Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

That was quite a fascinating contribution—I'm not sure where to start with it! I rise to address the urgency motion put forward by Senator McKim regarding the need to end native forest logging. I am proud to be part of a Labor government that is committed to strong action on the climate—to address some of the degradation that we've seen over the last decade and more, and to work towards Australia being the country that shows the rest of the world how to build a balanced energy system, to protect the environment and to actually plan for the future: a future that is a net zero future.

We had in December 2022, as was referenced by Senator Hanson-Young, an agreement to some targets at the biodiversity COP15. We also had a very significant agenda to protect the environment, known as the Nature Positive Plan, which will halt environmental decline and repair the damage that has already been done by the former government over the last long, painful 10 years. Do we remember the damning 2020 State of the environment report? It was hidden, probably on top of the firehose and underneath the pile of ministerial appointments. The way that the environment has been ignored and the way that the emissions challenge that we have in front of us has been just swept to the side is awful. But in eight short months, this Albanese Labor government has made significant inroads into trying to turn that around. We have seen so many changes that really are going to get us on the track to put ourselves in a position to be the renewable energy country of the future, which is what we want to be. We must protect our environment along the way and we must put it as a priority, which is what we believe that we have done here.

After that wasted decade, what we're doing in terms of the environment includes our plan for rewiring the nation so that renewable energy is able to be dispatched appropriately across the grid. We will have cheaper and cleaner power. We are looking at a nature-positive plan to rewrite our national environmental laws, which many of us are well aware have been broken for so long. We have a plan for zero new extinctions for this continent. We have a new nature repair market. We are: legislating to protect the ozone layer; doubling the number of Indigenous rangers; protecting Indigenous cultural heritage, in true partnership with First Nations groups; reducing waste; building a more circular economy; and campaigning on the world stage to protect our oceans, support biodiversity and fight for a plastic-free ocean.

We've already, in those eight months, passed legislation targeting 43 per cent emissions cuts by 2030, and we're committed to reaching 82 per cent renewables by 2030. We've had the Chubb review, which found that land clearing accounted for a significant share of our national emissions and recommended that no new project registrations be allocated under that avoided deforestation method. It also recommended that we look at developing new methods that actually incentivise the maintenance of native vegetation that has the potential to be a forest and maintain those existing forests. We've accepted this recommendation, and our safeguard mechanism will reduce the emissions of our largest emitters.

New projects will need to meet specific requirements, including rigorous environmental checks and adherence to the reforms to the safeguard mechanism that we're in the process of making. These reforms are important to limit Australia's carbon emissions. The reforms have received significant support from business, industry and environmental groups. This is going to make a fundamental difference.