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

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I'm very proud and pleased that today we start this new parliament, the 48th Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, by debating a bill which is so important to the safety of our climate, the protection of our environment and the future of our children and generations to come.

For far too long our environment laws have ignored the biggest threat to nature and to humanity, and that is the climate crisis. For far too long our environment laws have been contradictory. The environment minister is required to assess, with advice from his department and proponents, the merits of a particular project—whether that be a big industrial development, a new coalmine or an expansion of a gas plant. While assessing the environmental concerns, damages and impacts in each of these assessments, the minister is actively stopped from considering the environmental damage of the pollution that any of these projects create.

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Climate Trigger) Bill 2022, which would introduce a climate trigger into Australian law to ensure that the environment minister must assess the climate damage—the climate pollution—of a project before giving it a tick of approval, just makes sense. We're in 2025, and our environment is under extreme stress. We're in 2025, and the climate crisis is not something off in the future; it is unfolding before our very eyes. All you need to do is look at what's happening on the coastline and along the beaches in my home state of South Australia. The deadly, toxic algae that has engulfed our waters, killing our marine life and polluting our local beaches, is the direct result of the warming ocean. All the experts—the climate experts, the marine biologists, the state and federal government owned departments—acknowledge that this deadly, toxic algae is the result of climate change.

These horrific scenes of death and destruction that we are seeing on a daily basis on the beaches in Adelaide and around our South Australian coast are not just a stark reminder of what is happening to our natural environment beneath the surface of the oceans and seas; they are now having huge ramifications for the community at large. Our state economy is powered by our clean, green agriculture industry, our seafood exports and our tourism trade. Our fishing industry has been smashed because of this deadly, toxic algae. Our tourism industry is crippled because of this deadly, toxic algae. Our community is anxious, worried and deeply distressed about the situation that is unfolding.

Nature is copping the brunt of it all. Only last week we saw a dead dolphin washed up just outside the Brighton and Seacliff Yacht Club. Only two days prior we held a community forum in that yacht club of concerned locals, concerned members of the fishing and the tourism industries, and scientists. Two days later we saw the distressing scene of a dead dolphin washed up right in front of that yacht club. It has shaken our community.

South Australians are horrified and heartbroken, but they're scared. They're scared because all of the warnings that the scientists gave of how crippling and disastrous the climate crisis would be are now unfolding and getting worse day after day. Ken Henry, the former secretary of the Treasury department, last week called out the nonsense of pretending you could have an economy without having a healthy environment. When you have the heads and former heads of Treasury saying the environment crisis is now an economic crisis, it's time that this parliament acted. It's not the economy, stupid; it's the environment, stupid.

The impact of the climate pollution that is being created from the fossil fuel production and expansion is now killing our oceans, crippling our industries, killing local jobs and creating a looming health crisis. So what do we do about it? One of the things we could do is stop making the problem worse. There's a lot of carbon pollution being created already. A lot of work has to be done to reduce the pollution that is already being created. But you can't keep pouring fuel on the fire and thinking the problem will go away.

This piece of legislation would put into law, for the first time, a requirement that the government and the responsible minister consider, assess and take seriously climate pollution, carbon pollution and the damage that fossil fuels are doing before saying that something can be approved. It is absolute nonsense, in 2025, to have an environment minister approve the expansion of a huge gas project like the North West Shelf Project, Woodside's big polluting gas project, without even considering the climate damage that that project will do, and say that it passes all of the required environmental checks and balances. It clearly does not.

We don't have laws that are fit for purpose. And I understand—the science has become clearer; the urgency has become more acute. But it is time that we modernise our laws to make them fit for the challenges of the modern world, and the biggest challenge we have of all is how we respond to the climate crisis, deal with the pollution that already exists and do everything we can to stop making the problem worse.

The Greens have been calling for a climate trigger in our national laws for a long time. But, actually, we weren't the first ones to think of it. Even the Prime Minister himself, Anthony Albanese, in 2005, 20 years ago, introduced a bill in the other place, calling for the exact same thing. Twenty years ago, the Prime Minister was ahead of the curve; 20 years later, I ask him to stop playing catch-up.

It makes absolutely no sense to have laws in this country that allow environmental approval while actively and deliberately ignoring the biggest environmental threat of all. It makes no sense to the scientists, it makes no sense to the legislators, and it makes no sense to the community. We've got to get serious about the crisis that is now unfolding on our shores and in our communities and that is crippling our economy and industries. A climate assessment, a climate trigger, would give the government of the day and the minister of the day the power to do what we all know is needed—to put a clamp on making the problem worse.

I stand here and I advocate, on behalf of my Greens colleagues, the urgency of this reform, because we can see that Mother Nature is at her wits' end. We can see that our animals, our marine life and our wildlife, are suffocating, and we can see that our economy will be crippled unless we get this right. And our communities deserve better. In such times of uncertainty, the role of parliament and government is to act to help communities be safe, to provide assurance and comfort and to ensure that the community is listened to. The government needs to act on this. I say this and I advocate this from a position of knowledge, from a position backed by science and from a position that has been advocated by experts across the board from the most conservative economic position through to those who just care about the existence of our natural world and wildlife.

But today we are going to hear cries and screams and squeals against this reform from people who don't even believe that this disaster is already upon us. When I started prepping for what I was going to say this morning, I looked at the front page of the Australian newspaper. And what is on the front page of the Australian today? Mr Barnaby Joyce wanting to wreck climate action again in this country. The Liberal and National parties have no idea what to do and what they should do for the good of this nation. They're more interested in tearing each other apart, plotting against their leaders and using the climate crisis as their excuse. If there were ever a shill for the fossil fuel industry in this place, it's the National Party.

So don't be fooled in this debate this morning by those who have no interest in settling this issue properly or in dealing with the crisis at hand. The only crisis the National Party is interested in is the crisis of its own leader. We need more maturity in this place, and I urge the government to ignore the rabble from the other side who have no care for the environment, who are more worried about their leadership speculations and who are more worried about wrecking climate action, ripping up our renewable energy industry and throwing the country into disarray—selfish, selfish, selfish. Ignore them and work in the interests of nature. (Time expired)

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

Before I call Senator Grogan, I will remind everyone carrying on other conversations in the chamber to keep their voices down.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Hanson-Young for her contribution on this bill. The Albanese government will not be supporting the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Climate Trigger) Bill 2022. Since this bill was introduced in 2022, quite a lot has changed. You would not think so after listening to my colleagues in the Greens, but a lot of action has been undertaken. There has been a lot of change. But, if we understand how our environment works, how our economy works and how our society works, these things do not change overnight. You don't just snap your fingers and solve climate change.

We all know that we spent a very long, painful and agonising decade with the coalition in charge, undoing any work that the previous Labor government had put together to address climate change and, as Senator Hanson-Young rightly points out, tearing each other apart in their own party room and working desperately to take no action on climate change. As some of them do openly admit, they actually don't believe that climate change is a thing. They don't believe it's real. They don't believe that the scientists are correct. They don't see the growing anxiety and disaster that is looming across the world because of the issue of climate change. And not to leave our new colleagues on the crossbench over there out of the picture—they don't believe in climate change either. Welcome to you both.

We're in a situation where Australia needs to take strong action. We need to continue to take strong action. We need to address the situations that we are starting to see. As we know, the algal bloom in South Australia has in part been connected to the warming ocean tides that we've seen in the last few months. As a government, you can't just go and turn the regulator down. You can't just go: 'Ooh, it's a bit hot. Let's turn the ocean down.' You actually have to take real, sustainable, long-term action to reduce emissions, and that takes a lot of hard work. Transforming our economy takes a lot of hard work. Changing Australia to be a sustainable green industry takes time. And that's not an excuse—that is a fact. To reorient our economy and our actions takes time. We have done a great deal in the first term of the Labor government. We have made significant inroads. Is it enough? No, and not once have we said that it is. Do we need to continue to strengthen our action? Do we need to continue to take action? Yes, we do.

But the problem we face—and we see it in this chamber all the time—is that we stand here on the government benches taking action, looking to the future of Australia, building Australia into a long-term sustainable economic future—

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

Approving coalmines, approving gas mines.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You want to deindustrialise our country, Sarah?

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and, as we do that—while I stand here and Senator McKenzie and Senator Hanson-Young yell at each other across the chamber, one wanting everything and one wanting nothing, which is the cry we hear from both of you all the time. You are the problem, people. You are the problem. So taking action requires our colleagues to get a grip. Senator Hanson-Young said, 'It's not the economy, stupid; it's the environment, stupid.' Well, I would say that it's the economy and the environment, stupid. You cannot just pick one. You say: 'Right, everything for business and let's trash the environment. Everything for the environment and let's trash the economy.' Come on! There is a pathway through the middle here. If you guys would get on board—just get on board!—we could make some fundamental changes. We could move quicker, Senator Hanson-Young, if your party were not so obstructionist.

So we have made significant inroads. We have a very strong policy agenda to reduce emissions by 43 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030 and net zero by 2050. Yes, we know that there are those out there who would like those things to happen tomorrow, but that's not practical. That's not going to happen. The transition will happen, but it will happen in a managed fashion that keeps this country moving forward to be stronger, to be more sustainable, to protect our environment, to reduce our emissions and to do what we can right now and plan for the future of a zero-emissions future.

We have got some of the world's best resources: wind and solar. We've got some of the best technologies. We've made great inroads in renewables and battery storage, connecting it into the grid. We can make our systems more reliable, both in the grid and in our household systems. We have hundreds of thousands of solar panels. We are leading the charge in putting solar panels on houses. And we are now, as of the more recent Labor policy and action on battery storage, providing opportunities for people to put batteries on their houses. This will make a difference not only to our emissions profile but also, significantly, to the cost of energy for households. We've got a Climate Change Act that has very clear emissions reduction targets in it. It is a strong, articulated pathway—not just an idea, not just a target, but a plan and a pathway to actually achieve it.

Our Capacity Investment Scheme, which is ensuring we have enough affordable and reliable electricity, will be brought into the grid to meet that demand from now through to 2030. This scheme has exceeded all of our expectations. We received bids that were 4½ times what the actual tender was for. That sort of interest being shown is excellent to see. It shows that we have the capacity to ramp up. It shows we have the capacity to increase and improve what we're doing in these areas. We know that our emissions for the year to December 2024 were 27 per cent below our 2005 levels. That's not nothing, I say to my colleagues on the Greens benches over there. That is not nothing; that's a 27 per cent reduction. That is a good step.

Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We need more than that.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, of course we know we need more, but that can't be the only thing you ever say. Seriously, you are the problem if all you're ever going to say is that it's not enough. Nothing's ever good enough. We're actually taking action. We are making a fundamental difference here to the future of Australia.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The farmers are.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And what exactly does Senator McKenzie think the farmers are going to do when the land is unfarmable due to climate change? What is she going do then?

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

Senator Grogan, could you please resume your seat. I remind the chamber that interjections are disorderly. Senator Grogan, please direct your comments through the chair. That may assist in others not interjecting. Senator Grogan, you have the call.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy President. I will refrain from responding to my colleagues around the chamber.

In addition to the great strides on emissions we are making as a Labor government—great achievements in only three short years—there is the issue of the environmental impacts that Senator Hanson-Young was referring to earlier. But we are doing more to protect the environment than has been done in an excruciatingly, painfully long time. We are protecting more nature than was being protected before. We have plans to improve that further.

One of the things that many of us have been talking about—I know for myself since 2013—is the EPBC, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which is cited by so many scientists and eminent people, including in a fantastic presentation from the amazing Ken Henry at the Press Club last week. Our environment laws don't suit anyone. They do not protect the environment. They do not assist us in any of our developments. Often in this chamber you would think that the EPBC Act only dealt with mining approvals, whereas that is very much a minor part of its work. A significant amount of the work that the EPBC does is in housing developments. And, just in case anyone missed it, we've got a bit of a housing crisis going on.

We need these laws to work, and what we went through in the decade under the coalition government was nothing short of horrendous. We came into government and were thwarted on every side in trying to do our piece of reform. But the numbers have changed a bit up here, and they've changed a bit in the other house, so the minister is adamant and determined that we are going to get a new set of environment laws within the first 18 months of this government. If we're lucky it might be sooner, but there are a lot of views and it is a very complex piece of legislation. We need to make these changes. We must have stronger environmental protection, we must have a more efficient and robust project assessment system, and we must have greater accountability and transparency in all of our decision-making.

The EPBC agenda is going to be rattled out in this place. There will be standing up and yelling at each other, I'm sure, about too much or not enough. How about everyone taking a breath and thinking about the future, and not just about the bit of the future you care about—whether it be only the environment over here or only business over there? How about we recognise the fact that every single one of us in this chamber was elected by the people of this country. So both views need to be taken into consideration, and there needs to be balance in how we make our way through this whole agenda and finally get an outcome—an outcome that is going to protect our environment, work towards our targets on climate change and reduce our emissions even further, noting that we have reduced them quite significantly already. Let us get an outcome that will see a long-term future for this country with a robust environment—a zero-emissions future—and an economy that can grow on a sustainable zero-emissions basis.

The future is there; we can see it. We know the pathway forward. We know that there is a perfect opportunity for us to build a manufacturing industry into the future that is not emissions-intensive and actually gives us things like green steel—manufacturing that is built for a future that deals openly with climate change, recognises the science, recognises what's happening to our country and actually takes meaningful action that protects our society. And protecting our society means taking those things into consideration together. So, no, we will not be supporting the bill. We will be working as hard as we can to try to find that pathway through for a reformed EPBC Act, and we will continue to meaningfully reduce our emissions and transition our environment, transition our energy system and build an Australia we can all be proud of that will be sustainable into the future.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I come to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Climate Trigger) Bill 2022, I might quickly respond to some of the misleading claims that were just made by Senator Grogan. Senator Grogan has been saying or suggesting that the current Labor government has reduced Australia's emissions. I just checked their own accounts—their own greenhouse gas accounts—on the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water's website. Emissions have actually gone up. They've gone up under this government. So I'm not exactly sure what Senator Grogan was claiming in the last contribution we heard. She claimed they were taking action to reduce carbon emissions. In fact, when they got to power at the end of 2021, our carbon emissions were 440 million tonnes a year. By 2023, the last available year in their dataset, they were 453 million tonnes a year. They have gone up by 13 million tonnes a year. So we could pretty much strike out all of what Senator Grogan said just before, because basically her whole contribution was based, apparently, on them reducing carbon emissions, which they haven't actually done according to their own data.

To take the broader point, Senator Grogan is right that Australia's carbon emissions, as a whole, have reduced. It was not under this government, but they have reduced since the mid-2000s. In 2005, which was the date set under the Kyoto agreement, our emissions were 611 million tonnes a year. They are, as I said, 453 million tonnes, so they've gone down roughly 160 million tonnes a year. Almost all of that reduction has occurred through putting greater restrictions on our nation's farmers to be able to develop their own land. The so-called land use change category in the carbon accounts has reduced emissions by 150 million tonnes a year. That is 150 million tonnes of the 160 million tonnes that we have reduced as a country. That land use change is largely because state governments have put massive restrictions on farmers being able to clear their own property and their own land. Through the vagaries of the pretty dodgy carbon accounting schemes we have, we're allowed to say that that's a credit and it's reducing our emissions because we're not clearing as much land as we used to. Work that out at home, if you can.

Bringing myself back to the actual bill, I do support Senator Grogan in saying that this bill is not needed. It is misdirected, and it is trying to change the wrong piece of legislation to tackle this goal. I may get time later to come to the broader issues of climate change policy, but, to take the objective of what Senator Hanson-Young is trying to achieve at its face value, her own aims will not be achieved by this bill—and can't be. This bill would seek to change the temperature of the globe and stop algal blooms in South Australia, apparently by assessing the carbon emission impact on a project-by-project basis. The way the EPBC works is projects come forward for approval through our environmental law system, and the Greens are suggesting that, somehow, we would stop a project on an individual basis because of its individual impact on global temperatures and global carbon emissions.

Senator Hanson-Young pointed to the North West Shelf project, which has been conditionally approved by this government, and I welcome that. It's not completely through yet, but it would have scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions of around eight million tonnes a year—some say a little bit less, but let's take the higher amount. Let's say we get this legislation passed and we stop the North West Shelf project; if you take the IPCC formulas for the impact of carbon emissions on temperatures, stopping the North West Shelf project would lower global temperatures by a sum total of 0.000121 degrees Celsius. I don't know if that's going to stop the algal blooms in South Australia, but it seems unlikely that a change in the temperature of 0.0001 degrees Celsius is going to have a material impact on any of us. Yet that was the premise of the whole of Senator Hanson-Young's contribution. She is promising the Australian people that if we stop this one project then the weather will change in this country. That is completely and utterly absurd. It treats the Australian people like morons—they're not. Senator Hanson-Young was saying we're all stupid. No, no—I'm with stupid in this chamber! It is completely stupid to sit here and say that stopping one project is going to have a material impact on the world's climate or weather, but that's what this whole bill is trying to do. It should be rejected on that basis alone.

We know that this is inconsistent with the original objects of the EPBC Act, which has been around for a long time and does have its problems. But we know this is inconsistent with the original objectives because this matter was spoken about in the second reading speech of the EPBC Act, which then senator Robert Hill introduced. He said, in that second reading speech:

Ultimately, of course, we need more than just the best possible environmental law regime to protect Australia's environment and promote ecologically sustainable development … reducing the growth in greenhouse gas emissions is being achieved through a $180 million policy announced last year.

Clearly, the intent of the government and the parliament that passed this act was to say this act is dealing with some elements of the need to protect our nation's environment, but it is not tackling issues—there were some others he mentioned—and is not precisely aimed at tackling greenhouse gas emissions. It's not the vehicle to do that. It is just not set up to do this in a proper way. It would be completely absurd to stop projects like the North West Shelf given their minimal impact alone on the climate.

We are led to believe by the mover of the motion on this bill, Senator Hanson-Young, that somehow Australia would be getting left behind if we didn't pass this bill and that somehow the rest of the world is taking significant action on climate change. Again, there is very little evidence or facts provided to back that statement up—it is simply asserted. But all of that data is available.

Indeed, there has been some new data released in the last few weeks by the eminent Statistical Review of World Energy—it is the bible on all of these matters—which is now conducted by the Energy Institute. It is the best data source of all the different energy sources that are used around the world and it has a very good series on greenhouse gas emissions as well. That data released a few weeks ago showed that since the world signed up to this fantastical concept of net zero emissions in late 2021 at the Glasgow climate conference—the world signed up to net zero, apparently. We're constantly being told that the world is now reducing carbon emissions, and we're getting to net zero and we're going to get there—rah, rah, rah. We've now got three years of data since 2021, and since then global carbon emissions are up by 1.7 billion tonnes a year. Every year the world is emitting 1.7 billion tonnes more. This is a very inconvenient fact for those that stand in this chamber and say that the rest of the world is acting.

That none of them ever deal with it shows how inconvenient and embarrassing it is. It would be worth it, if you want your arguments to be taken seriously, to actually tackle the fact. How can you stand there and say that the world is acting on climate change when, actually, emissions have gone up by almost two billion tonnes in just the three years since this agreement was signed? Keep in mind how much that is. As I said earlier, Australia—thanks to the Labor government, we're now a bit higher than we were before they got elected—now emits 450 million tonnes a year. The world has increased its emissions by more than three times what we produce in any one year just in the last three years. So can we drop the act that the rest of the world is acting? It's not. They're not acting. They're not changing. They are continuing to produce energy for people who often don't quite have access to the 24 hours of electricity that we are lucky to have. All evidence points to the fact that countries are going to continue to do that. They're going to continue to prioritise the energy needs of their people—often, poor people, much poorer than us—rather than deal with or tackle the obsession with luxury items that those of us in the West seem to have.

It is true that some countries have reduced their emissions. They have largely lost their industry too. It is, I think, constructive to focus a little bit on those who are increasing their carbon emissions and why they might be doing that. We're constantly told that the coal industry is dying or that no-one will buy our coal anymore. I notice that Senator Grogan mentioned we've got great solar and wind resources—I agree with that—but we also have great coal resources in this country as well. The Labor Party doesn't mention that very often anymore. They're fantastic coal resources; we sell them to the world. Another inconvenient fact is that Energy Institute data shows that since net zero emissions were agreed to by the world, the world has been mining 1.2 billion tonnes more coal than it did beforehand. Putting that in context, we mine an amount of coal similar to the amount of our carbon emissions. That's 450-odd million tonnes a year of coal from Australia, and the increase has been more than double what we mined just in the last three years.

Another way that I like to put this into context is this. I think most people remember this thing called the Adani Carmichael coalmine. It was a little bit controversial a few years ago. It was the North West Shelf of a few years ago. If Sarah Hanson-Young had been giving this speech five or six years ago, no doubt Adani would have gotten a very liberal mention in her contribution. They don't mention it anymore. It is actually up and running; the mine is going. The planet hasn't blown up yet, but the mine is employing 1,200 people in North Queensland. It produces about 10 million tonnes a year. It's been a little bit more than that lately, but it's a nice round figure of 10 million tonnes a year. That's basically the Adani Carmichael mine.

I'll start at the bottom. Mongolia has increased its coalmining by 74 million tonnes per annum since net zero came into effect; that's seven Adani mines it's opened up. Indonesia have increased their coalmining by 222 million tonnes a year; they've opened 22 Adani mines in three years. Did you hear about it? Did anyone read about that in the newspaper? It was front page news in this country: opening up one Adani—one mine—of 10 million tonnes a year. But when Indonesia opens up 22 of them, there's nary a mention. I might come back to that stat, if I've got time, of the story of Indonesia. India have increased their coalmining by 273 million tonnes a year, so that's 27 Adani mines. Good luck to them. They've got much lower electricity prices than we do. But—wait for it—we can't, of course, forget our friend China. China has increased its coalmining by 654 million tonnes a year. It's opened up 65 Adani Carmichael coal mines in just three years. China produces almost six billion tonnes of coal a year, but it has increased that by 654 just in the last three years. I have to give the Chinese government officials much respect; they can keep a straight face when they talk to us about green steel and reducing emissions. Meanwhile, I bet you the Prime Minister didn't mention the fact that they increased their coalmining by 654 million tonnes. If he really cared about climate change, wouldn't he mention that?

We, little old Australia, have signed up to net zero. We haven't actually reduced our emissions, but we have destroyed our energy grid trying to. Since we signed up to net zero, electricity prices would have gone up by 30 per cent if it weren't for the enormous government subsidies, which are ending soon. The price of gas is up 39 per cent, and that is why everybody is struggling in this country. Meanwhile, we're losing our industry.

I mentioned I might come back to that Indonesian figure. Indonesia has increased coalmining by that massive amount. Why has it done that? Well, a big, big reason for its increase in coalmining—Indonesia has increased its coal-fired power as well; we think about 20 new coal-fired power stations have been built in Indonesia in the last three years, which is more than we have in this country—is that Indonesia has fuelled a massive expansion in nickel smelting. A great documentary on Channel 7 recently investigated it.

But, again, it gets very little commentary here, while we talk about this thing—that one of our closest neighbours are not only increasing their carbon emissions; they are doing so to massively expand their nickel smelting, and the effect of that has been to shut Australia's nickel refinery and nickel smelter. We've lost the nickel industry but for a couple of nickel mines that are left. We've lost 10,000 jobs in this country because of that, and it never gets mentioned. Other countries are laughing at us while we destroy our energy competitiveness and they just go on with gay abandon, expanding coalmining, building coal-fired power stations and taking our jobs.

Yesterday I was trying to listen intently to the Governor-General's address. It became a bit of a laundry list for the Labor Party, but I was trying to listen intently. One thing I did note was that there was not a single mention from the Governor-General yesterday of the Labor Party lowering electricity prices. Did anyone else notice that?

I went back and had a look. In 2022 the then governor-general David Hurley did say that his government, the then Labor government, would help reduce electricity bills by hundreds of dollars for families and businesses. That's what he said. Now, did that happen? I don't think it did. They didn't live up to that commitment. Electricity bills went up, and yesterday the Labor Party flew the white flag on the cost-of-living crisis that is still afflicting Australians. Now they're not even mentioning it.

They'll mention this clean energy stuff. Who cares! Okay, great, it's clean, but why am I paying thousands of dollars more a year for it? Why can't I have the same lower prices as other countries?

Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Climate Trigger) Bill 2022, and I thank my colleague Senator Hanson-Young for bringing this bill forward. This bill is an important and vital step towards climate justice, a long-overdue reform that recognises the climate crisis as the most significant threat to our natural environments and begins the work of aligning our environmental laws with the science and the lived reality of communities right across this country.

The 48th Parliament convenes at a critical time. We are not on the precipice of the climate crisis; we are already in it. Across Australia and across the world, the canary in the coalmine is no longer singing; it is screaming. Floods, droughts, cyclones, toxic algal blooms—the climate impacts scientists have long warned us about are no longer future risks; they are happening now, and the waves are literally lapping at our doors. So the question for the parliament is simple: will the Labor government finally act to protect people and planet, or will it continue to serve the dirty interests of the fossil fuel industry at the expense of our future?

The record so far is deeply concerning. In the last term of parliament, Labor approved over 30 new coal and gas projects. In only its first month post-election, cynically, the government gave approval for the North West Shelf Project Extension, a massive carbon bomb that locks Australia into pollution until 2070. My seven-year-old will be in his 50s and this climate bomb will still be being mined and burnt. That decision commits future generations to decades of carbon emissions, even as communities are facing escalating climate crises.

And this pattern continues. Right now, multiple new coal and gas projects are under assessment through the EPBC Act, yet there is still no requirement for the government to consider the climate change that these projects will cause over their life spans. How many more dolphins, rays and sharks need to wash up on South Australia's beaches? How many more homes must become uninsurable because of flood or cyclone risk? How many more communities must lose their livelihoods to bushfires before this government stops pretending climate change is an abstract problem that it can tackle with words and goodwill alone? Time and time again the Labor government pats itself on the back for lofty climate promises and headline targets without meaningful policy action to back them up. You cannot solve the climate crisis through press releases or through a bid for COP. While communities are hit by fires, floods and food insecurity, Labor continues to approve new coal and gas that drives the crisis they claim to be addressing.

This bill is a vital intervention. It would require the minister to take climate impacts of projects considered under environmental law into account, and it would prevent the approval of major polluting projects that undermine our national and global climate targets and responsibilities. That is the very least we owe to our communities, the very least we owe to our children.

This isn't a hypothetical. The damage is already being felt right here in communities, including those close to my own home. Across western Victoria and South Australia, farmers and regional communities are in the grip of a devastating drought. For the past 15 months rainfall has been at record lows, with western and south-western Victoria seeing the lowest average rainfall in 126 years. Feed for livestock has all but disappeared. Water sources are drying up and families are struggling with soaring costs just to stay on the land they have worked for generations and to keep producing the food that we all rely on. My heart breaks for these communities. As a fifth generation farmer from central Victoria, I know the toll that drought takes. It's not just the financial pressure; it's the emotional strain. It wears down livelihoods, mental health, families and entire communities. While parts of Victoria saw increased rain in June, for many the future remains deeply uncertain because we are in the midst of a climate crisis where our planet is getting hotter, droughts are more frequent and intense, and farmers and their communities are finding it harder than ever to stay on their land.

Let's make no mistake, this is a crisis that is driven by greed—the greed of coal and gas corporations who continue to wreck our climate and environment just to boost their bottom line, and the greed of the major parties who continue to line their pockets with donations from fossil fuel corporations while refusing to take any meaningful action that our communities so desperately need. I cannot believe in 2025 we are still allowed to receive corporate donations from the very people wrecking this planet. The mind boggles.

We have seen exactly what it looks like in practice, with approval of new coal and gas projects with no sign of slowing down or changing course. I will just say that communities in Victoria were dumbfounded that Labor could go and approve the North West Shelf Project straight after the election. What an insult to those people who put their trust in that party. Farmers, regional communities and the whole of Australia deserve better. We deserve a government that represents the interests of people and the environment, not corporations. I don't know how many times we need to keep saying that. From the farms of western Victoria to the low-lying islands of the Torres Strait, communities, livelihoods and their way of life is under threat—a direct result of the climate crisis and decades of government inaction.

I want to express my deepest solidarity with Uncle Paul and Uncle Pabai. They are bringing the fight for climate justice to our courts. Despite the disappointing Federal Court ruling, the judge acknowledged the devastating impact of climate change on the Torres Strait Islands, from shoreline erosion to coral reef damage and the loss of traditional food sources and culture. Communities like Saibai and Boigu are already living the crisis. Sea levels in the Torres Strait are rising six to eight millimetres every year, more than double the global average, and have risen about six centimetres in the past decade. If temperatures rise above 1.5, as they are predicted to do, many islands will become uninhabitable. Without deep emission cuts, sea levels could rise more than a metre by the end of the century, flooding irreplaceable sacred sites, including burial grounds. What the court could not do in law, parliament must do in action. Customary ways of life and millennia of cultural heritage stand to disappear if we fail to slash emissions now. In court the elders said:

If Boigu was gone, or I had to leave it, because it was underwater, I will be nothing … I will become nobody.

Farther from home, within the next 24 hours, the International Court of Justice is expected to deliver its advisory opinion on states' legal obligations regarding climate change, a landmark case brought by Vanuatu and supported by over 100 countries. Young people across the Pacific islands are taking the world's biggest issue, climate change, to the world's highest court. The Greens stand with them in solidarity and are incredibly disappointed by the evidence that the Australian government put forward to that case, basically saying that Australia doesn't have a responsibility under global obligations to drive down emissions. Shame on this government! This moment could reshape how international law holds major polluters accountable and strengthen the case for loss-and-damage funding for vulnerable nations. It reaffirms that this is a pivotal time for governments to reflect on and act on their obligations to deliver climate justice, something the Albanese government is still failing to do.

How did we get here? The fossil-fuel lobby's grip on government is deep, systemic and corrosive. From revolving doors to secret meetings, fossil-fuel interests shape our politics and our policies, not the communities facing rising seas. Woodside itself was invited to the Treasurer's economic roundtable last week, even as it pushes ahead with gas expansion that will plague us for generations. Come on! Meanwhile, the government continues to approve new gas fields, even though 80 per cent of Australia's gas is exported offshore, delivering minimal public return. I hear the Nats say, 'One mine's not going to make a difference,' but, if we all think like that, of course it's not. We are in this place to lead—to show leadership—not to follow. This is not transparency or democracy; it's a state captured by corporate greed. Political access is clearly for sale, and lobbyists are literally writing the rules in this place.

This influence is blocking action. It's why the government fast-tracked the North West Shelf extension, a 70-year carbon bomb, and why coal and gas projects continue to be signed off on with no signs of slowing down. We've heard the lies that gas is a strategic necessity and that we need new exports to keep the economy going. We're seeing the results—vulnerable communities stranded, ecosystems collapsing and corporations profiting off of the pollution and destruction. If we are serious about climate justice, we need to also remove fossil fuels from politics. Without that, there is no path, legal or moral, to protect cultures, communities or country. It's time to stand with our farmers, with our elders, like Uncle Paul and Uncle Pabai, with the climate movement and with every community on the front line of the crisis. It's time to reform our environmental laws and act on climate right now.

That's why this bill matters. If we are serious about protecting nature, our forests, our farmland, our coasts and our communities, then we cannot keep pretending that climate change is separate to the environment. From the shorelines of South Australia, where my family and I spend our summers swimming with the eagle rays—we return there and see the devastation, the marine graveyards washing up on the beaches—to the low-lying islands of the Torres Strait, where culture is literally being swallowed by the sea, the climate crisis is already reshaping our environment in irreversible ways. And yet our environmental laws are still silent on climate. That is a failure of leadership if ever there were one. This bill would change that. It would force the minister to consider the climate impacts of every single new project. It would stop the biggest polluters—the mega coal and gas corporations, which have no place in a climate-safe future—from ever getting approvals, and it would bring our outdated environmental laws into the 21st century.

So the question for Labor and my colleagues across the bench is this: what kind of legacy do you want to leave? You can keep choosing to do the bidding of Woodside and Santos, rubber-stamping pollution and locking in climate collapse, or you can work with the Greens to fix our broken laws, to protect our environment and to give our kids a fighting chance at a liveable future. This place could be where we turn the tide on climate change. If Labor has the courage to break free from the fossil-fuel lobby and stand with communities instead of corporations, together we can legislate a climate trigger and finally put the environment and the people who depend on it first. Thank you again to my colleague Senator Hanson-Young for bringing this critical bill to the parliament.

Varun Ghosh (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Climate Trigger) Bill 2022 and to speak against it on the basis that it's an ineffective method of achieving emissions reduction in Australia, it duplicates existing legislation and it ignores the substantive process of environmental law reform that the government's currently undertaking. The goal of that law reform is to improve the approvals processes, reduce Australia's emissions and guide this country through an energy transition—a complicated and difficult process.

The work of reforming the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act is underway. The work of the energy transition and emissions reduction is underway, and the size and significance of that task should not be underestimated. Dr Henry, addressing the National Press Club last week, stated what is, in some ways, the obvious: 'Clearly, this is not a small task. There have been three failed attempts in the past 15 years to get this reform done. But reform is essential. And it is time to get it done.' That is what the government is committed to. It is unlikely to be done, however, given the scope of the challenge and the significance of the consequences, through simplistic approaches. It is unlikely to be helped by this private senator's bill.

What are we really talking about here? At the core of it, of course we should consider climate impacts and of course legislation should address the problems of climate change, and it does—including the government's safeguard mechanism. Indeed, Graeme Samuel's review of these laws—I'm referring specifically to recommendation 2—suggested that national environmental standards should require development proposals to 'explicitly consider the likely effectiveness of avoidance or mitigation measures on nationally protected matters under specified climate change scenarios' and 'transparently disclose the full emissions of the development'. That seems sensible. But the process proposed under this bill creates two thresholds. It creates a threshold based on a significant emissions impact that kicks in at 25 kilotonnes across 12 months and a prohibited emissions impact which kicks in at 100 kilotonnes across 12 months. It then imposes penalties, including criminal sanctions, for taking actions in the absence of approvals in certain circumstances. That mechanism, in the way it's been proposed, is what we have a fundamental issue with here because it's unlikely to be effective as a part of environmental law reform in Australia.

Professor Samuel, in his review of the EPBC Act, noted that it's a complex and outdated piece of legislation and it 'does not meet best practice for modern regulation', and one of the reasons it doesn't do so is the level of complexity involved. It's difficult, time consuming and expensive for people to understand their legal rights and obligations. This leads to confusion and inconsistent decision-making, which creates unnecessary regulatory burdens for businesses and restricts access to justice. Professor Samuel said:

The policy areas covered by the EPBC Act are inherently complex. The way the different areas of the Act work together to deliver environmental outcomes is not always clear, and many areas operate in a siloed way.

That, I think, is at the heart of our opposition to this private senator's bill. It is not an attempt to substantially reform Australia's environmental laws; it is a proposal for the addition of a climate trigger and criminal offences into a piece of legislation that is already complex and cumbersome to apply. It appears to have given little thought to how businesses or regulators would actually seek to implement these reforms and enforce compliance other than the penalties proposed.

I come back to Dr Henry's speech at the National Press Club last week. I note that he observed:

Report after report tells the same story. The environment is not being protected. Biodiversity is not being conserved. Nature is in systemic decline.

The government seeks to address this, but the observation made by Dr Henry after that is important to consider when examining the mechanism by which we achieve that goal. Dr Henry said:

We simply cannot afford slow, opaque, duplicative and contested environmental planning decisions based on poor information mired in administrative complexity.

This bill would add to the administrative complexity of an already complex and cumbersome act. It would not make the process of environmental protection in Australia either more effective or easier. That approvals process hurts in perverse ways as well. Approvals and the lack of efficiency around approvals under this legislation also prevent environmentally beneficial projects coming online. Dr Henry observed that the average time for an EPBC assessment and approval of a wind farm or a solar farm blew out from 505 days in 2018 to 831 days in 2021.

For the goals that we're trying to achieve, we need to reform this act to make it easier to use, to make it more efficient and to make the approvals process something that can be negotiated quickly and easily, where we can get decisions on both projects that the economy requires and projects that will help our environmental transition and our transition to clean energy. According to the Clean Energy Investor Group, between 2018 and 2024, of renewables projects in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria that required assessment under the EPBC Act, only 28 were actually approved or rejected. There's a broken system here. As Professor Samuel observed in his review, the current act adds costs to business, often with little benefit to the environment. That, we say, is a problem that would be worsened by this private senator's bill.

The second point I'd really like to address is the duplication of the emissions regulation framework that is contemplated under this legislation. One of the observations that Samuel made in his review was:

While climate change is a significant and increasing threat to Australia's environment, successive Commonwealth Governments have elected to adopt specific mechanisms and laws to implement their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The EPBC Act should not duplicate the Commonwealth's framework for regulating emissions.

This bill would duplicate the Commonwealth's framework for regulating emissions. In 2023, the safeguard mechanism was reformed by this government to require facilities to reduce their emissions in line with Australia's climate targets. These reforms applied a nearly five per cent annual decline rate to facilities baselines so that they are reduced predictably and gradually over time on a trajectory consistent with achieving Australia's emissions reduction targets—43 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and net zero by 2050. The baselines for these new facilities will then decline over time at the same rate as other facilities. That mechanism came into place on 1 July 2023.

There is a real risk with legislation that's proposed in the form that it is currently in before us. You would have different emissions thresholds applying to enliven climate triggers than the safeguard mechanism. I outlined those standards before but, from a practical perspective in terms of ensuring compliance with this legislation to actually get the outcomes we need, if you have pieces of legislation that say two different things, it creates a kind of chaos. It creates a kind of administrative complexity for those people who have to try and comply with that legislation and those people who have to try and enforce that legislation, and this is something we cannot afford in environmental regulation. We need it to be simpler and more effective, not more complicated and potentially inconsistent. It's a recipe for confusion and it undermines our goals of ultimately reducing emissions in the long term, goals that this government has taken a number of steps in the right direction on.

There is a difference in this space between moral outrage and real work, and I commend my colleague Senator Grogan for her observations earlier in this respect. This government has undertaken the most significant emissions reduction measures in Australia's history. The examples include renewable energy targets, the Capacity Investment Scheme, the new vehicle efficiency standard and, very importantly, the safeguard mechanism. Since 2022, more than 90 renewable energy generation projects have come online, and that's enough to power 11 million homes. Australia's 2024 emissions projections show that the policies that have been put in place show Australia on track to reach 42.7 per cent below 2005 emissions levels by 2030. It's just shy of the target of 43 per cent, and the net zero plan remains on track.

I turn now to the government's environmental reforms. The reform of Australia's environmental laws—substantively, in the form of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act at the moment—is an important national priority for the government. The current legislation, as described earlier, simply doesn't work, but this bill doesn't assist it either. What's really very clear, not least of which because it's been an energetic and very public effort, is that the current environment minister is in the process of consulting with a broad range of stakeholders to ensure we get this policy right and we take the community with us. In relation to some of the early outcomes of those consultations, we've already heard that what's important to people is stronger environmental protection and restoration; more efficient and robust project assessments; greater accountability; and transparency in decision-making. Key elements of such reforms will also include the content of national environmental standards, streamlined approval processes, regional planning, more robust offset regimes and monitoring and better data on environmental impacts.

I am hesitant to compliment him too much, but I think the minister really hit the nail on the head when he said it's important to get a broad range of people together with different perspectives on these issues because the truth is we're only going to pass these reforms and solve these challenges by working together. Real reform of this size and significance in this country requires the country to commit, because it comes with not only benefits but also costs.

It's also important that we get this right. The area is complex, and the consequences are severe, as I've said. We need to get these reforms done at the appropriate level of care and rigour to ensure that they can stay in place. This is work that must stand for a long time. It must protect Australia's environment for generations. That was one of the final conclusions of Dr Henry's speech to the National Press Club last week. The consequences of this are significant. If we breach too many of these laws, he said, then humanity ceases to exist, and that's a bleak message. The good news, according to Dr Henry, is that we still have time to get this right. We can't have another failed attempt at reforming these laws. That's why the approach taken by the government is the responsible one. Dr Henry observed that we should choose to do so—that is, tackle the task of reform—

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

Thank you, Senator Ghosh. The time for this debate has now expired. You will be in continuation.