Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I'm very proud and pleased that today we start this new parliament, the 48th Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, by debating a bill which is so important to the safety of our climate, the protection of our environment and the future of our children and generations to come.

For far too long our environment laws have ignored the biggest threat to nature and to humanity, and that is the climate crisis. For far too long our environment laws have been contradictory. The environment minister is required to assess, with advice from his department and proponents, the merits of a particular project—whether that be a big industrial development, a new coalmine or an expansion of a gas plant. While assessing the environmental concerns, damages and impacts in each of these assessments, the minister is actively stopped from considering the environmental damage of the pollution that any of these projects create.

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Climate Trigger) Bill 2022, which would introduce a climate trigger into Australian law to ensure that the environment minister must assess the climate damage—the climate pollution—of a project before giving it a tick of approval, just makes sense. We're in 2025, and our environment is under extreme stress. We're in 2025, and the climate crisis is not something off in the future; it is unfolding before our very eyes. All you need to do is look at what's happening on the coastline and along the beaches in my home state of South Australia. The deadly, toxic algae that has engulfed our waters, killing our marine life and polluting our local beaches, is the direct result of the warming ocean. All the experts—the climate experts, the marine biologists, the state and federal government owned departments—acknowledge that this deadly, toxic algae is the result of climate change.

These horrific scenes of death and destruction that we are seeing on a daily basis on the beaches in Adelaide and around our South Australian coast are not just a stark reminder of what is happening to our natural environment beneath the surface of the oceans and seas; they are now having huge ramifications for the community at large. Our state economy is powered by our clean, green agriculture industry, our seafood exports and our tourism trade. Our fishing industry has been smashed because of this deadly, toxic algae. Our tourism industry is crippled because of this deadly, toxic algae. Our community is anxious, worried and deeply distressed about the situation that is unfolding.

Nature is copping the brunt of it all. Only last week we saw a dead dolphin washed up just outside the Brighton and Seacliff Yacht Club. Only two days prior we held a community forum in that yacht club of concerned locals, concerned members of the fishing and the tourism industries, and scientists. Two days later we saw the distressing scene of a dead dolphin washed up right in front of that yacht club. It has shaken our community.

South Australians are horrified and heartbroken, but they're scared. They're scared because all of the warnings that the scientists gave of how crippling and disastrous the climate crisis would be are now unfolding and getting worse day after day. Ken Henry, the former secretary of the Treasury department, last week called out the nonsense of pretending you could have an economy without having a healthy environment. When you have the heads and former heads of Treasury saying the environment crisis is now an economic crisis, it's time that this parliament acted. It's not the economy, stupid; it's the environment, stupid.

The impact of the climate pollution that is being created from the fossil fuel production and expansion is now killing our oceans, crippling our industries, killing local jobs and creating a looming health crisis. So what do we do about it? One of the things we could do is stop making the problem worse. There's a lot of carbon pollution being created already. A lot of work has to be done to reduce the pollution that is already being created. But you can't keep pouring fuel on the fire and thinking the problem will go away.

This piece of legislation would put into law, for the first time, a requirement that the government and the responsible minister consider, assess and take seriously climate pollution, carbon pollution and the damage that fossil fuels are doing before saying that something can be approved. It is absolute nonsense, in 2025, to have an environment minister approve the expansion of a huge gas project like the North West Shelf Project, Woodside's big polluting gas project, without even considering the climate damage that that project will do, and say that it passes all of the required environmental checks and balances. It clearly does not.

We don't have laws that are fit for purpose. And I understand—the science has become clearer; the urgency has become more acute. But it is time that we modernise our laws to make them fit for the challenges of the modern world, and the biggest challenge we have of all is how we respond to the climate crisis, deal with the pollution that already exists and do everything we can to stop making the problem worse.

The Greens have been calling for a climate trigger in our national laws for a long time. But, actually, we weren't the first ones to think of it. Even the Prime Minister himself, Anthony Albanese, in 2005, 20 years ago, introduced a bill in the other place, calling for the exact same thing. Twenty years ago, the Prime Minister was ahead of the curve; 20 years later, I ask him to stop playing catch-up.

It makes absolutely no sense to have laws in this country that allow environmental approval while actively and deliberately ignoring the biggest environmental threat of all. It makes no sense to the scientists, it makes no sense to the legislators, and it makes no sense to the community. We've got to get serious about the crisis that is now unfolding on our shores and in our communities and that is crippling our economy and industries. A climate assessment, a climate trigger, would give the government of the day and the minister of the day the power to do what we all know is needed—to put a clamp on making the problem worse.

I stand here and I advocate, on behalf of my Greens colleagues, the urgency of this reform, because we can see that Mother Nature is at her wits' end. We can see that our animals, our marine life and our wildlife, are suffocating, and we can see that our economy will be crippled unless we get this right. And our communities deserve better. In such times of uncertainty, the role of parliament and government is to act to help communities be safe, to provide assurance and comfort and to ensure that the community is listened to. The government needs to act on this. I say this and I advocate this from a position of knowledge, from a position backed by science and from a position that has been advocated by experts across the board from the most conservative economic position through to those who just care about the existence of our natural world and wildlife.

But today we are going to hear cries and screams and squeals against this reform from people who don't even believe that this disaster is already upon us. When I started prepping for what I was going to say this morning, I looked at the front page of the Australian newspaper. And what is on the front page of the Australian today? Mr Barnaby Joyce wanting to wreck climate action again in this country. The Liberal and National parties have no idea what to do and what they should do for the good of this nation. They're more interested in tearing each other apart, plotting against their leaders and using the climate crisis as their excuse. If there were ever a shill for the fossil fuel industry in this place, it's the National Party.

So don't be fooled in this debate this morning by those who have no interest in settling this issue properly or in dealing with the crisis at hand. The only crisis the National Party is interested in is the crisis of its own leader. We need more maturity in this place, and I urge the government to ignore the rabble from the other side who have no care for the environment, who are more worried about their leadership speculations and who are more worried about wrecking climate action, ripping up our renewable energy industry and throwing the country into disarray—selfish, selfish, selfish. Ignore them and work in the interests of nature. (Time expired)