Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Duniam has submitted a proposal under standing order 75 today:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice that today I propose to move "That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Nature Positive bills to be withdrawn from the Notice Paper and for the Prime Minister to guarantee that this legislation will never be returned to the Parliament."

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing order having risen in their places—

With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerks will set the clock in line with the informal arrangements made by the whips.

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

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Nature Positive bills to be withdrawn from the Notice Paper, and for the Prime Minister to guarantee that this legislation will never be returned to the Parliament.

The reason this is an urgent matter for consideration in the Senate is that we need certainty, and we need a government that actually backs our private sector, backs investment and provides a certain environment for those who seek to invest in our community and country. But, at the moment, that is something sadly lacking. It's lacking because you cannot take this government at their word. Sadly, too many times over the course of the last 2½ years in this term of parliament, the term of this Labor government, we've seen where that word, that bond, that has been provided to the Australian people has been broken, and this is a prime example of that.

We had a promise from this Labor government that they would bring in new environmental approval laws to replace the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act 1999 by the end of 2023. Of course, we never received them. The one measly little piece of legislation we received was legislation to set up a new giant green bureaucracy—the Environment Protection Authority, or EPA. That's all we've had to show for three years of work behind closed doors and secretive consultations where nondisclosure agreements were signed by parties participating in this discussion and consultation. All we're talking about here is the environment—a public good that Australians should have some ownership over.

We've had no overhaul of the laws. The laws were never presented to parliament. What was presented was so bad that it had no friends in this place. The government were on their own. They weren't willing to work with us on amendments to the legislation. The last offer of suggested amendments we put to the government went unanswered. There were sensible suggestions like removing the water trigger—a great idea to ensure that investors would be able to come here with some certainty and not have another front of green 'lawfare' opened up on their projects—and being able to overturn that ridiculous decision on the Blayney gold mine and fix those laws that allowed that terrible situation to come about. Of course, all of those went unanswered. That meant the government had to try to do a deal with the Greens.

Let's think about the history of this. It was late last year, in Western Australia, and the Prime Minister had dragged his entire cabinet over to Perth to try to convince the mining industry that they had the mining industry's interests at heart—that they had their back. There was a lot of chatter over there, especially after the Western Australia Labor government tried to kill the economy through those silly cultural heritage laws which went too far, so Labor was very sensitive about the perceptions of Labor governments and the laws they were bringing in. So he took them over there, and he made it very clear in Western Australia on 2 September 2024 that the role of the EPA under their proposed laws would be scaled right back and it would have no teeth or capacity to do anything of real value, according to many. He also ruled out that there would ever be a deal with the Greens on this legislation. But coming back to the east coast of Australia, it's funny: the environment minister, Ms Plibersek, said that she was still negotiating with the Greens to get this legislation through parliament, just one week later. Who was running the show? Who is dictating the legislative agenda? Is it the Prime Minister or his environment minister?

It's interesting. We weren't aware that this was happening, but, when a deal couldn't be done at the end of last year, the Prime Minister said, 'No, we're not going to proceed.' What triggered that action by the Prime Minister was a secret deal done up between the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Greens party. We have proof of it here, in an email that was sent to the Greens environment spokesperson, Senator Hanson-Young, who I'm sure we'll hear from very soon, about the terms of the deal struck between the Australian Labor Party and the Greens to get this legislation through. It reads:

Dear Senator Hanson-Young

I write further to our recent discussions about the Nature Positive Bills currently before the Senate.

The Nature Positive Bills will deliver—

There are—one, two, three—four pages of blacked-out information. The email concludes:

I would be grateful for your confirmation that the Australian Greens will support the bills, including—

to guillotine them. They don't want Australians to know what secret, dodgy, dirty deal was done. This is why it is critically important this bill and everything related to it is expunged from the Notice Paper and does not ever come back to this parliament. It's bad for Australia, it's bad for jobs and it's bad for the environment.

Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to say, on behalf of the government, that we will not be supporting this urgency motion today because, again, this is just another sad attempted scare campaign from the Liberals and Nationals—Senator Duniam, in particular.

Looking at Senator Duniam's record on this, I'm sure he wakes up in the morning confused about which scare campaign he's running today, because all he's been doing in opposition is running scare campaigns. No matter what the issue is, we can rely on Senator Duniam to run a scare campaign, and we've seen a really, really good example of that. We also see from Senator Duniam faux concern about the environment. He comes in here and tries to act like he's concerned about the environment, but, since he's taken on that shadow portfolio, we haven't actually seen any positive action when it comes to the environment. Yes, he wants to run scare campaigns, but, when it comes to actually doing anything about the environment, they have been completely missing in action. We've been clear, and the Prime Minister has been clear, that we will not progress these bills, which is why we've lodged a motion today to discharge it from the Notice Paper. That will come up for a vote tomorrow.

We also know that the Liberals and Nationals have a record, when it comes to the environment, of teaming up with the Greens to block action. We wanted to pass bills that would mean faster environmental approvals for business, easier access to the latest environmental data for business and the fast-tracking of work with the states on critical minerals, housing and other energy projects. That's what this government wanted to achieve—that's what we wanted to consult on and do—but we had no support from those opposite. Indeed, all we've seen is opposition—and where they can they run a scare campaign.

We want to provide that certainty that state governments and proponents want. That's what we've been working diligently on behind the scenes to get done. So it's really disappointing, at a time when we need these projects that are going to generate opportunity, jobs and income for this country, that those opposite cannot work constructively with government to get these things done. It really goes to show that they have learnt nothing from their time in opposition and that they cannot possibly put the national interest first. They are incapable of putting the national interest first.

Let's be clear about the record of those opposite in this space when they were in government. Last time they were in charge of the environment department, they cut resourcing by 40 per cent, and we know they're going to set out to do that again if they're successful at the election. But that has real consequences for these sorts of projects. Businesses across Australia were impacted because it meant that less than half of environmental decisions were made on time. That is the consequence of their decision. When they say 'cuts', this is what it means. It has a negative impact on businesses who are trying to create jobs and economic wealth in this country.

The average federal decision for a new project under the coalition government was 116 days behind schedule. When they did get around to making a decision, 80 per cent of those decisions were either non-compliant or full of errors. These delays hurt business and slowed down projects across the country, and that is what this government has been trying to fix. We inherited a complete mess from those opposite. They take no accountability for that. They don't own up to it. And they've learnt no lessons from their time in government, from the mess that we've been trying to fix. What they should have done is come to the table and work constructively to fix these issues, knowing that these projects help generate jobs and opportunity in this country.

Our government has turned these delays around. We have doubled average on-time approvals to 84 per cent and invested around $420 million to boost approvals processing. The truth is that Australians would be worse off under Peter Dutton and the Liberals and Nationals, who, again, refuse to rule out cuts to the environment department, which will result in continued delays to critical projects which impact on business in this country.

What the Australian people can do is rely on us to act in the national interest, to not fall for silly scare campaigns that those opposite want to run and to do the right thing by the environment at the same time. That has been the record of Labor governments in this country for a long period of time. So I urge you to reject this urgency motion from Senator Duniam and work with us constructively to get proper legislation done that is going to improve approval times in this country and ensure that we can get these projects done for benefit of this country, for jobs and economic opportunity.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

These are some of the headlines over the last 48 hours: 'Miners rejoice as Albanese shelves environmental watchdog', 'Albanese kills off nature positive laws' and 'Albanese abandons environment reforms'. We can all see what has happened here—that the Labor Party has caved in to the vested interests of the fossil fuel industry and the likes of Gina Rinehart. Rather than standing for what is right, protecting nature and putting in place laws that would stop the destruction, look after our environment and stop our koalas from going extinct, the Labor Party has gone weak; the Labor Party has caved in again.

The Greens have been working hard to try and get meaningful reform that would protect our ancient forests, that would stop our wildlife from going extinct. We worked hard with the government to try and get a sensible package agreed. We even put aside our policy and demands for a climate trigger, because we were told by the government that they couldn't do it because the miners wouldn't let them. So we said, 'Okay, we'll compromise, we'll be pragmatic, we'll stand up for the forests, we'll put the climate trigger aside until after the election and we'll look after the forests and the koalas today.' But they couldn't even come at that. The Labor Party has abandoned the environment. And if you want change, if you want protection, you're going to have to vote for it.

Perin Davey (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Everyone knows that I'm not a very sporty person, but my children were gymnasts. They would have had no hope of competing against the Prime Minister's ability to backflip, forward somersault and finish with a triple pike without breaking a sweat. That's what we've seen here. We saw the nature positive bill go through the lower house, with the support of the teals—sorry; apparently they like being called 'community independents' today—and the Greens. We saw it listed for debate in the Senate. Then we saw it withdrawn from the listings, and we saw it brought back, to be debated this week. I was asked last week, when I was doing a TV interview: 'What is the opposition's position on this? Has the opposition changed their mind?' I said at the time, 'The only person that I'm aware of who's changed their mind on bringing this bill forward again for debate is the Prime Minister.' And—lo and behold!—he's changed his mind again.

Now, when it was listed last year, we heard from the Premier of Western Australia his opposition to the bill, calling out the immense damage this legislation would have on that state's mining based economy. Make no mistake—Western Australia would not be the only state impacted, but at least their Premier is honest enough to have called it out.

The new year must have been a really good one for the Prime Minister, because he forgot that he'd withdrawn the bill last year and it appeared on our Notice Paper again. To bring back this bill was a slap in the face for Western Australia. It showed that Western Australia had been held in total contempt by this government. I want to commend Mia Davies, the Nationals' candidate for the seat of Bullwinkel, for her tireless work in calling out not only this bill and the damage it would do to Western Australia but also this government's appalling live sheep export ban. So the bill was relisted, but the phones must have been burning with calls between Western Australia and the Lodge, because over the weekend the Prime Minister yet again shelved this bill. We heard today from Senator Chisholm that they've lodged a motion to withdraw this bill—to discharge it from the Notice Paper.

And yet they're not supporting this motion. Do you know why they're not supporting this motion? Because this motion also asked for a guarantee that the legislation as it stands will not be returned to parliament, and the Labor Party will not make that guarantee, because the Labor Party want to leave the door open to do another dirty deal with the Greens and to make an alignment with the teals—or community independents, or whatever you want to call them. If they are voted into a position where they can form a minority government, they will do dirty deals with the Greens and the teals and reintroduce this appalling bill, irrespective of the impact on the people and the economy of Western Australia and on the economy of Queensland, and, indeed, on the economy of New South Wales, where there are also large-scale mining applications in for things like critical minerals, which we'll need if we're going to see a net zero future. This government doesn't want to close the door of opportunity on a Green-teal minority deal. And that's what we are facing.

That is why the Labor Party are opposing this motion, which, in all other aspects, they support. It is because they know that they cannot get this bill through before any election, so they're willing to discharge it from the Notice Paper, but they're not willing to commit to not bringing back this bad bill that does nothing to improve our environmental laws and does everything to balloon the size of the bureaucracy even more and duplicate state agencies that are already in existence and are already there to do the job this bill is proposing a new bureaucracy to do.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The nature-positive bills align with the international Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework adopted in 2022 at the UN Biodiversity Conference. Once again, the Anthony Albanese Labor government is demonstrating fealty to international agendas over the interests of everyday Australians. The Labor Party has not seen a problem that it did not want to institutionalise through the creation of a new bureaucracy to milk yet more taxpayer money while not actually achieving anything—unless one counts rank stupidity as an achievement!

The Roy Hill mine was fined $18,000 for the offence of not providing a fauna spotter to walk in front of their bulldozers—in front of their bulldozers, which breaches state occupational health and safety rules! The federal law had primacy. The larger the federal government, the more overreach like this occurs and the more we see conflicting state and federal laws. The regulatory environment in 2025 is strangling the life out of our productive economy, and this government wants to add more. The motivation for this bill is an ideology that says, 'Mining's bad, dams are bad, farming's bad and anything that provides wealth and opportunity independent of government is bad.'

The fact that the government would consider a new watchdog shows that existing laws have not worked. One Nation can agree with that. The UN green agenda is killing the environment to save it. It's killing the planet to save the environment, with the enthusiastic support of Minister Bowen and Prime Minister Albanese. It is not nature positive to blow the tops off hills and mountains to install massive wind turbines which create in their wake a five-kilometre environmental dead zone where birds can't fly, destroying once-thriving bird habitats. It is not nature positive to bulldoze 75-metre-wide scars thousands of kilometres long across national parks, state forests and farmland to carry power from these wind turbines back to the cities. It is not nature positive to carve the sides off mountains to widen and straighten roads to take 100-metre-long wind turbine blades to the construction sites. It is not nature positive to cancel dam construction, as this government did when they cancelled the Hells Gate Dam, only to stand back just three years later and watch as water flooding from the Burdekin River devastated cities in North Queensland.

Nothing in this bill will help the natural environment. It will be used for political green activism, getting Greens party preferences, killing mining, killing dams, killing mountains and forests and killing the environment in the name of saving the planet. It will be used to promote the failed green climate fraud. One Nation support Senator Duniam's motion. The nature positive bills will make farming, mining and industry harder. They will take jobs, wealth and opportunity from everyday Australians while providing no noticeable benefits to the natural environment.

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before the last election, Labor said our environment laws were broken and they promised to fix them. Well, they have broken that promise and abandoned reform to better protect nature. Why have they done that? Because the big polluters, the big fossil fuel corporations, told them to break their promise, and Labor did. So, instead of better protection for nature, our forests keep getting logged, our rivers and oceans keep getting poisoned and our ecosystems keep collapsing.

The Greens are here to fight to defend nature. We are here to end native forest logging. We are here to crack down on corporate polluters. We are here to bring in environmental laws that do what they say on the tin: protect nature. Labor won't protect nature; they will protect their political donors. The Greens will protect nature.

Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The nature positive bill has nothing to do with protecting the environment. It is another step in government overreach, controlling people's lives and our country. At the end of the day, this is just another extension by the Labor Party, taking from the states control of their constitutional responsibility to look after the environment. It is not the role of the federal government to look after the environment. That role was usurped by Bob Hawke in 1983 with the Franklin dam decision.

It is all very good talking about the environment, but the fact of the matter is that we do not want an independent statutory authority without any parliamentary oversight or ministerial oversight making decisions that aren't accountable to the Australian people. That's what this nature positive bill is all about. It's all very well dressing it up and saying, 'We want to protect the environment.' We all want to protect the environment. But, at the end of the day, if you want to protect the environment you need to have proper levels of accountability. What this will do is take control of the environment from the federal environment minister—by the way, as I said before, they shouldn't even have any control over the environment—and give it to independent statutory authorities. Just like we have seen with our monetary policy, just like we see with the ABC and just like we see with the TGA, we're going to have another radical bureaucratic department created who can drive their own agenda without any form of feedback or transparency to the Australian people. So I strongly urge that this week all members of the Senate oppose any attempts at bringing in legislation that will undermine the democratic process of this country.

Fatima Payman (WA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Picture this scenario. I want to have pizza for dinner from a bougie place in Fremantle where the woodfired pizza cost $39 but I only have $25. I ask my friends to pitch in, and they agree on one condition—that they get a slice. Outrageous, I think. I refuse, they walk away and I go home hungry. Now, the people watching at home may think this sounds stubborn. Well, it is. And it's exactly how the government handled the nature-positive bills, refusing to compromise, rejecting support and leaving the environment and economy worse off.

The Albanese Labor government drafted the laws that neither industry groups nor environmental groups were happy with. We should call this what it is: a failure of political will. Instead of standing firm and delivering real environmental reform, Labor buckled under pressure and left us with laws that satisfy no-one. This is the same tired game we see across so many critical issues—political calculations over policy, short-term survival over long-term solutions. While they stall, delay and water down reforms, WA is missing out on the investment, certainty and job opportunities that should be flowing into renewable energy, environmental restoration and sustainable industries.

The world is moving forward but this government is standing still, caught between its promises and its political fears. By refusing to negotiate and insisting that it's their way or the highway, we are stuck with the current environmental laws that the Samuel review found took too long to assess projects for industry and could not achieve good outcomes for the environment. Well, we shall see the product of this Blairite, Third Way fence-sitting at the election.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this very important urgency motion. What we've seen throughout the entire term of this Albanese government is that, time and time again, their priorities do not lie in the best interests of Australians. They certainly don't lie in the best interests of Western Australia, my home state. For the past three years, we've watched on in horror as they have continually misjudged the signs of the times. Again, here we are: this out-of-touch government is being forced to backpedal yet again on their industry-killing, Orwellian-named nature-positive agenda.

At a time when people across the country continue to fight against the biting cost-of-living crisis that is impacting every household and every business, Mr Albanese thought it was appropriate to push this nature-positive bill not once but twice—a nature-positive bill that the recent ACIL Allen report states would push WA's wholesale electricity prices up by 38 per cent while Labor harps on about reducing energy costs. It is estimated that the nature-positive bill would also increase the cost of residential land in WA by an estimated 10.6 per cent and reduce housing availability by 25 per cent while Labor reassure Australians that they are doing everything they can to address this housing crisis. They are completely out of touch.

Senator Chisholm comes in here and acts like we are playing a political game, yet it was them who put it back on the Notice Paper. They actually had it listed to be debated later this week. Now, we understand there is a motion to have it removed from the Notice Paper tomorrow, yet they've got an opportunity to vote with us right now, today, on this motion to say that this is urgent and that it needs to be dealt with.

Australians are hurting because of the decisions of this government. There is nothing that tells Western Australians that this government is against Western Australians more than this nature-positive bill. We know in Western Australia the chilling effect that it will have on the mining industry. We know the chilling effect that it will have on investment in the resources industry. The cost that it would impose upon businesses and resource projects across Western Australia would be astronomical. And do you know what that means? It means jobs will be lost. It means projects will be unviable. It means we will not see projects continue and we will not see new projects go ahead because of the decisions of this government. That will cost Western Australians. This is the price that will be paid if this government have their way.

They are going to take it off the Notice Paper, so they will say: 'Nothing to see here. It is now off the Notice Paper. The scaremongering can go away because it is no longer an issue.' Why won't the Prime Minister categorically rule out that it will not be brought back in the next term of government, should they be able to cobble together a minority government? We know it will be a condition of support from the Australian Greens. It will be a condition of support for minority government, for the Australian Greens to back in the Greens-Labor coalition. It will be a condition and will be something that will have to happen under an Adam Bandt-led government, because that is what we will see. This is not something Australians can afford. It is certainly not something Western Australians can afford. They know. That is why even Roger Cook, the champion of the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act, no less, called this out as ridiculous policy. Even he called this out as something that cannot happen for Western Australia, because he knows it will cost jobs. Mr Albanese does not seem to care about that, and that is why he is hiding away until after the election, thinking he can pull the wool over the eyes of Western Australians. Well, Western Australians are going to wake up. (Time expired)

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the urgency motion as moved by Senator Duniam be agreed to.