Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

It's interesting, Senator Duniam, that most of the people over there seem to think that it's not necessary to pass these reforms. We might have a little chat about that later. It is now over five years since Professor Graeme Samuel tabled his blueprint for reform of these laws. It's over five years since Professor Samuel told us that our national environmental laws are fundamentally broken and that they are failing the environment, failing business and failing the general community. So this week it's critical that this parliament comes together to pass reforms to these laws that will deliver real gains for the environment—gains like creating the first ever national Environmental Protection Agency to be a tough cop on the beat, the establishment of National Environmental Standards and the inclusion of a net gain principle into the environmental offsets regime.

The government are very clear about our position on these laws. We've introduced a set of reforms that have now passed the House of Representatives, so the choice is now sitting with the coalition and the Greens to decide whether they want to work cooperatively with the government to pass these reforms. Of course, the other option that the coalition and the Greens have is that they sit on the sidelines, throwing rocks, while their political opponents come and work with us instead. I've made very clear that these reforms are going through this week, and it's either going to be with you or it's going to be with you. It's up to you. If you sit on the sidelines, we go with them. If you sit on the sidelines, we'll go with you. Just have a little think about that as the week rolls on. We all know how it worked out for both these characters over the last federal election when they were sitting on the sidelines, throwing rocks and blocking progress. They went backwards, and the Australian people had their say.