Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens have worked hard to improve a pretty cooked and a pretty crappy Labor bill, to start off with. We've done this to better protect our native forests and our bushlands. We have taken out the terrible aspects of Labor's proposed disgraceful environmental reforms which would have fast tracked the destruction of nature. That is the job of the Greens in the parliament.

But the real questions here to ask are these. Why did Labor bring in a bill that would damage rather than protect the environment? Why did they write laws for coal and gas corporations and big mining to start off with? Why would Labor even contemplate a deal with the climate denying environmental vandals that are the coalition? Because Labor is too cowardly, too compromised and too beholden to big money, to corporations and to the fossil fuel lobby and their dirty donations. They don't give a damn about the environment. They care about corporate profits much more than environmental protection. And we are here to hold them to account.

It took arduous negotiations to get Labor to remove the 30-day fast-track approval for coal and gas projects that they had in the original bill. Why? Because, again, they don't give a damn about the climate crisis. If they did, their first act after winning this election would not have been the approval of Woodside's climate wrecking expansion of the north-west shelf gas project, which will be a disaster for the priceless Murujuga rock art. So, yes, we have put a spanner in the work of the native forest logging industry and ended a legal carve-out that forest campaigners have been fighting for, for decades. That's a good thing. It improves protection for native forests. And we have removed the worst aspects of Labor original, dreadful bill to destroy nature.

To be frank, it is shameful that the Labor Party that was elected, the first time, in the climate election had to be dragged back to the status quo and then dragged to improve environmental protections for our forests and bushlands. That tells you all you need to know about this Labor government. They would go backwards on climate and the environment if they had their way—if we weren't here. They were prepared to do a deal with the coalition. It's a clear indication of the work that we have cut out for us here. It's a clear indication of the fight that we have on our hands.

We've stood shoulder-to-shoulder and hand-in-hand with climate activists and forest campaigners for years. With the changes the Greens have pushed for, we do have some more tools to fight to protect native forest, and we will be with climate activists and with forest campaigners. We will be with them on the streets, we will be with them in the forest and we will be with them at the Rising Tide blockade in Newcastle this weekend.