David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The thing about the major parties racing to the bottom in politics is that it has consequences. In their quest for headlines and opinion polls, the stuff that actually matters just gets trashed. Right now, what's being demolished by Labor is our environment, our native forests and any chance we have of meaningful climate action. A safe climate is the very thing that Labor is planning to sell down the river.

Labor's so-called environmental laws are a farce. They are a fast-track approval factory for big mining corporations, fossil fuel giants and AUKUS. Yes, you heard me—AUKUS projects will get total environmental exemption from protections whenever a Labor or coalition minister snaps their fingers and says the magic words 'national interest'. That's when the next nuclear submarine base, US military base, toxic nuclear waste dump or critical minerals scraping of a farm gets waved through under national interest by the next Labor so-called environmental minister, with no environmental assessment, no community say and no accountability.

I don't think it will be a great comfort to the communities having a nuclear waste dumped in their backyard that the Prime Minister got a selfie with Donald Trump. It won't slow the extinction of the greater glider in my beautiful home state or the regent honeyeater to know that Minister Watt decided that the project killing them is in the national interest. A bump in the opinion polls for the Albanese Labor government won't be any comfort to young people who are confronting an increasingly hostile climate for the rest of their lives.

The Greens are done playing nice with this nonsense. We will not rubberstamp laws that sacrifice our environment for corporate profits and US military production. We will not. There is a progressive majority in this parliament—or a potential progressive majority in this parliament—that could pass laws to protect the environment and the future. If only Labor realised that it could. It could if it chose to find a little bit of ambition and a little bit of spine.