Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

What a great opportunity this is to have a little bit of scrutiny of the legislation that's before the chamber, which will now be rammed through in record time. This is a pattern of behaviour of the Greens down the end there. At the end of every sitting year we see this arrangement. The mighty new Labor-Greens alliance comes together. They've been behind closed doors for a couple of weeks now, hatching this one up. I'd very much love to know what the price of this latest agreement between the government and their natural bedfellows the Australian Greens political party is this time. Last time, as we know, it was that sumptuous party room down the end of the corridor, lined with myrtle and Huon pine and other endangered old-growth species. But, hey, that doesn't matter. That was the price last time. What have they got this time? Let's not forget that these laws were so important they had to be fully interrogated through the Senate committee process. We had the Greens environment spokesperson, Senator Hanson-Young, saying, 'We must have a full interrogation of these bills by the committee and we cannot report before the end of March.' Well, here we are, and who's voting to ram the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 and related bills through the Senate today? None other than the Australian Greens environment spokesperson, Senator Hanson-Young, and all of her colleagues.

If you look at the Greens press release issued today about the dirty, dodgy deal they've done, with the price unspecified—the price tag we can't find anywhere on the product before us—there are criticisms of the legislation that the Greens are supporting. This is them wanting to have their cake and eat it too. It says, 'Despite significant wins for nature, the bill is still woefully short of what the climate needs, with Labor's refusal to take meaningful climate action,' et cetera, et cetera. You've got the whip hand here, Australian Greens. You signed up. You're supporting the legislation, but you're still unhappy with it. I do not understand how this works—how they can say it's a terrible bill, that it doesn't do what needs to be done, yet they'll sign up and pass it? It's because it is, as I said, just another dodgy, dirty deal made behind closed doors that these warriors for integrity and transparency—not—want to pursue. They will do anything it takes to get whatever it is they need. The list of criticisms goes on in this extensive press release crowing about their win. But, when they sign up and support this legislation, you've got to wonder how serious they are about the issues they are backing in here.

I see some of the detail that was talked about in a press conference that was held just over an hour ago, I understand, by the Prime Minister, the Minister for the Environment and Water, and the Manager of Government Business in the Senate, Senator Gallagher. The shutdown of native forestry happens to be a part of what this government has signed up to today. Why would the Greens support this bill if it didn't do this? I'll tell you what: the only reason they have signed up is that it does do that. This will shut down native forestry in three years time, when the RFAs no longer have their exemption. That's what's been signed up to here today, and that's exactly what's going to happen. Those RFAs will go out the door. Native forestry, a sustainable industry, will be shut down. There will be tens of thousands of workers across the country without a job.

We don't know the details yet, but apparently there is a bailout package in the order of $300 million that is being supported by this crowd down the end of the chamber, the Australian Greens, who last week in the Senate told us that this native forestry industry is too reliant on taxpayers' money. But, hey, let's not worry about it. We'll hand them another $300 million of taxpayers' money to exit the industry and shut them down. That sounds like a bit of a prop-up to me, but this is what the Greens have signed up to: more taxpayers' money to native forestry—and Labor has signed up to the shutdown of this industry. I know there are supporters of this industry in Labor ranks. I just wonder where they are on these issues. Where is the union in relation to forestry workers on this issue? Why aren't they standing up for the workers who've been abandoned under this dodgy, dirty, Labor-Greens deal done behind closed doors at the eleventh hour? Where are they?

The coalition was negotiating in good faith, and even as late as 10 o'clock last night there were discussions ongoing between the coalition and the government. We still haven't finally heard back. We got our message that they weren't going to deal with us through the press conference this morning. I don't think that's a good-faith discussion. It makes me wonder whether this crowd over here—the government, the Labor Party, the party of the worker, the party that wants to bring down energy prices but won't and in fact sends them in the other direction—had any intention of doing anything other than a deal with the Greens. It's a convenient deal that happens to be one that ultimately sells out workers in a number of industries.

Those good-faith negotiations I was talking about—and they were fairly modest—would have gone some way to protecting these industries and these jobs. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of jobs are now at risk because of the added layers of complication that the Greens have inserted into these laws. We won't have a chance today to fully interrogate this legislation. We'll have an hour of committee stage, assuming that the full time for the second reading stage is taken up here today. There is in excess of 700 pages of legislation and in excess of 700 pages of explanatory memoranda. A range of amendments have been announced today—less than an hour ago—and are being circulated only as we speak, but it's all going to be done today. It's all going to be through this parliament and back to the other place so that this government can go on holiday chalking up a win.

We said earlier this week, when we announced that we were still keen and had a number of amendments this government should take into account in progressing the laws—a set of amendments that we thought were sensible and that industry were supportive of—that there should be no rush to do a deal with the Greens. As we said, at the very outset, this would come at an extremely high cost, but the government was willing to do a deal with anyone. The coalition supports the mining industry and the forestry industry in all its forms, including the native forestry industry. We support the more than 50,000 workers across the country who have jobs reliant on that industry. We also support the fossil fuel industry, farmers and property developers. Property developers are going to build the houses we need to ease the housing crisis. The government were willing to work with us, according to the minister earlier this week, but apparently they were also willing to do a deal with the Greens, as evidenced by the fact that they have.

This is a party that has inserted into this bill, as I said before, a clause that will kill off native forestry at the end of three years. The government will deny it and say they won't, but why is there a $300 million bailout package in there then? If it's not going to kill the industry, why put a penny into dealing with this? It's something this party down the end here, the Australian Greens, have railed against since time immemorial—taxpayers' money going to this industry. But today, it's okay.

It does go to the issue of conviction. It does go to the issue of belief, when it comes to this government—the Labor Party as it is in 2025. What do they stand for? They'll happily do a deal with anyone. It doesn't matter what it looks like, because all they needed to do at the end of this week was to chalk up a win, get a bill through—just ram it through, with whoever is willing to do a deal at the lowest price, the easiest price, the most convenient political price. And this is what it looks like today.

Mark my words: the Greens would not be supporting this legislation if indeed it was in any way good for industry, good for jobs or good for the things we need to bring down power prices in this country. They wouldn't be supporting it if it meant that there were laws that were making it easier for this country—as the Prime Minister says we need to—to access gas resources, to be able to get energy into the grid to support manufacturing, to support the tens of thousands of jobs in industries now at risk because of Labor's latest dodgy deal with the Greens. Why are they supporting it? Because they get their token wins—things that of course this government have supported, and said they supported, but have sold out on.

I do want to go back to a quote here, again, to talk about hypocrisy—the hypocrisy of the Australian Greens—and I wish my colleague Senator Hanson-Young were here to hear this, but she said in the committee hearing just last week: 'The people know it stinks. It absolutely stinks, and that's why it needs scrutiny.' That was what Senator Hanson-Young, the Greens' environment spokesperson, said of this legislation: 'It stinks,' and, 'It needs scrutiny.' It's, 'We will stand our ground, and we will make sure that the government does the right thing and has this full-on committee hearing all the way through to 24 March 2026.' It doesn't stink anymore, does it! It doesn't have the slightest stench of support for fossil fuel industries or for forestry. That's because they've gone and done this dodgy deal which actually cuts the guts out of the laws that were needed to ensure that we could do what this country needs when it comes to growing our economy and all of the other things necessary to deal with the crisis facing us.

Just on that, on housing, we know, from the evidence given at the Senate committee, that the laws, which have been made worse by this deal, were going to be difficult for the property industry to comply with. They were going to make it harder for greenfield housing estates to be brought online. The complicating factors around what is now before us, made worse by this deal with the Greens, mean this housing crisis this government is presiding over will not be dealt with any more quickly or any more easily—in fact, quite the opposite. It will be harder for people to build houses in this country. It will be harder for people to get into a house as a result. It will drive up prices because, as we know, the basic laws of economics—supply and demand—mean that, when you've got less supply because of a dodgy Labor-Greens deal, and demand is still being stimulated by all of these bunkum schemes this government runs, prices are going to go up and it is going to be harder to get into a house.

So here we are, ramming through this legislation—700-plus pages of laws and explanatory memoranda. There's a range of amendments—goodness knows how many; I haven't been able to count them yet—and, yes, there are some here from the coalition. But they're the ones, of course, the government would be aware of, because they're the ones we've gone to them with over the last few weeks and that we still haven't heard back from the government on.

This is not democracy at its best. These are dodgy deals at the end of a sitting, which is exactly what we saw at the end of last year. It's what we saw before the election. It's what we've seen a couple of times since the election. It's a hallmark of this brave new world we have in this parliament, where the Labor Party, finding it a bit difficult to be held to account for their legislation, turn to their friends down the end here.

And there is always a plus for the Greens. They are not resolute in their views. They can be bought off. They can be taken in for a price, and they have, once again. The price, sadly, is the people of Australia, who are struggling with power bills, who can't get into a house, who are finding it difficult to get or hold on to a job. These laws will do nothing to assist that. They will not be better for business. There are some mild wins in there—I'm surprised the Greens even went at them—but, honestly, this bill will not make things better, which is the ultimate test here. Will things be better for business and the environment? On both counts, sadly, I think we'll find that neither will be better off as a result of this dirty, dodgy deal.

On that, let's talk about being able to access the resources needed for stimulating supply when it comes to energy generation—gas and coal, which we rely on right now. Of course there's a transition underway, which this government is blindly pursuing at any cost, and the people paying the price are the people in the gallery and the people out there in the real world, whose power bills keep getting bigger and bigger. As we saw in the inflation data yesterday, there's been a 37 per cent increase in the last year alone. That's not good. Their policies aren't working, and I can tell you now: this deal is going to make it much worse. Under these laws, with Labor's deal with the Greens and the amendments that will no doubt be made, it is going to be harder to get a new gas project online. They'll champion that. They'll cheer for that. But what does that do for the supply of gas and therefore bringing down prices in a grid that is heavily reliant on gas now? It doesn't do anything good. It does only things that are bad, and that is what we are very upset about today.

We tried to make these bills much better than they were. We've expressed our concerns. We've operated in good faith with the government, but, instead, it was easier and quicker for the government to do a dodgy deal with the Greens, whatever the price. As I say, it's not just that people will now have higher power bills as a result. The people who work in institutions that rely on gas or other resources that will be harder to get out of the ground because of these laws—their jobs will now be more uncertain. Investors will now decide: Australia has suddenly become a bit harder to do business in; we'll do business somewhere else. Again, more jobs gone. Then there are the people of the forestry sector. Because of Labor selling out to the Greens today, to chalk up a win to get a bill through this parliament before the end of the year so they can all go out on a high—until they have to look forestry workers in the eye—the people of the forestry sector are the ones who have been sold out today. It is a sad day.

I hope that when the Greens speak to these bills today they can tell us what the price was. I think Australians deserve that. (Time expired)