fairer future. This legislation is a turning point for our environment, for our economy and for the kind of Australia we want to build. This reform is about more than paperwork and process; it's about whether our kids will still hear the birdsong in our suburbs, still swim in the clean rivers and still walk through forests that haven't been lost to short-term thinking.

The Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 is our chance to get it right—to build a system that protects nature, supports jobs and drives the clean energy future we owe to the next generation. Together with the National Environmental Protection Agency Bill 2025, the Environment Information Australia Bill 2025 and the restoration and charges bills, this is the most ambitious environmental reform in decades—a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reset, which puts protection and progress on the same page, because that's what Labor does. We don't sit on the sidelines, we don't wait for perfection and we don't just talk about change; we make it happen. We're the party that saved the Franklin, protected the Daintree, expanded Kakadu and created the world's largest network of marine parks. We're the party that acted on climate when others said it could wait. And we're doing it again—rebuilding Australia's environmental laws to deliver real protection, real jobs and real accountability, not for hashtags or headlines but because it's the right thing to do—because our country deserves better.

The truth is our existing environmental laws are broken. The independent Samuel review, commissioned in 2020, found what communities, conservationists and industry have known for years: that our current EPBC Act is failing. It's not protecting our environment, it's not giving business certainty and it's not supporting the projects that our country needs to build homes, renewable energy and a strong future made in Australia. We can't afford to keep doing things the same way. Australians expect better. The people of Maribyrnong expect better. My community cares deeply about the natural world—about our rivers and parks, our threatened species and the world we'll leave our kids. They want environmental laws that actually work—laws that protect nature and cut through red tape; laws that get results. That's exactly what these reforms will deliver.

These reforms stand on three clear pillars: stronger protection and restoration; faster and fairer decisions; and greater accountability and transparency. Let me speak briefly on each. First, we're putting environmental protection back at the heart of the law, where it belongs. For too long, the system has been full of grey areas and loopholes—decisions made behind closed doors and projects approved that clearly shouldn't have been. This reform says 'no more'. For the first time, this law will make it clear that the projects with unacceptable impacts on our most precious places and species cannot be approved, unless they pass a strict national interest test. We're finally enshrining national environmental standards, something Labor has been fighting for for years. These will set clear, enforceable rules for biodiversity, offsets, First Nations engagement and environmental data.

We're also overhauling the offset system so that every project must deliver a net gain for nature, not just less damage. Every project must give back more than it takes. We're creating a restoration fund so companies can contribute to genuine landscape-scale restoration—planting trees, protecting habitat, restoring wetlands, strengthening ecosystems—because protecting the environment isn't just about stopping harm; it's about healing country. We're backing this up with tougher enforcement, stronger penalties and new powers to stop environmental damage before it happens—no more treating fines as a cost of doing business. For the first time, big projects will have to disclose their emissions and abatement plans, because Australians deserve honesty and transparency from those profiting off our environment. This is what Labor does best: turn big principles into practical outcomes.

The second pillar is about getting things moving responsibly. Right now, the approval system is slow, confusing and full of duplication between governments. That helps no-one—not communities, not business and certainly not the environment—so we're fixing it. We'll introduce streamlined pathways for projects that provide strong, transparent information upfront—cutting red tape, not corners. We'll modernise bilateral agreements with states and territories so assessments can be done once, properly and to national standards. We'll invest in bioregional planning, mapping out areas for development and areas for conservation. Communities will know what's protected, and businesses will know where they can invest with certainty. When you set clear rules and enforce them properly, you get faster, fairer, better outcomes, and that's what these reforms deliver.

The third pillar, perhaps the most important pillar, is accountability because people have lost trust. They've seen governments look the other way, approvals be waved through and big polluters treat fines as a rounding error. That ends here. We're establishing the National Environmental Protection Agency, an independent, tough, transparent regulator with real teeth. It will enforce the law, investigate breaches and hold corporations to account. The national EPA will make sure no-one—no company, no project, no government—is above the rules. Alongside it, we're creating Environment Information Australia to make environmental data open, accurate and accessible. Australians will finally be able to see in plain sight the state of our environment updated regularly and backed by science, because sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Australians deserve a system that's fair, fast and honest, and that's what these reforms deliver. While this government is getting on with delivering the biggest environmental reform in a generation, others in this place are playing the same old games. The coalition, who sat on the Samuel review for years, are now pretending to care about process, and the Greens, once again, are threatening to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Well, my community in Maribyrnong has no time for political posturing or empty protest. We want progress—real, tangible change that protects our environment and builds our future.

The people of Maribyrnong know how much our environment shapes our lives. From the banks of the Maribyrnong River to the creeks that stretch across our suburbs, our green spaces aren't just beautiful; they're the lungs of our community. They're where families walk, kids play and volunteers roll up their sleeves to care for country. Groups like Moonee Valley Sustainability, Friends of Steele Creek and Friends of the Maribyrnong Valley have spent decades restoring native habitats and protecting local waterways. Their work reminds us that caring for nature is about more than trees and species; it's about health, connection and the kind of community we want to build for the future. It's a legacy we're proud of in Maribyrnong.

One of my predecessors—the late, great Moss Cass—served as Australia's first environment and conservation minister. He fought to legislate the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act 1974 and set the standard for bold, science driven environmental leadership. His reforms laid the groundwork that protected the Great Barrier Reef, saved Fraser Island from sand mining and curtailed uranium mining in Kakadu. It was Moss's belief that power only matters if you do something bold with it. This legislation before the House today is bold. It will deliver stronger safeguards for local waterways and ecosystems; faster, clearer approvals for renewable energy and housing projects that create jobs; and a more transparent system that people can trust.

My community voted for action that protects the environment and builds Australia's future, and that's exactly what this Labor government is doing. Not everyone in this place shares that commitment or real desire for action. The coalition, true to form, still treat environmental policy as a burden, not a responsibility, and now we see just how far they've fallen. They are on the cusp of abandoning their net zero commitment because of the climate-denying extremists who now dominate their party room.

The modern Liberal Party is no longer a party for government. It has been hijacked by denial, captured by conspiracy and paralysed by cowardice. Even their leader is choosing political survival over Australia's future. They continue to show their true colours on environment: divided, inconsistent and driven by ideology rather than science. Let's remember that the Samuel review that underpins these reforms was commissioned and received by the now opposition leader when she was environment minister. She had the report in her hands five years ago and did nothing—absolutely nothing. It sums up those opposite perfectly. When it comes to the environment, they just don't care.

Then there are the Greens, whose purity politics too often have let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Let's not forget that it was the Greens who teamed up with the climate deniers opposite in 2009 to block Labor's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, setting Australia's climate action back decades. They talk about urgency but vote for delay. They preach progress while standing in the way of it. These reforms deliver real protection: an independent EPA to hold polluters accountable; national environmental standards with legal force; net gain offsets to restore the environment; and faster approvals for housing, clean energy and critical minerals. Yet the Greens threaten to block them because they're not perfect enough and because they prefer protest over progress. The people of my state and of Australia have had enough of it. At the last election, they rejected the Greens' policy of protest and purity. They voted for progress, not posturing. In my neighbouring electorate, they ousted the leader of the Greens and replaced him with a progressive Labor woman focused on getting things done.

Australians know this: real progress doesn't come from shouting from the sidelines; it comes from doing the hard work, making the tough calls and delivering real outcomes. That's what Labor is doing, right here. This bill is Labor at its best: bold, practical and driven by a belief that the government can and should make life better. We're not here to talk about what can't be done; we're here to get it done. We're here to protect our rivers and bushlands, to fast-track clean energy that will power our homes and industries and to build an environmental system that finally matches the scale of the challenges we face. It's a reform that learns from the past and from the years of denial and delay. It sets Australia on a new path—one where protecting nature goes hand in hand with creating jobs, homes and opportunities.

This is a Labor government acting with purpose. We're delivering stronger safeguards for nature, we're delivering faster and fairer decisions for communities, and we're delivering the accountability and transparency that rebuild trust. Our environment can't wait, and neither can our children's' future. That's why I'm proud to stand here today on behalf of the people of Maribyrnong to back in this reform—to back progress over protest, action over rhetoric and hope over cynicism. Labor is once again leading the nation, protecting what we love, building what we need and delivering for the generations to come. I commend the bill to the House.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to stand here today in the House and speak on the seven environmental bills that are part of the government's environmental reforms: the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025, the National Environmental Protection Agency Bill 2025, the Environment Information Australia Bill 2025 and the four environment protection and biodiversity conservation charge imposition bills. These bills respond to the government's 2022 election commitment to reform Australia's environmental laws. I welcome the introduction of these considerable reforms for debate and the intention to better protect our natural environment.

My electorate of Indi boasts spectacular natural places that locals and visitors alike enjoy visiting. Indi's biodiversity is striking, providing essential habitat for critically endangered swift parrots, barking owls, common bent-wing bats and the vulnerable growling frog. When I was first elected as the member for Indi in 2019, I was given a strong mandate to advocate for nature. My constituents care deeply about nature. Since 2019, I've received more than 25,000 emails, letters and phone calls from my constituents about the environment, overwhelmingly calling for stronger protections. Rural communities are stewards of the land. Farming and tourism industries depend on it. Through this caretaker relationship, regional Australians intimately understand the impacts of climate change. We experience it in hotter summers, increasing bushfire risk, larger floods that push insurance costs beyond reach, and erratic weather patterns that cause unpredictable crop yields.

I have a strong belief that we can deliver better laws for the environment and laws that work for rural communities and for business. But make no mistake: the primary reason for these bills must be to protect the environment. These bills propose significant changes to the EPBC Act, including introducing national environmental standards, stronger penalties for breaking environmental laws, and bioregional planning into our environmental laws, as well as improving public information on the environment, including publishing a state-of-the-environment report every two years, creating Australia's first Environmental Protection Agency and a new framework to impose general, customs, excise and regulation charges. As they currently stand, our environmental laws are fundamentally flawed. They're not protecting our environment, and they're filled with uncertainty for business. Professor Graeme Samuel's 2020 independent review of the EPBC Act laid this bare and called for reform—and I agree.

I have approached this legislation seeking to identify progress to protect the environment and to ensure that regional communities are meaningfully consulted on projects that impact them. There is some real progress to be found within this legislation, particularly in relation to stronger penalties for breaking environmental laws and better information sharing, enabled through Environmental Information Australia. But, despite this progress, there are sweeping issues in this legislation that I feel must be addressed.

Primarily, there are extraordinary powers that give ministerial discretion through this legislation. Ministerial discretion, in a democratically elected government, is not inherently bad. I'm not one of those people who think there shouldn't be any ministerial discretion. But the problem here is that, alongside these discretionary powers, there's little transparency over how the minister uses this discretion or guardrails to ensure that decisions align with the intent of these laws to protect nature. We should get insight into whether the minister sought advice from the EPA CEO, for example, and whether their decision is in contradiction of that advice.

Perhaps most unclear are the minister's broad national interest exemption powers, and I know many people are concerned about this, because they enable the minister to contravene national environmental standards and approve projects that the minister deems to be in the national interest. And there's no clarity about what can be defined as being in the national interest or not. Our laws and the protections they give to the environment must be free from vested political interests, now and in the future. Secretive ministerial discretion in decision-making simply doesn't foster the trust that we need.

The objective of the national EPA is to deliver focused and transparent environmental regulatory decision-making. To achieve this, the agency must be free from influence and equipped with strong regulatory powers to enforce laws. And while the government says that this body is independent, I do have some significant concerns about its governance. There's no provision for the CEO to be appointed through a transparent and merit based assessment process and no governance board to ensure that the CEO performs their functions consistent with the act. Ministerial influence over the EPA fundamentally undermines the objective of this agency and diminishes trust in the whole EPBC Act. We need to get this right.

Critical to Graeme Samuel's environmental reforms were robust, legally enforceable national environmental standards, outlining the environmental objectives of the EPBC Act. National standards are necessary for effective, clear and consistent environmental decision-making. A key criticism I had of the former stage 2 nature-positive reforms was indeed that these standards were missing. I'm pleased that the government has listened and has included a provision for the minister to create national environmental standards in regulation. I also welcome the 'no regression' principle applied to these standards, noting that this does not apply until after the first 18-month review.

The government has flagged its intention to create national standards relating to matters of national environmental significance, offsets, data and environmental information, and First Nations engagement. I welcome those. I am, however, disappointed that the minister is yet to commit to a national standard for community engagement and consultation, because communities are absolutely critical stakeholders. Our Farmers for Climate Action survey found 76 per cent of regional Australians believe that early and genuine community consultation for renewable energy projects helps build community trust, and, if we have community trust, we can get approvals through in a much, much better way. Under the legislation we're debating today, there are no requirements for community consultation on projects approved under the EPBC Act, and, in my mind, that's completely unacceptable. A national standard for community engagement and consultation would improve certainty for developers and regional communities alike, giving clear expectations that, for any project seeking approval under the EPBC Act, proponents must adhere to best-practice community engagement. That can only be a good thing. So I will be moving an amendment requiring the government to develop a national environmental standard for community engagement and consultation. This standard, as I said, must be applied to all projects, but it's particularly vital for fast-tracked approvals and for priority action projects in declared development zones within bioregional plans.

I've consistently called for regional mapping that clearly identifies areas that are not suitable for project development. In fact, this was my No. 1 recommendation to the community engagement review undertaken by the then energy infrastructure commissioner, Professor Andrew Dyer. I'm pleased to see bioregional planning included in this legislation. I genuinely am. This is a commonsense solution that gives project developers certainty over where they will get a quick 'no' on a project, and hopefully reduces unnecessary stress on regional communities. This legislation also identifies development zones, which means certain types of projects most appropriate for an area can be given faster approval.

The government has a difficult role in managing competing land-use priorities. Done right, bioregional mapping can ensure our land is most appropriately and effectively used for environmental protection and regeneration, for farming the food and fibre we rely on and for the renewable energy to meet our energy needs. This planning needs to be done at a regional and a national level to ensure that we are being strategic, and it must be consistent with other national land-use policies. The government is currently creating a national food security strategy to ensure we can meet our domestic food needs and international obligations and to ensure our food production is better protected against climate change. Bioregional planning under the EPBC Act must link with this strategy to identify the areas of high-value agricultural land most essential to protecting our food security and to identify where land is better and more economically suited to environmental regeneration or, indeed, to renewable energy projects. This is the opportunity to get this right.

Let me be clear: I am not saying that renewable energy projects should not be placed on farming land, because many farmers welcome this. It's an additional form of diversification in their income. It protects them in times of drought or other difficult periods. But what I am saying is that we must be strategic about this. We must ensure that high-value agricultural land is preserved and farmers and communities can host renewable infrastructure and receive long-term economic benefits. I believe we can do both. But we can only do both if we consult with our communities, if we get the bioregional planning right and if we really link all of our national and our regional planning in a sensible and well considered way.

I will be moving amendments to ensure areas of high-value agricultural land and drinking water catchments are considered when defining the boundary of a development zone within a bioregional plan. This is critical. High-value agricultural land and drinking water catchments are critical areas of our natural environment. I will also move amendments to increase the consultation timeframes for communities back out to 60 days. Shutting community out of environmental decision-making is bad for regional communities, bad for social licence and ultimately bad for project outcomes.

Another disappointing loophole to see in the Environmental Protection Regulation Bill is a very quiet carve-out exemption from penalties for minor and preparatory works. Under the EPBC Act 1999, it is an offence for a proponent to undertake work on a project deemed a controlled action before it has been approved by the minister. The government's amendment in the Environment Protection Reform Bill opens an exemption under this rule allowing the minister to authorise minor and preparatory works to start before the minister has made an assessment. If a project is on a site with concerns significant enough to be referred to the minister for a controlled action decision, how can it be acceptable for that project to start works? This power poses multiple risks to communities, the environment, and the quality and integrity in environmental assessment under the EPBC Act. I will be moving an amendment to repeal this section of the legislation.

In closing, I really believe this legislation represents the biggest change to our national environment laws in 25 years. It presents an enormous opportunity. It is extremely complex. Let's make no mistake. I welcome the Senate inquiry into this suite of bills to provide fulsome scrutiny of legislation. It's a vital opportunity for stakeholders and communities to contribute their views. I acknowledge that reforming the EPBC Act is a large and challenging task. I don't underestimate that. There are truly some positives in this legislation. But I believe more needs to be done to ensure that it is fit for purpose to protect our environment into the future, so I call on the government to back my amendments. They are in good faith and address issues that disproportionately impact rural communities, issues that people in my electorate of Indi care so deeply about. Our environmental laws are currently failing the environment. We can't afford to wait another 25 years, but we also can't afford not to get it right this time.

Ged Kearney (Cooper, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and the proposed reforms. These reforms will ensure the future and prosperity of our beautiful country and environment. Of course, while speaking on these beautiful lands, it would be remiss not to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land, the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples and indeed all First Nations people. For tens of thousands of years, they have cared for and acted as stewards of the lands, air, waterways and oceans of this country. It is within this tradition of stewardship, protection and care that I speak on these bills.

Australia is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, from mountain ranges in the east to breathtaking beaches in the west. It is home to a rich biodiversity unlike anywhere else on the planet. Even in my own electorate of Cooper, despite being better known for some of Australia's best lattes and coolest streets, we are home to an abundance of beautiful lands, including waterways like the Merri Creek, the Darebin Creek and Edgars Creek. They are benefiting right now from federal government investments to rewild and protect them and also from the ancient knowledge of Indigenous rangers, including groups that do cultural burns on the waterways, exposing ancient Indigenous grasses and plants that haven't been seen for decades and possibly centuries.

In addition to our wonderful First Nations groups who have protected these beautiful lands and waterways, it's been the environment and climate movement and thousands of activists young and old who've played such a big role in championing and protecting our natural environment. In Cooper we have many groups focusing on protecting the environment: Friends of Edwardes Lake, headed up by the indomitable Kate Jost; Darebin Climate Action Now, a tireless group of climate and environment campaigners; friends of all of the creeks I mentioned above, who tirelessly plant trees, remove rubbish and volunteer every weekend; amazing individual warriors like Cath Rouse, who showed me Toolangi Forest for the first time, and the amazing Carolyn Lunt, who helps locals convert their gardens to native Indigenous wonderlands; and, of course, our local Labor members who make up LEAN, the Labor Environment Action Network.

I love working with these groups. It's truly one of the highlights of my role as a local representative. Indeed, it's one of the hallmarks of Labor governments to work constructively with the environment movement to bring about real, lasting change for the environment. Whether it be working with protesters in Tasmania to save the Franklin, championing First Nation groups to protect the Daintree and Kakadu or collaborating with unions on green bans, Labor has delivered real change for the environment.

But the reality is that all this is under threat because Australia's national environmental laws are no longer fit for purpose. The EPBC Act is 26 years old now. In 2020 Graeme Samuel tabled his report for the then environment minister—now the Leader of the Opposition—the member for Farrer. The report showed that environmental laws in this country were broken and in desperate need of reform. The laws do not work for the environment, they do not work for industries and they do not work for the Australian people.

This report was delivered with clear directions on next steps, and it sat there for years. Is it any wonder our environment fared so badly under the Liberals and Nationals when, in the last decade, they repeatedly axed climate laws; failed to fix Australia's broken environment laws despite having a widely supported blueprint to do so; sabotaged the Murray-Darling Basin Plan; promised $40 million of Indigenous water plans but never delivered a drop; set recycling targets with no plan to deliver them—the list goes on.

Today we are trying to correct the record after inaction and neglect. After turning their back on the environment while in power—and now actively working against progress—the Nationals and the Liberals are standing in the way of creating a sustainable country. Every day we delay, every day we let them drag their feet, the more it costs us. It costs our country, our beautiful landscapes, the chance for a protected natural environment that will be here long after us.

It's why it's an honour to speak on these bills, and I extend my congratulations to the environment minister as well as the former environment minister, the member for Sydney, for all their work. Moreover, I extend my congratulations to everyone in the community who has worked constructively with the government on developing this legislation. In particular, I note, again, the work of the Labor Environment Action Network. They have been champions of these reforms for years.

These bills deliver modern, fit-for-purpose national environmental laws. These laws are a targeted package of reforms to the EPBC Act centred on three key pillars: stronger environmental protection and restoration; more efficient and robust project approvals; and greater accountability and transparency in decision-making. These are stronger environmental protection and restoration laws that won't just deliver better protections for our species and our special places but restore and regenerate them for future generations. There will be more efficient and robust project assessments and approvals that will allow us to better respond and deliver on national priorities like the renewable energy transition, a future made in Australia and the housing that we so desperately need, and greater accountability and transparency in decision-making to give all Australians confidence in these laws. All in all, the government has been guided by Graeme Samuel's seminal report. It's our priority to deliver the Samuel report recommendations as a critical first step.

History shows us that progress comes in steps. The steps proposed in these new laws are huge. There's always more to do, but those who wait for the final step before we even start often end up taking no steps at all. We have seen this before. I still wonder, to this day, how far down the track we'd be if we had introduced a CPRS over a decade ago. We need to start protecting nature now. These bills will do just that.

What are some of the key components of these bills? Under the proposed reforms we will establish Australia's first ever independent National Environmental Protection Agency. This will be a proud Labor legacy, delivering on an election commitment that was proudly campaigned for by ALP branch members. The newly-established National Environmental Protection Agency will be a strong independent regulator with a clear focus on ensuring better compliance with and stronger enforcement of Australia's new laws. It would exercise a range of powers independently of the minister such as compliance and enforcement of the laws and project conditions, and the auditing of state and territory processes for project assessments and approvals against new national environmental standards. It is a needed regulator that will ensure environmental protections.

There will be reforms to allow the environment minister to meet the national environmental standards. These standards will set the boundaries for decisions to ensure they deliver improved environmental outcomes. Standards will protect the environment, give businesses clear rules and help decision-makers be fair and consistent.

What this means on the ground is that we can get to work on protecting, conserving and restoring important environmental areas and species. We can truly make up for the environmental damage of the past—try and reverse what has happened under the Liberals' and Nationals' neglect. We'll support better decision-making for the future and help the public understand and comment on projects. Another area where this bill will make real and lasting change is in ensuring a net gain for our environment. This means that, on the bottom line, we are contributing positively to the environment. Where an organisation can't, there are other avenues to offset that impact. When we enter any of our national parks, we each make a pledge to take only memories and leave only footprints. It's a reminder of our place in this world: to tread lightly, to not damage. This message should be for all individual people and big corporations. If you can't leave the environment how you found it, it's only right you contribute in other ways to its sustainability.

This bill will ensure that projects must leave the environment better off by introducing the concept of 'net gain' for environmental offsets. This is a shift from the current rules threshold, which is a 'no net loss' concept. This will shift the dial towards restoration, giving our native populations the opportunity to regenerate, recover and become more resilient. It means more steps towards improving our environment, not just accepting the way things are. We want to make renewable energy and sustainability the way of the future. This bill package recognises that a more efficient regulatory system is needed to enable better and faster decisions. More efficient and robust project assessments and approvals will allow us to better respond and deliver on national priorities, like the renewable energy transition and a Future Made in Australia.

We're making strides in the area of renewables. Around half of all electricity in the national grid came from renewable sources in September 2025—the highest monthly rate on record. We are tackling emissions and are confident we have the policies in place to deliver on our ambitious 2030 emission reduction targets. We are also here fighting to get this bill passed and these environmental protections enshrined.

We cannot allow for more division and inaction, and we cannot continue to delay. I stand here as a proud representative of my electorate, Cooper, whose people view the environment and the protection of our biodiversity as top of the agenda—our most pressing issue. Some parties have been arguing that the bill should contain a climate trigger. In his review, Graeme Samuel cautioned against trying to make the EPBC Act the mechanism to limit emissions directly. There is already legislation that limits emissions, called the safeguard mechanism. These bills, however, will require proponents to disclose their emissions and provide plans around how they will reduce their emissions in line with their safeguard mechanism obligation. These requirements, along with the establishment of an independent EPA and enforcement of the safeguard mechanism, will go a long way. In fact, Graeme Samuel has been publicly calling on the Greens and other parties to agree with this.

The steps proposed in these bills are huge. The steps proposed in these bills are important. The steps proposed in this bill will go a long way to making a difference in protecting our environment now and into the future. We need to pass them now. We need to start that work right away. We cannot wait any longer. As I said earlier, there's always more to do, but those who wait for the final step, before we even start, end up taking no steps at all. We've seen this before and we are committed to not letting that happen again, because every day we delay is a day our environment is degrading.

The government remains in communication with environment groups, and the environment movement, about what future steps we can take. I look forward to continuing to work with the minister and the environment movement, but at this exact moment I congratulate the minister, the government and the environment movement on developing these bills and taking the first steps to make change happen. For the environment, for the climate, for the future, I commend these bills to the House.

Sophie Scamps (Mackellar, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025. There is broad agreement that the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, or EPBC Act, has utterly failed to protect our environment for the past 25 years. We now have 19 ecosystems on the brink of collapse, and we are a global deforestation hotspot, along with Bolivia and Brazil. I want to begin by saying, sadly, that I cannot support the environmental reforms in these bills in their current form, because, quite simply, they do not guarantee protection for our nature.

The EPBC Act is the one piece of national legislation that we have to protect our environment. It should be our nation's safeguard for the environment—the framework that ensures that our forests, rivers, oceans and wildlife are not irretrievably polluted and destroyed but protected for future generations. This package of reforms was intended to fix our national environment laws, but instead it risks entrenching the very weaknesses of the current EPBC Act that have allowed Australia's environment to decline so sharply.

It is well understood that business needs greater certainty when it comes to project approvals. For Australia to meet our climate goals and unlock the enormous potential of renewable energy, we need clear, consistent and trusted environment laws. But right now many projects, including renewable energy projects, are being delayed or bogged down in confusion. Communities, investors and industry are all calling for the same thing: an approval process that is efficient, transparent and fair. Businesses need clarity on how decisions are made and they need to know that if they put forward a strong, environmentally sound proposal they'll get a fast 'yes' and if a project isn't up to scratch they'll get a fast 'no', so they can move on and refine their plans—not waste money—and invest with confidence elsewhere. That's what a well-functioning system delivers: speed, certainty and integrity.

But this cannot come at the expense of nature. A healthy environment underpins a healthy economy. The two work hand in hand. So it is critical that this time around our nature protection laws do actually protect nature and that we don't see another 25 years of environmental neglect. Once ecosystems are destroyed, once species are extinct, no amount of economic activity or offsetting can bring them back.

The people of Mackellar understand deeply the need to protect nature. They want their children and grandchildren to have the same connection to the coast, the creeks and the wild beauty that we've been lucky enough to grow up with. That's why they've asked me, as their representative, time and time again, to push for strong reforms to our national environment laws and to stop the destruction of our unique ecosystems, plants and animals that has occurred relentlessly in this country over the past few decades. They want a system that protects our environment and provides predictable, efficient decision-making for business. This is entirely possible, but these reforms are not it.

I have a number of concerns about these reforms that I'll go through in detail. Let me turn to the first major concern: the new national interest exemption. Under this provision, the environment minister could approve a project even if it includes what are deemed to be unacceptable impacts to the environment, so long as the minister deems that it is in the national interest. That's an enormous power. It effectively lets the minister override the law and to do so without having to explain why. While the minister must generally publish a copy of the decision, together with the reasons, this accountability mechanism can itself be avoided when the minister believes it is in Australia's national interest to not provide these details.

Ken Henry has warned that the national interest test in these reforms is likely to incentivise significant lobbying from developers, as they are all absolutely convinced that their project is in the national interest. The legislation cites projects relating to defence, security and national emergencies as the types of projects that might attract the exemption, and the environment minister has confirmed it could be used for something like a rare earth mine or a gas project if that was what the minister of the day decided. But at the end of the day the minister only needs to be satisfied that the action is in Australia's national interest.

It doesn't take much imagination to think about how this could be exploited. In fact, earlier this year, then opposition leader Peter Dutton said he would use the existing national interest test to fast-track the North West Shelf gas extension—a project that the Australia Institute estimates would release around 90 million tonnes of emissions every year, equivalent to building 12 new coal-fired power stations. This isn't about whether you trust the current minister; it's about what a future government, perhaps one less committed to protecting our environment, could do with such sweeping discretion.

That brings me to the next serious flaw—the bills' overreliance on ministerial discretion throughout. The Samuel review found that the existing EPBC Act insufficiently constrains decision-maker discretion, leading to uncertainty and poor environmental outcomes. Yet these reforms expand and entrench ministerial discretion rather than curtail it. Key decisions and tests throughout the bills depend on whether the minister is 'satisfied' that something is the case or whether an action is 'not inconsistent with' national environment standards. That kind of subjective language weakens the law.

The new environmental standards, which are meant to be the centrepiece of this reform, are riddled with this type of language and subjectivity. For example, an approval must not be inconsistent with a standard but only if the minister is satisfied that's the case. The no-regression principle, which is meant to ensure standards don't go backwards, applies only to the satisfaction of the minister. The provision requiring approvals to pass the net-gain test, which is an important guardrail on the offset provisions, is subject to the satisfaction of the minister. There is also a high level of discretion available to the minister in providing for declarations or bilateral agreements to devolve powers to the states and territories, along with many other crucial checks and safeguards. Indeed, earlier this year, when there was a threat that the EPBC Act might actually be used to protect a species—the Maugean skate—the government stepped in and amended the bills. This is not the strong objective framework the Samuel review recommended.

Next is the carve-outs and blanket exemptions. For decades, exemptions in the EPBC Act have allowed destructive activities to continue without federal assessment or approval, even when they impact threatened species or critical habitats. The most glaring examples are the regional forestry agreements, which exempt native forest logging from EPBC Act oversight and the continuous-use, or prior-authorisation, exemptions relied upon by proponents of agricultural land-clearing.

Since the EPBC Act was introduced more than two decades ago, our environment has only declined further. Australia is now the only developed nation on the list of global deforestation hotspots. Our forests are being bulldozed at pace, pushing species like the koala, the greater glider and the grey-headed flying fox to the brink of extinction. While the government has said that the national standards will apply to forestry activities it's difficult to see how this will work in practice, given the proposed standards do not yet exist and given forestry activities are exempt from the act.

I simply do not accept that native forest logging should be exempt from our national environment laws on the basis that state laws can be relied upon instead. You need look no further than my home state of New South Wales to see why. In New South Wales, environmental requirements have been repeatedly breached by the Forestry Corporation of NSW. In a judgement in the New South Wales Land and Environment Court last year, Justice Rachel Pepper noted the Forestry Corporation's lengthy record of prior convictions for environmental offences, including polluting a forest waterway, inadequate threatened species surveys, unlawful harvesting of hollow-bearing trees and harvesting in koala and rainforest habitat exclusion zones. That's why I'll be moving amendments to these bills—to repeal the exemption for the regional forestry agreements and the continuous-use exemption.

Another concern is the devolution of federal powers to state and territory governments, particularly in relation to the water trigger. The bill empowers the minister to accredit state processes and enter into bilateral agreements so that states can assess and approve projects on behalf of the Commonwealth. While this could improve efficiency, it comes with an enormous risk. Of particular concern, the water trigger will be available for devolution despite being specifically excluded from bilateral approval agreements and regional plans in the current laws.

Next, I'm deeply concerned regarding the approach to offsetting. There is no requirement for developers to avoid or reduce damage before moving to offsets under the mitigation hierarchy, only that the minister must consider the hierarchy. This will likely entrench offsetting as the default option rather than the last resort. The net gain test is designed to ensure that actions cannot be approved unless impacts on protected matters are offset through actions that result in a net gain. However, concerningly, this can be satisfied through the payment of a restoration contribution charge to the restoration contributions holder. This allows for habitat-destroying developments to be deemed to have a net gain on a protected matter despite the impact being irreversible. The proponent can simply pay into the fund and thereby bypass the true net gain test, and there are no provisions requiring adequate accounting for delivery of the net gain.

The reform package also establishes a national environmental protection authority, NEPA, which is welcome in principle. But there is a glaring flaw. The government has chosen not to create a governing board, and there is no independent appointment process for the CEO. This is exactly the kind of political appointment risk I tried to address through my own 'ending jobs for mates' private member's bill, to ensure independent and transparent selection processes for key public roles. Without those safeguards, NEPA risks being just another arm of government rather than a truly independent watchdog.

We've seen state based environmental regulators marred with this type of controversy. In New South Wales, the EPA was recently accused of bearing a report on lead contamination in children's blood to placate mining companies. In the Northern Territory, the EPA chair was involved in decisions on a major gas leak scandal without disclosing his paid role with an industry lobbying firm. In Western Australia, the EPA was forced to withdraw its 2019 emissions offset guidelines after intense pressure from the gas industry and the state government. When regulators appear to be bending to political or industry pressure, whether that bending is real or perceived, public confidence evaporates. If we want to rebuild trust, this regulator must be genuinely independent, properly resourced and protected from political meddling.

Finally, we cannot talk about environmental protection in 2025 without talking about climate change. Yet these reforms studiously avoid it. Unsurprisingly, the government has again refused to include a climate trigger, a mechanism that would require assessment of a project's greenhouse gas emissions as part of environmental approvals. The International Court of Justice's recent advisory opinion confirmed that countries like Australia are bound by international law to assess and limit greenhouse gas emissions, including those from exported coal and gas. While the government argues that the safeguard mechanism already regulates emissions, this only applies after a project is operating. It doesn't stop new, high-polluting projects from being approved in the first place. In the last term alone, the government approved 27 new coal, oil and gas projects, with four new approvals this term. Their combined lifetime emissions are expected to exceed 6.5 billion tonnes of CO2.

A reformed EPBC Act that ignores climate is a reform that fails to meet the moment. This reform is an opportunity, a once-in-a-generation chance to fix our broken system, restore trust and put nature at the heart of decision-making, while providing a more efficient process for business and investment. As it stands, the bill does not do that. It risks repeating the very mistakes that the Samuel review warned us about—too much discretion, too little accountability and too many loopholes. I urge the government to work with the crossbench, to listen to the experts and to strengthen this legislation so it genuinely delivers for our environment, our economy and future generations.

Kate Thwaites (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a landmark piece of legislation that represents the most significant overhaul of Australia's environmental laws in a generation. It is overdue. After our environment was neglected, ignored and left to degrade by those opposite, this is work that Labor attempted in our last term but that we could not get opposition or Greens support for in the Senate. We are now meeting the commitment we made—I certainly made this commitment to many of my constituents prior to the last election—to bring back to the parliament new laws to protect the environment. Our Labor government understands how critical these laws are, for our environment and the precious places and species we must protect and for the certainty needed by business and those looking to make necessary developments.

While this bill, the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025, very clearly demonstrates that the Labor government understands the need to protect our environment and pass these laws, I'm yet to be convinced that those opposite understand it. These are some of the questions on my mind right now: Will the Leader of the Opposition stand up for our environment? Will she demonstrate her party's new-found capacity to listen, to learn the hard lessons and reflect the Australia from which they have become disconnected? Will she listen to Graeme Samuel—who she commissioned to do the report that these laws are based on—to Ken Henry or to the businesses urging her to support reform? Will the Greens political party finally join the government and pass these reforms to protect our environment, or will they once again hold out for the perfect and scupper the good? I want to pay tribute to the many groups and individuals who have campaigned hard for these reforms for many years, who have made and continue to make informed contributions. These are the people who understand the importance of getting this done. I just hope that the opposition and the Greens political party do too.

This bill builds on the Albanese Labor government's broader agenda to protect and restore Australia's natural environment, and this is an agenda that stands in stark contrast to the inaction and neglect of those opposite. For nearly a decade the Liberals failed to act on climate change. They ignored the warnings of scientists, and they left Australia without a credible plan to safeguard our environment. They stalled renewable investment, cut environmental programs and oversaw worsening biodiversity loss.

Marion Scrymgour (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What's your point of order, Member for Goldstein?

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Emissions went down under the former coalition government. They've gone up under the current government.

Marion Scrymgour (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There's no point of order. Proceed, Member for Jagajaga.

Kate Thwaites (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member is clearly a little embarrassed about what is happening under his party at the moment. It seems unlikely that they will learn from these mistakes of the past and reverse direction. In fact, it looks like his colleagues are walking away from net zero. I understand that's probably a shame for the member for Goldstein, but he does not currently have the numbers, it seems. Good luck to him in his efforts to get them.

Since 2022 our government has turned the page on that track record. We have passed strong laws to cut emissions and put Australia on the path to net zero by 2050, including strong 2035 reduction targets to get us there. We've committed to achieving 82 per cent renewable energy by 2030, with more than 100 clean energy projects already underway. We've protected 95 million hectares of Australian land and ocean, an area almost the size of Germany, Italy and Norway combined. We've expanded marine parks around Macquarie Island and the Heard and McDonald islands. We've established Environment Information Australia, giving the public and business easier access to transparent environmental data. We've doubled funding for our national parks, including Kakadu and Uluru. We've invested $1.3 billion to expand the Indigenous Rangers Program, delivered $600 million to protect threatened species, and created the world's first nature repair market, unlocking private investment in environmental restoration. It is a strong record, but we know there is more to do, and that is why this bill is before the House.

These reforms are the product of one of the most extensive consultation processes ever undertaken in the environmental policy space. As I said before, I want to pay tribute to the individuals, environment groups and business groups—the stakeholders—who have all engaged constructively in that process. Minister Watt and the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water have conducted more than 100 meetings, forums and roundtables across the country.

Of course, as I said, these reforms are built on the recommendations of the review conducted by Graeme Samuel: a review commissioned by those opposite—by the now leader of the opposition—but which, unfortunately, they could not follow through on. It's taken a Labor government to get this bill before the House. Under Labor, we're delivering the change that that review called for: modern, balanced and enforceable national environmental laws. We're delivering reforms that reflect the best available science, the most up-to-date policy thinking and the real-world feedback from those who live with the consequences of inaction on protecting our environment.

This is something that people in my community in Jagajaga care deeply about. I'm particularly lucky, as are members of my community, to live in one of Melbourne's most biodiverse regions. It's home to bushland, wetlands and parklands—the lungs of our suburbs. Locals are passionate about the Yarra River, the Banyule Flats, the Warringal Parklands and the Darebin and Diamond creeks, and these are all areas where volunteers and community have been working for decades to protect habitat, restore native vegetation and preserve the wildlife that makes our area of Melbourne so special. I give a shout-out to community groups like Friends of Edendale farm, Friends of Yarra Flats Park, Darebin Creek Management Committee, Warringal Conservation Society, our local Landcare networks and many more, who have regularly contacted me both about this bill and about the need for stronger national laws to protect nature.

The people who are contacting me are concerned about declining biodiversity, the loss of tree canopy and the impact of urban expansion on local waterways and ecosystems. These are the people who get up on weekends to plant trees, pick up rubbish and teach our kids about the importance of caring for country. Their passion and stewardship reflect the best of our community, and their message to me has been clear: they want stronger, fairer and more effective environmental laws. Throughout the development of this bill, I've been proud to make sure that their voices have been part of the consideration that has gone into drafting.

This bill does deliver clear standards, transparent decision-making and a federal EPA that can take action where breaches occur. It ensures that people who live alongside our natural areas, those who know them best, have confidence that they will be protected for the future.

The bill is built on three key pillars: stronger environmental protection and restoration, more efficient and robust project assessments, and greater accountability and transparency in environmental decision-making. At its heart, this reform will create Australia's first independent, national environmental protection agency: a tough, science based regulator to enforce one clear set of national rules. This will mean that, when environmental harm occurs, there will be consequences—real ones—with no more loopholes and no more shifting blame between levels of government. There'll be a genuine cop on the beat with the authority to investigate, audit and stop harmful environmental activities before they do permanent damage.

The need for these laws could not be clearer. Every day of delay in updating these laws is damaging our environment and costing business time and money. The average time it takes to approve a major project has more than doubled since 2004. Meanwhile, Australia's native species continue to decline at alarming rates, and habitat destruction remains one of the biggest drivers of biodiversity loss. Communities see developers fast-tracked while local concerns are sidelined. They see companies breach environmental conditions and face little or no consequence. And they have seen, for too long, governments, such as those from the other side, pass responsibility from one level to another while the environment pays the price. Our current system is fragmented, outdated and failing both the environment and business.

So that is why this bill is so important: to modernise the act, to streamline approvals and to bring consistency, transparency and accountability to a process that, in too many cases, has lost public trust. The federal environmental protection agency, an independent national watchdog with strong powers, will have the ability to audit state and territory approval processes, issue stop-work orders to halt damaging activity, impose stronger penalties on repeat offenders and give communities a clear way to report breaches and see real action taken. The EPA will operate independently of political pressure. It will publish data on environmental outcomes, monitor compliance and help ensure that environmental decisions are based on evidence, not influence.

The bill also defines what constitutes unacceptable environmental impacts so that projects causing irreversible damage cannot be approved. A new offsets regime will ensure that, where environmental impacts cannot be avoided, developers must deliver measurable and lasting benefits elsewhere. This achieves a net gain for nature rather than simply offset losses. Importantly, bioregional and regional planning will provide greater clarity for communities and investors alike. These plans will identify no-go zones, areas of critical habitat, high-conservation value and cultural significance that must be protected while guiding responsible development to areas where environmental impacts can be minimised.

This approach balances protection and progress. It supports environmental certainty and investment and business confidence at the same time. Strong and clear boundaries, formal rules and no room for ambiguity: our environment deserves nothing less. We have too many precious places and too many precious species still being lost in this country. It's on all of us in here to make sure that we do all that we can to end that loss. That means working together to pass these laws.

These rules will also improve efficiency. They will cut red tape for business by removing duplication of Commonwealth and state processes. They will create clear and consistent national standards and save businesses time and money while improving outcomes for nature. The Productivity Commission estimates that these reforms could deliver up to $7 billion in economic benefits through faster and more-efficient approvals. That's a win for business, it's a win for workers and it's a clear win for our environment.

This bill represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity. As I said, it reflects the commitment our government made to voters at the last election to get this done. We are very focused on restoring integrity to environmental decision-making. We want to strengthen protection for our most precious ecosystems. We want to ensure that those who damage the environment are held to account. We do all of that with this bill.

We are also conscious that we cannot do it alone. For these reforms to be successful, we will need support from the Liberals or we will need support from the Greens. I say to the members of this parliament: this is our chance to do this once-in-a-generation reform. This is our chance to halt the loss that we have seen—the loss of biodiversity and the loss of species, which is unacceptable—and to work together to protect our environment. I started with a series of questions about the attitudes of those opposite and their commitment to this bill. Those questions remain but, as we debate the bill in this House, we have before us the opportunity for those opposite to answer them—and in fact to answer them positively for nature, to answer them positively for our environment for generations to come, and to answer them positively for business and for the work that needs to happen to continue to develop the infrastructure that our country needs. There is an opportunity here for our environment and for this parliament to do the work that has been far too long in coming—to do the work that it takes Labor governments to do—and to work with passionate advocates who have continued to stand up for our environment and who have worked with us on a set of reforms that, while long overdue, will deliver real gains for our environment.

It's now over to this parliament to do the necessary work to make sure that what's been in train for so long, since Graeme Samuel started his review, which is now reflected in these bills, becomes a reality for our environment, for our country and for the future of biodiversity in our country.