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

I move:

At the end of the motion, add:

"and, in respect of the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 and six related bills, the provisions of the bills be referred immediately to the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 24 March 2026".

I've circulated an amendment to Minister Watt's amendment to give this bill the scrutiny it deserves and needs—to send this to an inquiry where the Australian people can have a good look at the stitch-up that this government has done with the big business lobby, the miners and the loggers. We know that the legislation that's been tabled in the House of Representatives today has big business's, the miners' and the loggers' grubby fingerprints all over it. There are more loopholes. There are more get-out-of-jail-free cards for the business lobby, the miners and the loggers. There are, however, no guaranteed protections for our forests, for our climate. There are no guaranteed protections for our endangered species.

This bill—this package of bills, seven bills, hundreds of pages—does not do what it says on the tin. It is no wonder that 'Mr Murray in a hurry' wants to ram this legislation through this place with a short inquiry, because he's done a deal with the big businesses, the big polluters and the big loggers, and he doesn't want anyone to know about it. There's only one thing that drives a government to truncate the process of the Senate, and that's when they're trying to hide what's really going on. When they don't want the community to know, when they don't want their own voters to know, when they don't want their own backbench to know what's really going on, the government moves things as fast as they can, rams legislation through and hopes no-one will notice, or, if they do, it will all be too late.

That's why they don't want a genuine Senate inquiry today, but we are going to move to make sure that this chamber has the ability to do its job. There are hundreds of pages of this legislation. The weasel words have grown and grown. In fact, it was just up until yesterday that the department and those in the minister's office were finalising how many more weasel words would be in this piece of legislation. The government itself wasn't able to settle on exactly what would be in this package until the last minute. If they expect the Senate just to roll over, rubberstamp this and ram it through, they've got another thing coming.

For far too long, we've had big business, the big logging companies and the big miners write the laws in this country. In the one package that is meant to be about protecting the environment, you'd think they'd do what it says on the tin. Imagine if the environment minister actually talked about, and put forward, legislation that protected the environment. Do you think BHP would be cheering it on? Do you think Chevron would be saying, 'Ram it through'? Do you think the Minerals Council would be telling the Senate to get out of the way? No, they would not. Why are they all lining up today to tell Senator Watt, the Minister for the Environment and Water, to get this all done quickly before anyone notices? It's because it's good for their business. It's good for their mining. It's good for their pollution-pumping projects. Of course, because it does nothing to stop native forest logging, the trees will keep falling, the animals will keep dying and the pollution will keep growing. That is what is on the table, and the community deserves to know.

I know that this makes the government terribly nervous, because there are people within their own backbench who are alarmed at what is in this package. I say to the backbenchers of the Labor Party: here is your chance. Here is your chance to get behind the rest of the community, who want strong environmental protections, our forests saved, the pollution to stop and a natural environment that is protected for the next generation, for our kids. If you want to take this opportunity, now is the time. Now is the time to have a backbone. Now is the time to find your voice and use this process to do it. Otherwise, this package of bills, written by the business lobby for the loggers and the miners, will sail through. Who knows what the coalition will do? They're totally divided. But the idea that a Labor government would ram through legislation, beg the coalition for a deal and then have the gall to call it 'environmental protection'—you know it stinks. The people know it stinks. It absolutely stinks, and that's why it needs scrutiny.