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

():  Thanks, Senator Roberts. Well, the theme continues with senators from that side of the chamber completely misrepresenting what is being done in this bill. I guess it's no real surprise. It's one thing for senators to come in here and oppose what is in the bill. I get that. I did that myself when I was in the opposition. It's a completely different thing to come in here and make stuff up and oppose things that aren't in the bill. We've seen that from Senator Duniam, we've seen that from Senator McKenzie and we've now seen that from Senator Roberts as well. I mean, we know that One Nation is setting the policy agenda for both the Liberal and the National parties at the moment, so it would appear that the style of argument from One Nation, where they just make stuff up, is also now how the Liberals and the Nationals approach policy arguments and debates in the Senate.

I've already discussed at length, in answer to earlier questions, what is actually in this bill when it comes to forestry, so I won't go over that again. But I do want to reject and rebut the falsehoods that Senator Roberts is now peddling about the impacts of this legislation on the agriculture sector, particularly when it comes to changes regarding land clearing. It's far from stopping farmers clearing their land. Next it will be that we are 'confiscating farmland'. Next it will be that some big bogeyman is going to go sit in the middle of a farm and stop tractors running. You can set your clock by the arguments you're going to get from the coalition and One Nation, because they don't have any facts and they don't have any arguments, so they resort to fear and falsehood.

What we are actually proposing in the legislation to do regarding agricultural land clearing, similar to forestry, is to remove an exemption from the act that currently applies to a range of land-clearing activities that are high risk for the environment. I might just make the point before I forget it that, as you would expect, a number of environment groups have been calling for these changes because of the dramatic improvements to the environment they will make, whether for threatened species or to the Great Barrier Reef. But you know someone else who's called for these changes? His name is Robert Hill. Those of us old enough to remember will know that Robert Hill was the Liberal Party minister in the then Howard government who first introduced these laws back in 1999 and, probably for reasons of internal politics, had to agree to an exemption from the act for both forestry activities and agricultural land clearing. The reason I mention that is that the very Liberal Party minister who introduced these laws in 1999, Robert Hill, made a submission to a Senate inquiry about this bill. And you know what he said? He said we should lift the exemptions that his own bill applied to forestry and agricultural land clearing. So, sure, environment groups want this changed, but so does the very Liberal Party minister who introduced the bill when it was first passed back in 1999.

Again, let's have some facts. What we are talking about doing here when it comes to agricultural land clearing is making two changes. One is removing the exemption that currently exists under the act for two forms of agricultural land clearing. We're only talking about situations where that land-clearing impacts will have a significant impact on a nationally protected matter. Firstly, we are proposing to lift from the date of commencement of this legislation—from the date of royal assent—the exemption that currently applies for what is known as continuous-use land clearing. To put it in simple terms, we will remove the exemption that currently applies for land clearing of regrowth that has been there for 15 years or more. The point about that is that that's the sort of length of time, according to the scientific consensus, that allows an ecosystem to rebuild after it has first been cleared. It's not about stopping that land clearing; it's about saying that, if land clearing of regrowth of more than 15 years is to occur and will have a significant impact on a nationally protected matter such as threatened species—koalas, gliders or whatever it might be—then the person who wants to do that land clearing needs to get an EPBC assessment and approval, and that's exactly what happens now for the mining industry. It's exactly what happens now for people who want to build wind farms or solar farms, and it's exactly what happens for housing developers. If they want to clear land that will have a significant impact on a nationally protected matter, they have to go the EPBC Act, and that's exactly what we're saying will happen now for farmers who want to clear their land in those circumstances.

The second change is to lift the exemption that currently applies for clearing essentially within 50 metres of rivers or creeks within the Great Barrier Reef catchment. All the science tells us that one of the major things that has been impacting on the Great Barrier Reef's health is sediment run-off from clearing alongside rivers and creeks. The people who do that are not bad people, and they're not breaking the law as it stands at the moment, but it is having an impact on the Great Barrier Reef.