If there is no objection, the meetings are authorised.

I seek leave to move a motion relating to the consideration of legislation.

Leave not granted.

Pursuant to contingent notice of motion, I move:

That so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to allow a motion relating to consideration of legislation to be moved and determined immediately.

And I move:

That the question be now put.

The question is that the question be now put.

The question now is that the motion to suspend standing orders be agreed to.

I move:

That a motion relating to the consideration of legislation may be moved immediately and determined without amendment or debate.

And I move:

That the question be now put.

The question is that the question be now put on the procedural motion moved by the minister.

The question now is that the procedural motion moved by the minister be agreed to.

I move the motion as circulated:

(1) That today:

(a) the hours of meeting be 9 am till adjournment;

(b) the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 and related bills be called on immediately and have precedence over all other business at the following times:

(i) from 9 am till the question on the second reading is resolved, and

(ii) from the conclusion of formal motions or 12.15 pm, whichever is earlier, till 1.30 pm;

(c) the question on the second reading of the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 and related bills be put at 11 am;

(d) the questions on all remaining stages of the following bills be put at

3.30 pm:

(i) Environment Information Australia Bill 2025

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (Customs Charges Imposition) Bill 2025

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (Excise Charges Imposition) Bill 2025

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (General Charges Imposition) Bill 2025

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (Restoration Charge Imposition) Bill 2025 Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025

National Environmental Protection Agency Bill 2025,

(ii) Home Affairs Legislation Amendment (2025 Measures No. 2) Bill 2025,

(iii) Communications Legislation Amendment (Australian Content Requirement for Subscription Video On Demand (Streaming) Services) Bill 2025,

(iv) Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Financial Systems and Other Measures) Bill 2025,

(v) Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill 2025,

(vi) Education Legislation Amendment (Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2025,

(vii) Strengthening Oversight of the National Intelligence Community Bill 2025,

(viii) Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures No. 1) Bill 2025,

(ix) VET Student Loans (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2025, and

(x) Customs Tariff Amendment (Geelong Treaty Implementation) Bill 2025;

(e) divisions may take place after 4.30 pm until consideration of the bills has concluded;

(f) once consideration of the bills has concluded, the following may be considered:

(i) committee membership,

(ii) messages from the House of Representatives;

(iii) a motion to be moved by a minister relating to the next meeting of the Senate and leave of absence for senators; and

(g) the Senate adjourn without debate on the motion of a minister.

(2) Paragraphs (1)(c) and (1) (d) operate as limitations of debate under standing order 142.

Could I ask that you please put the question separately in relation to 1(d)(x), the Customs Tariff Amendment (Geelong Treaty Implementation) Bill?

I will put the rest of the motion first and then 1(d)(x) that you referred to. The question is that the motion, as moved by the minister, without 1(d)(x), be agreed to.

The question now is that 1(d)(x) of the motion be agreed to.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I stand in ardent support of the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025. This is a landmark reform. It's generational, a word we throw around too often, but it is truly generational in every sense of the word—not only for current generations but for future generations. Many of us came into this parliament, leaving behind jobs that were far easier, to be good ancestors. This is a true moment of being the good ancestors that we wish to be, that we aspire to be.

From the outset, I want to thank the Greens political party. I want to thank Senator Waters and Senator Hanson-Young for their collaboration and their leadership in supporting the passage of this bill. I know that, for many Greens supporters and, indeed, Labor supporters and advocates, we all care for nature. We love nature. We are nature. We are embedded in nature, and we recognise that. People across our political spectrum have spent a lifetime fighting for nature—years and years, decades and decades. This is meaningful reform for our nation and for this parliament, and it is vindication of those decades of work by stakeholders in the community, both on the Labor side and on the Greens side.

It is disappointing that we were unable to garner the support of the coalition, but the coalition, honestly, have departed the field on so many fronts. They style themselves as an alternative party of government, but I think their decision today not to support this landmark reform only underscores that they can no longer hold the mantle of being an alternative party of government. But they're not the story. The story today is about the environment.

This bill builds upon the work of the Samuel review. Professor Graeme Samuel is the architect of this bill. I want to thank him and the team that delivered the Samuel report five years ago, in 2020, under the then coalition government. That report laid it all out. It laid out the state of the environment. It was in a poor state of health and it was deteriorating, and there was a real sense of urgency in that report that we needed to get this work done. Professor Samuel presented evidence to us during the committee inquiry, and he laid it out for us that we just can't wait any longer—getting 80 per cent there is going to be good enough. It highlights the fact that passing landmark laws in this place always involves trade-offs. We know that the bill is not perfect, but perfect is the enemy of the good.

This is a whole lot better, light years better, than what we currently have, which has led to the destruction of our beautiful landscape and a list as long as my arm of threatened species, with 2,245 threatened species. Australia has this ignominious moniker of being the extinction capital of the world for mammals. How did we get here? We got here because we have had outdated environmental laws for the last 30 years. This is a moment now to completely recalibrate and to close those loopholes that have allowed our koalas and other precious little Australians to fall through the cracks.

How does the bill do that? It covers three pillars. The first is protecting and repairing nature. The second is cutting red tape so that we can address those national issues that are bearing down on us—things like housing and renewable energy, which is essential if we are to reduce our emissions and thereby truly act on climate change, which is the elephant in the room. Climate change is the No. 1 threat to biodiversity and to species in our country and in the world. Not talking about renewable energy means that you are not going to act on climate change, and indeed the coalition don't want to talk about climate change. They hate renewable energy and they also hate environmental reform. Today just confirms that. They have departed the field and abandoned Australia. In terms of the third pillar, this bill bakes in transparency and accountability. It does this with regard to the first pillar—protecting and repairing nature—by introducing national environmental standards. This is the first time ever that we're going to have clear legislative standards that spell out what is acceptable and what is not when it comes to matters of national environmental significance.

Right now the rules are opaque and, frankly, a bit too discretionary. They're very much dependent on who sits in the minister's chair. God forbid that one day we end up with a terrible government. One thing I have learned as a relatively new parliamentarian—I was elected only in 2022—is that, as much as we wrangle in this place to create good laws that will protect and conserve, no law is bullet proof. This is what I've learned: no piece of legislation is bullet proof against a bad government. I say this to the Australian people: ensure you do your homework when you go to that voting booth, because so much rides on the quality of the government of the day. With a terrible government, you end up with robodebt. With a good government that is here for the right reasons, you end up with a bill like this. You end up with generational reform, whether it be in Medicare, aged care, the NDIS or, now, the environment.

The standards will deliver certainty for business and a floor for protection for nature. The bill will introduce 'unacceptable impacts' for the first time. This is redline stuff—go/no go—where we ensure we're not developing or threatening World Heritage sites or Ramsar wetlands. It will also introduce a net gain approach. This is about repairing and restoring nature. It's saying that it's not good enough to just go to the minimum; we're saying you need to go beyond the minimum and start to repair nature and restore biodiversity. That is what we are seeking with this change.

The second pillar is of course about cutting red tape. Right now we have a system that is duplicative, achingly slow and often completely incoherent. We've had six different assessment pathways overlapping federal and state laws, and timelines that blow out. All of this bakes cost and delay into those pressing national issues that I outlined earlier. For example, with the housing affordability crisis, which is driven by a housing supply crisis, right now in Victoria there are 310,000 homes that are sitting on the back shelf, the backburner, unable to progress, because our environmental laws are broken. There is a type of dragon, a lizard, that may or may not be threatened by the building of these homes. We haven't been able to resolve this for 10 years. As a result, we don't have enough homes. That's what this means.

We have climate change bearing down on us. Australia is on the frontline of climate change, yet it takes between seven and 10 years to get wind farms up. That's completely unacceptable. We need clarity, business needs clarity, and so do the Australian people who put us here to get results. At every single ballot box, we are going to be judged on one thing only, and that is outcomes, so we need to deliver. If we say we want to have cleaner, greener energy, we need to deliver. If we say we want more housing, we actually need to deliver. This legislation enables that delivery.

This bill also introduces an accreditation system. What does that mean? Between the federal and state governments, there's too much duplication. You've got federal administration, and then you've got state administration. We are moving towards an accreditation scheme whereby we accredit the state governments around the country to do this kind of administrative paperwork and thereby cut the red tape. This will modernise these bilateral two-way agreements between the Commonwealth and state. This is how you also deliver productivity gains. Cutting red tape means speeding up approvals where appropriate and reducing cost. That reduction in cost will ultimately be passed on to the consumer, and that is a good thing. I'll be watching carefully to see how we can quantify that. Will homes become a little bit cheaper? Maybe. Let's see. Right now there is a lot of cost and delay baked into the system.

This bill also hardwires climate into the bill by forcing proponents to declare their scope 1 and 2 emissions. This means that the big matters will be forced to outline their emissions and their emissions reduction plans. It will not necessarily capture property developers and people who are trying to build housing. I just want to make that clear.

Interestingly—this is a really important point—this bill will also deliver certainty to those young Australians who are thinking of entering apprenticeships, whether they be in the electrical trades or in construction. We heard testimony about this a week or two ago. Right now young people who are aspiring to become sparkies are walking away because there isn't continuity of projects. There isn't a continuous pipeline of projects; it's coming in fits and starts. I speak, of course, of renewable energy projects and transmission bills. It's just too slow. We need 40,000 sparkies by 2030. It's not trivial. This is nation building. For us to attract 40,000, if not more, young Australians—men and women, I might add—into this high-demand, well-paid career, we need to ensure that the pipeline of delivery of renewable energy projects is full. This environmental reform will enable that to happen.

The final pillar is around accountability and transparency. We will be establishing, for the first time ever, a national environmental protection authority. This will be a watchdog with real teeth, and it comes with severe penalties. The last time I checked, the penalties were sitting at around $825 million. I'm not sure where the amendments will fall there, but that's a substantial amount of money if you do the wrong thing. And it shifts some of these regulatory functions away from the minister to the EPA—long overdue.

We'll also be installing the Environment Information Australia body. This is to ensure that we have data driven decision-making. Everyone—whether it be regulators, government, the Australian people, proponents—need data, and that data is disbursed and fragmented between three layers of jurisdictions: Commonwealth, federal and local. So the task of Environment Information Australia will be to collate that data so that decisions can be data driven, rather than based on a vibe.

I want to conclude by saying that Labor has a proud legacy in the environment space. It was a Labor government that, with Bob Brown and his advocacy years ago, saved the Franklin, passed World Heritage legislation and went on to protect Kakadu and the Daintree. And it was under Whitlam—what a visionary!—that we introduced Landcare. This Labor government also expanded our marine parks in the last term. I want to thank the current minister, Minister Watt, who builds on the work of Minister Plibersek, for delivering this landmark reform. I thank the Senate.

I rise today as a very proud environmental lawyer, having seen environmental laws for the last 25 years, written by John Howard, when he was Prime Minister, fail to deliver for nature and having seen all of the parameters of nature that we care about go backwards. I am so pleased that, after tough negotiations with the government, the Greens were able to secure some important improvements to this package, and I'll run through what they are. But this package is not everything that nature needs, and this package does not go anywhere near what we need on the climate crisis for meaningful protections for communities, for species, for all of us. This government is still clearly so in bed with the coal and gas industry that it makes me sick. This is the best we could get out of this government, and the job is not done. But this is a meaningful step forward on protections for forests, for land clearing and against the fast tracking of coal and gas.

The government's first version of this rewrite of our environmental laws would have fast tracked coal and gas to be approved within 30 days. It is 2025, and we are in a climate crisis. It is obscene that this government proposed that. Of course, they were hoping to get the coalition to agree on that, but the coalition are so in shambles and such absolute climate dinosaurs that they couldn't get their act together, which is good news for the climate because the Greens have been able to step in and stop that fast track, to stop coal and gas being approved within 30 days like this government wanted.

But the government wouldn't come at climate considerations being included in this piece of legislation, so there is still a gaping hole in these laws when it comes to climate. We will keep fighting every single day to hold this government to account on climate and to get the claws of the coal and gas industry out of our democracy—the fossil fuel subsidies, the fossil fuel donations, the underpayment of corporate tax, the free ride that the coal and gas companies continue to get out of this government just like they did out of the last.

As an environmental lawyer, I've looked in great detail at these amendments, and I am proud of what we have been able to improve in our federal environmental laws, something that I feel so very deeply and passionately about. The reason that I sought to be elected, as well as representing the interests of Queenslanders, nature and the community more broadly, was to fix these broken laws. They've been broken for 25 years. They're not completely fixed, but there are some meaningful steps forward that I am proud to be able to deliver, and I do so today. We have made it harder for fossil fuel corporations to wreck the environment, and we've secured new protections for native forests. We've secured protections against rampant land clearing right across the country and, in particular, in the catchment of the Great Barrier Reef, a place that I've passionately campaigned to protect through my professional life.

Those wins for native forests, the removal of that exemption from our environmental laws, are something that forest campaigners have worked for for decades. It is just ridiculous that forestry was completely exempt from environmental laws until today. The Greens have managed to remove that RFA exemption. Whilst that won't immediately end native forest logging, it is a serious blow to the logging industry. Within 18 months, those regional forest agreements will have to meet higher standards than they ever have before and logging operations everywhere will need to meet the new tests in these revised laws.

They will not be allowed to have unacceptable impacts. In particular, irreplaceable critical habitat will now no longer be able to be destroyed. That is an important step forward. I welcome the $300 million compensation package for those workers. Importantly, it's for the workers—not for the logging corporations, as Senator Duniam was inferring. That protection, that structural adjustment, for those workers is very welcome, and that is also an important sign that the writing is on the wall for this industry. People love our native forests, and they want them left standing. They want plantations to be where we source our wood needs from, and we can do that. This change will go a long way towards that.

We've also closed some of the loopholes for land clearing. Continuous use, something that was happening before the laws commenced, has been exempted from these laws for the last 25 years. What we've been able to achieve through our tough negotiations with government is that land clearing where the trees are more than 15 years old will no longer be able to use that continuous use exemption. That land clearing will now need to be subject to our federal environmental laws. That is a win. Obviously, it won't necessarily stop all of that land clearing, but it will bring it in for assessment, and it will be assessed against higher standards because we will have standards and those standards are now going to be higher than what the current laws are.

Importantly, in Great Barrier Reef catchments, we see that water quality is a huge problem with the reduced health of the reef. In order to help protect the reef and build resilience, we need to make sure that the land clearing in those catchments, that's just flooding the Great Barrier Reef with nutrients, pesticides and run-off—we need to try to keep those trees in particular in the ground for their own sake and for that of the reef as well. Importantly, we have secured additional protection for Great Barrier Reef catchments and for trees and shrubs around waterways within a set amount of 50 metres. That will effectively result in that clearing requiring federal environmental consideration. I really welcome that, particularly since we've got a coalition government in Queensland that doesn't give a rats about nature and is happy to see trees felled no matter where they are—reef catchment or not.

The other key point that I want to mention is the water trigger. When I first got elected to this place, back in 2011, I went into a meeting with the then Independent member for New England, Tony Windsor; and the then Greens leader and senator, Bob Brown, an incredible environmental icon—two incredibly decent humans. In that meeting, we proposed protecting water from coal and gas. Given that that was a minority parliament, we were able to get that protection.

As an environmental lawyer, I suggested to Tony and Bob that we make sure that that power be not able to be given back to states and territories, like can happen under our current laws. Keeping that water trigger in federal hands has been something that I have been very proud of ever since, and today we are still going keep that water trigger in federal hands. We are not going to see it in the states and territories. I flag the Northern Territory in particular, who just want to let the gas companies ride roughshod over First Nations rights and completely trash groundwater and climate. We are not going to let those criminals be in charge of protecting water from coal and gas, and this amendment to keep the water trigger in federal hand will do that. That is a significant comfort—that those years of effort and that protection will not be lessened.

One thing we were not able to get through these negotiations, which I will move a second reading amendment to fix, is to acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded in this ancient country and that the principles of free, prior and informed consent should be codified in our nation's laws. We have a First Nations consultation standard due for release as part of the new infrastructure. That sounds positive, but my amendment asks that it reflect the principles of free, prior and informed consent. I move:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate:

(a) notes that sovereignty was never ceded, and that free, prior and informed consent should be codified in our nation's laws; and

(b) calls on the Government to develop and release for public comment a National Environmental Standard on First Nations Consultation and Engagement that incorporates principles of free, prior and informed consent".

We didn't get everything we wanted in these negotiations, but new protections for native forests, protections for land everywhere and in particular in Great Barrier Reef catchments, stopping coal and gas being fast tracked within 30 days like the original bill proposed and retaining the water trigger in federal hands so that we can protect water from rapacious coal and gas corporations are a significant step forward for nature.

I'm also pleased that things like renewable energy and housing will be able to move more promptly through our assessment system. I note the former speaker suggested that this might even bring house prices down. You know what will bring down prices? Removing the property investor tax perks this and the last government are so wedded to. I'm sorry, but we don't see this as a fix for the housing crisis, folks. Sure, it will help. If you want to make homes more affordable, get rid of those property investor tax perks. They should never have been introduced in the first place.

Some other positive improvements that we've been able to secure include some fetters on ministerial discretion. At the moment, the minister has been able to tick off on any old destruction that he or she likes, even if it would have a significant impact on things the act is meant to protect. There was absolute carte blanche on what could be approved. That was never acceptable, and, of course, it led to virtually nothing ever being refused. It was essentially a tick and flick. What we've now been able to achieve is that unacceptable impacts cannot be approved. There is an extensive definition of what an unacceptable impact is, and, importantly, it includes that irreplaceable critical habitat can no longer be approved for destruction. That is very important. It's not enough, but it is very important, and it is a new protection that we don't currently have. Likewise, in the offsets rules that will come out, the Greens think offsets are absolute nonsense. They don't work. You can't offset nature; it's not a zero sum game. What we've been able to achieve is protection for critically endangered species and critically endangered ecological communities. Again, that is a new protection. There are finally some no-go zones, where irreplaceable critical habitat and habitat for critically endangered species and ecological communities now cannot be destroyed by the big corporations that want to destroy them. That is a good thing, and I'm proud of it.

I want to particularly thank the Greens environment spokesperson, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who will be speaking shortly for her tough negotiation and for delivering an outcome that I am proud of and that the Greens are proud to deliver today for nature and for the community. Were it not for Senator Hanson-Young's tenaciousness and persistence, we might be in a different situation today. We might be seeing the government doing a deal with the coalition to ram through fast-tracking for coal and gas within 30 days, with even less protection for nature and certainly no restrictions on native forest logging or land clearing, with the water trigger gone and with no fetters on ministerial discretion. It is chalk and cheese.

I'm pleased that the government finally realised that, if they were to have a shred of credibility, they could not deal with the climate deniers and the dinosaurs in the coalition. These folk are such a rabble, and they're so obsessed with who's leading them that they've forgotten that people want policy outcomes. They can't even organise a proverbial in a proverbial. The government has seen that the Greens are here as a responsible and firm but constructive party that will always push to get outcomes. Our price is quite high, and we are proud of that. We didn't get everything we wanted, but we have delivered improved protections for forests and land clearing. We have stopped coal and gas being fast-tracked with a 30-day approval period.

I do want to note that it's clear that this government is doing nowhere near enough on climate. We've got very low carbon pollution targets. We've seen 32 coal and gas projects approved by this government since they took office, five of those in this term of government. It was not even two weeks after they won the election that we saw the environment minister tick off on the southern hemisphere's biggest gas plant, the North West Shelf for Woodside, which I just visited two weeks ago. I saw the ancient rock art of Murujuga with traditional custodians, including Rae Cooper, who showed me 40,000- and 50,000-year-old rock art literally 100 metres away from a gas plant that has already been destroying and eroding that precious oldest living art gallery on the planet. This government didn't bat an eyelid. They didn't go and visit it themselves. The minister just ticked off on that destruction. So the climate fight continues. We will see you in the forests, on the blockade, and we will see you on the streets, demanding climate action. We will always fight to stop coal and gas companies running this parliament and fight for nature and a climate that will sustain us all, for people to have cheaper energy bills and to have their basic needs met.

Today is an incredibly shameful day. It's shameful for democracy in this country—the guillotining of legislation that is so critical to the wellbeing of all Australians. It is shameful because of this dirty, rushed deal between the Greens and Labor.

I'm going to talk to you at length in the next 15 minutes about all the many reasons why I weep. I weep today for what this government, this very bad Labor government, is doing to Australians' rights to be heard. We are all elected to come here to represent people from right across this land, and instead Labor will shut those concerns down—real concerns of Australian farmers, people who put food on our table, and Australian foresters, who allow us to build our homes with the most renewable resource rather than import it from places that don't have our high standards. Instead of Australian fishermen being allowed to fish in our abundant seas, we're letting in illegal fishing. They are allowing Australian jobs, Australian well-paid jobs, that allow us to have the best lifestyle in the world, to be sent offshore. What does that leave us here? It leaves us with nothing.

We are on a pathway to being one of the poorest countries on earth. We are on a pathway to not being able to afford to protect our environment, because this government is ensuring, with this shameful deal with the Greens, that all of that is lost to us. Who wins? It's not Australians. It's not Australians who rely on farmers to grow their food, on foresters to grow their homes or on fishermen to produce our great fish. It's certainly not leaving us with the great jobs that mean that Australians could enjoy their environment. We are able to have environmental protections that are appropriate, but not this. Not this selling out of Australia into the future.

The Albanese Labor government has ensured that we can mark our calendar today. This is such a dark day. We've already had Mr Bowen sign an agreement with 24 other countries—not major economies of the world, not countries where people get to enjoy high standards of living and higher environmental protections. No. He signed a deal to see the end of two of Australia's biggest export industries, coal and gas. What the Greens fail to understand, and they fail to ever tell anybody, is it is these industries that fund must environmental activities in this country. They do baseline studies. They ensure that environmental scientists are employed in well-paid jobs. They study koalas and other habitats. That is what a great, effective, high-standard mining industry gives us, but under Minister Bowen, under the Greens, under Mr Albanese this will all stop because we are seeing an absolute exodus of mining and gas industry from this country.

The Greens will celebrate that. Labor will celebrate that. But if that's your job, what will you go and work in next? What well-paid job will you and your family go to next? I don't know what that is. What is it that will pay for us to have Medicare and the PBS and NDIS, and roads and schools and hospitals? Who pays for that? Well at the moment it is the billions of dollars that come in from these incredibly high-standard, sophisticated industries, which are our mining and gas sectors. What this government is doing with this anti-fossil-fuel rhetoric is to ensure that Australians don't get to enjoy that either. How long will it be before we're having to choose between being able to have those great programs and the most basic services that Australians deserve?

We have been negotiating hard with the government. The coalition has been going forward and seeking to explain the corners, the rough edges that this legislation brings. The most simple example I can give you is the definition of nuclear. It ties back to ARPANSA. This government is so obsessed with denying Australians the opportunity for nuclear energy that they have failed to allow these incredible export industries, which are so necessary to our modern way of life—critical minerals, rare-earth elements, bauxite and gallium all occur in radioactive ores, but under this legislation they will not go ahead. We have been trying to negotiate with the government, to point out that this legislation fails Australians. And even worse, it even fails the government's own agenda. Their own agenda to sign a critical metals deal with the US fails under this. It means Australians are denied the opportunity to be the beneficiaries of the abundant resources that we have in this country. We will not be able to benefit from that.

Let's think about who the winners from this legislation are because, to be clear, it's not the environment. It is absolutely not the environment. The winner is bigger government. It's more duplication of bureaucrats sitting in air-conditioned offices—powered mostly by coal and gas. They will be the beneficiaries. Lawyers will be the beneficiaries. Environmental lawyers, who relish and revel in tying up projects that would employ Australians and that would see us have more gas, more energy abundance in this country, will benefit. It's certainly not the environment. And it is certainly denying Australians, young Australians, the sort of certainty that has been promised, like some kind of nirvana, by those on the opposite side. There will not be faster housing approvals, not under this onerous, restrictive legislation. There will certainly not be cheaper houses, not under the higher cost of construction that this legislation will result in. It will certainly not result in lower costs of energy.

Australians are paying eyewatering costs of living at the moment, whether it be your electricity bill, your gas bill, the food on your table or the petrol in your car. All of those things cost more thanks to the Albanese Labor government's rushed renewables rollout, their incredibly onerous emissions reductions targets that are resulting in not better outcomes for Australians but just more taxes on the sort of businesses that employ Australians, certainly in the parts of the nation that I know so well. Labor's emissions reductions programs have cost Australian farmers, Australian foresters and Australian fishermen first and foremost. Ninety-five per cent of Australia's emissions reductions, which has been achieved at twice the rate of the rest of the world, has been at the cost of Australian farmers being able to do their jobs.

What else has it resulted in? It has resulted in the most incredible mental anguish and stress from farmers sitting around kitchen tables, poring over forms, attempting to get a bureaucrat on the phone but being told they're working from home today; maybe they can send an email to try and get clarity on this ridiculous, onerous legislation. This legislation is not about streamlining. It's not about reducing duplication. It's about doubling down: more agencies, more bureaucracies, less response to Australians who think that they deserve what we have enjoyed to date—a great quality of life, a prosperous nation that can afford to pay the bills and, at the same time, the sort of environment that we all enjoy going out into.

I want to touch on this outrageous deal that has been done with the Greens on continuous use. The NFF and farming groups across Australia came to me saying, 'We're so worried that the government will stop negotiating with you and will turn to the Greens.' Most of Australian food production comes from land that has been managed over hundreds of years. It has come from places like Tasmania and Victoria, the coastal parts of Australia, Queensland, Western Australia and New South Wales—well-managed country and a very small part of the country. Under Labor's goals, we have already lost seven million hectares of farming land. And under this, under Labor's emissions reductions and this legislation, it will fall by another five million hectares. What do you think that does to Australia's food security? We are seeing dairy farms where the cows are being sold off to the abattoir so that trees can be planted, and not trees that we're going to be able to use for housing. This is just denying Australians food security. It's denying Australian farmers the ability to do what they do best and most passionately. It is taking away the ability for Australians to feel secure in this uncertain time.

This is an incredibly shameless piece of legislation. It's a shameless process. I know that there are members of the government who say privately to me how ashamed they are of this process. Every year we see hundreds of pieces—I'm exaggerating—tens of pieces of legislation just guillotined, with no discussion, no debate, no opportunity for amendments and no opportunity for the coalition to hold this very bad, destructive government to account. This has got to stop, and the Greens have got to stop enabling it.

Today there was a statement from the Australian Energy Producers organisation. They've said that the Albanese government striking 'an agreement with the Greens on environmental law reform is a squandered opportunity to address the significant costs and delays in delivering gas to Australian consumers'. They say:

Carving gas out of streamlined reforms is simply not in the national interest. The deal will entrench slow approvals which will drive up energy costs, deter investment and further delay the new gas supply Australia urgently needs.

More than 5 million Australian households rely on natural gas, it is an essential input to manufacturing and is the reliable back-up that helps to keep the lights on as our electricity system transforms.

By conceding to the Greens, the Government has chosen more red tape and uncertainty instead of enabling new gas supply

I think this is an incredibly naive government, a government that thinks that investors don't have opportunities, that they can't go and invest in other countries like Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico or Qatar. All of these places are competing for Australian jobs, and the taxes that they would pay here could be used on Medicare, on the NDIS, on the PBS, on schools and roads and hospitals.

Mark your calendar today because today is the beginning of the end of the prosperity that Australians have enjoyed, where every generation has a better quality of life than the generation before. Under this government, the next generation—our children, our grandchildren—will have a lower standard of living than we have enjoyed. I didn't come to the Senate for that. I didn't come to be a part of the sort of economic destruction, environmental destruction that this government has overseen. This is going to make it harder for Australians, and the worst part is it's cloaked in slick environmental cuddly words to give Australians some sense of security that what has happened today is okay. But it is not okay what this Australian government is doing to Australians, not just today but for our future, when we are poor, and we are cold and we are hungry, because they could not resist the allure of caving to the Greens political party. I am ashamed. The committee will report on 24 March. We could have waited for that.

The Albanese government is once again delivering on our commitments to the Australian people. By the end of this week, landmark environmental reforms will pass the parliament. For the first time, Australia will have a national environment protection agency. For the first time, Australia will have national environmental standards. We will deliver higher penalties for the most serious breaches of environmental law. We'll ensure that the rules for regional forest agreements comply with the same standards and rules for other industries, and we'll require proponents of large emitting projects to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and their emission reduction plans.

I congratulate the Prime Minister, the minister for the environment and the many others in this place who have helped to get us to this point. All of you are now part of Labor's transformative environmental legacy alongside Gough Whitlam and his government, who introduced Australia's first federal environment and heritage legislation, created the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and who recognised the land rights of Australia's First Peoples; alongside Bob Hawke and his Labor government, who saved the Franklin River, the Daintree and the Wet Tropics and who protected Antarctica from mining exploration; and alongside the governments of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, who delivered the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and who kicked off investment in clean renewable energy. When we look at the long sweep of Australia's history, one thing is abundantly clear: transformative environment protection can only be delivered by Labor governments. It is delivered in partnership with community movements who argue for these steps, but it is delivered by Labor governments.

I want to pay tribute to all of the activists who have always understood this and who have worked so hard for so many years so a Labor government could pass a transformative bill like this one. I'm proud to have played my part in the formation of LEAN, the Labor Environment Action Network, who have campaigned also for these measures and backed them in. To those Labor members, I say: all of us here stand on your shoulders. This is a great day for Australia, a great day for our environment and a day that that you have played a critical part in bringing about.

I rise today to speak on this very important piece of legislation, the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025, and related bills. This is a piece of legislation that has been in the works for a very long time and one where, after sustained and tough negotiations with the government, we have managed to secure a better outcome for nature, with new protections for our native forests, our Australian bushland, and new protections for our endangered animals and other wildlife. Importantly, we have delivered a blow to the fossil fuel companies who want to keep polluting and putting our climate and our environment at risk. Today, with the amendments that the Greens have secured in relation to this piece of legislation, time is up. Time is up for native forest logging. The clock is ticking, and time is up.

Australians love our bush. They love our beautiful trees. They love our ancient forests. They know that these areas, so precious, so unique and so important, must be saved and protected. They know that these beautiful forests are the homes of our animals—of our little critters—and of our other wildlife. They know that if we continue to destroy our native forests—if the chainsaws and bulldozers continue rolling, chopping and destroying—that means the homes of these animals will be gone forever.

We didn't get everything we wanted in these negotiations. You never do. There's always give and take. But delivering a blow to the logging companies that want to continue to destroy our beautiful native forests is good. Delivering a blow to the bulldozers who want to continue to destroy our Australian bushland without even getting any sense of approval is good news. It's good for our bush and it's good for the climate. Delivering a blow to the fossil fuel companies who thought that they had it in the bag and that they were about to get their applications for new coal and new gas—expansion of pollution—fast-tracked and made easier, cheaper and faster is brilliant news.

You just need to see the reactions of people today to see what side of history people want to sit on when we're debating these issues. Do you know who's angry that the Greens have negotiated and got these outcomes, with new protections for our forests and wildlife, and have stopped coal and gas getting fast-tracked? Who's upset about this? The MCA, the fossil fuel industry, the big miners who want to keep polluting, and Australian Energy Producers, who thought they'd get a free ride, just cruise on in and get their mines passed and approved within 30 days. Uh-uh—not happening. They are furious that the Greens have stepped in to stop them getting a free ride. I say to the MCA and the other mining lobby, the big polluters: you got too cute, you got too cocky, and you assumed after years of donations and walking the halls of parliament that you ran this place. Well, you don't. You don't run it, and we are going to make sure you never do.

To those who are upset and angry that the Greens have put in place new protections for forests and our bushland, I say to you: time's up. We have to stop destroying our forests. They are the lungs of our planet. They are the homes of our wildlife. Those ancient trees do so much to keep the air clean, the soil healthy and our biodiversity rich. It is time to stop the chainsaws and the bulldozers. Of course we need a forestry industry. We need timber. Of course we do. But you don't need to be destroying native forests and putting them up the chip mill for Australia's timber needs. The spin and the squeals from the industry every time someone talks about transition is getting tired.

I grew up in the bush. I grew up in the native forests in Victoria. I know how hard people have worked for decades to put in place laws that simply say no to destroying our ancient forests that are the homes of our beautiful animals. I say to those campaigners: we wouldn't be here without you; we wouldn't have made this happen without you, but the war is not over and we will be with you as we save these forests. While we have managed to put in place laws that can protect and laws that give the minister of the day the ability to do his job as environment minister—no more excuses; no more, 'I'm not sure I can.' You've got the laws; use them. We will be standing with our forest activists, because the job is not done. But, boy, this is a blow. I say to the forest industry, and I say to those who want to continue to see our beautiful trees, the homes of our critically endangered animals, destroyed: time's up.

The package that the government has put on the table to help with the adjustment of these changes is welcome, but it must go to the workers. It's been the logging companies that have been pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds for decades. Taxpayers have been propping up an industry that has allowed the destruction of these forests for far too long. The workers know the transition needs to happen. The communities know. The politicians know. And boy, oh boy, don't the companies know it.

So the time is now. This is an opportunity for serious transition. We know that's not going to happen without the squeals of the industry. They're going to be doing everything they can over the next 18 months to make it harder, but we have put in place the laws that are required to protect these forests. I say to the minister: use them. Protect these ancient forests. Protect the lungs of this planet and make sure those bulldozers and those chainsaws really do stop.

We know that not everything in this place can be done at once. I fought the government tooth and nail on getting more protections for climate in this package. They refused to put the considerations of the climate damage that projects make as part of the process of assessing whether things should be given a green light. I think that that is just outrageous. I think it's dumb. I think it's short-sighted, and time will come for that to change. In this package there is, for the first time, at least the acceptance that climate pollution is damaging to the environment; companies will now be required to disclose what that damage is. That's a step forward, but I ask the minister and I ask the government: what is the point of getting the companies to disclose if you're not going to do something with that information? I couldn't get them over the line on that because they dug in. They refused to compromise. But I don't give up hope on that, because it's common sense. We now have, for the first time, climate in the bill, in the act, and that is good. We will hold this government to account.

We've stopped the fossil fuel companies getting an easier ride, a cheaper ride, a faster ride, and they're angry about it. The more angry they are, the better I feel. But the job is not done. This government has now had to pick a lane. They put this piece of legislation to the parliament. It was riddled with holes. It delivered everything that big business wanted, the big loggers wanted, the big miners wanted, that the industry groups all wanted. They thought it was so good for them that the coalition would just have to pass it. Well, I'll tell you what happened in the last couple of months. The coalition have proved themselves to be unfit for government. They have scrapped any shred of credibility on science, on climate, on the environment.

The government of the day had to pick a side. We had to fight hard to make sure we were in the right lane. I say to Labor that what has happened in this process is proof that if you want genuine environmental outcomes, outcomes for our climate, outcomes that are good for the community and not good just for the corporations, there is only one party in this place that can be trusted, and that's the Greens. That's why we have done this deal today. We have stood for outcomes for our environment and our communities, and we will keep doing that.

We will keep holding you to account because this rabble over this side doesn't give a toss about climate. They don't give a toss about the environment. They don't give a toss, it seems, about proper process and democracy, because they were going to be prepared to ram this bill through just for the interests of business. We're going to hear them squealing today about the Senate doing its job. We're doing it for nature. We're doing it for the community. We're doing it for all of those who have participated in this process for the last 25 years and who knew that these laws didn't work. But that side—you're going to hear them squeal and whinge all day because they couldn't deliver what the mining companies wanted.

Today is an historic day in our parliament, and I am so proud to be a part of this Labor government, which is delivering historic reform to our broken environmental laws. This parliament has a really clear choice to make over the next few hours: to keep the broken, outdated laws that fail the environment, that make it tougher for business and that slow down major projects, or to back a modern, balanced package of reform that delivers better protection for our environment and backs faster and clearer decisions for business.

This bill, the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025, responds to Professor Graeme Samuel's independent review of the EPBC Act. It delivers on the core pillars of his recommendations, and it is well overdue. The bill reflects countless hours of advocacy and hard work from many environment groups, from Labor members and branches right across the country, many in my home state of Western Australia, from community stakeholders, from First Nations organisations and from industry. I want to thank every single one of those who spent time—not just in the lead-up to this bill but over many years—advocating for these reforms. We need laws that allow us to protect and restore our environment but also to build the housing we so desperately need in this country, to take us further down the path of a renewables transition and to deliver on our promise of a future made in Australia.

These laws deliver our country's first ever national environmental protection agency—a strong and independent agency that will have real teeth. It creates a definition of 'unacceptable impacts' so that clearly harmful projects can be stopped early. It strengthens penalties for serious breaches to deter wrongdoing and ensures that environmental harm is not treated as a cost of doing business. The bill also sets a more efficient and robust project assessment process to cut delays. It is estimated that this will save more than half a billion dollars across our economy, with the potential to save even more as the system matures. It allows states and territories to carry out assessments on behalf of the Commonwealth where they meet national standards, reducing duplication but maintaining a high bar for environmental approvals.

To those opposite, the Liberal and National parties, who are so furious and outraged by the decision that we will make in this parliament today, I say: you are to blame for your own irrelevance on this issue because you have taken away any scrap of credibility with the Australian public that you had. You have shown that you deny the science. You have certainly shown very little, if any, interest in actually protecting our environment. You stand in the way of our new housing projects. You stand in the way of our attempts to build the houses that we need. You stand in the way of our renewable energy rollout. You stand in the way of our Future Made in Australia agenda. And so I repeat: you are to blame for your own irrelevance on this issue. But today we will get the job done and we will pass long-overdue reforms, the first major overhaul of our environmental laws in more than 20 years, to protect our unique environment—what makes our country great. This is a balanced package that balances environmental protection and economic opportunity. It sets up our nation for the future.

I rise in support of the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 and related bills. They are stronger than what Labor first put on the table, stronger because the Greens, backed by communities right across this country, who've been working for decades, joined and led this campaign. They're stronger because experts and advocates across the country refused to let them be written by big coal and gas, logging operations and lobbyists. But let's be absolutely clear: while we have secured important improvements for nature, this package of bills still fails. It fails to properly protect our climate.

Labor began this process with a wish list for corporate environmental destruction. Their first draft would have taken us backwards. It would have created a fast track for coal and gas, handed corporations new loopholes and locked in a system where approval came first and environmental protection was an afterthought. It was package of bills written for big corporations, not for people and not for country. The Greens said no. We held firm, and the community held firm with us. Because of that, we have won significant gains for our environment.

These bills now finally, after decades, end the special treatment for native forest logging. We've closed off the ability for coal and gas companies to use Labor's fast track pathways or to exploit the national interest loophole. These are real improvements. They take us forward and make these bills infinitely better than if Labor had done a deal with the climate deniers in the coalition.

But let me be equally direct: these significant but small wins for nature are not the wins we need for our precious climate. Labor have refused point-blank to include a climate trigger. They've refused to allow the environment minister to consider the climate damage of new coal and gas projects—dirty, polluting coal and gas projects—in this country. They've refused, despite overwhelming public support and strong evidence that our environment laws must confront the climate crisis head-on.

I come to this debate as a senator for Victoria, a state blessed with landscapes and species that deserve far more than incremental protection—the cool temperate forests of the Central Highlands, home to the precious Leadbeater's possum; Gippsland's forests, foothills, lakes and plains; the Victorian grassland earless dragon, rediscovered just recently on Wadawurrung country after being thought to be extinct; theburrunan dolphins of Port Phillip; and the superb fairywrens and bunjil, who often greet me on my return to Dja Dja Wurrung country, in Central Victoria, where I was born and raised. These are places and species worth fighting for. While these wonders of Victoria endure, they are under immense pressure. Their forests are still logged. Their habitats are still cleared. Their climate is still warming because Labor continues to approve new coal and gas.

I have seen the consequences elsewhere in this country, too. Just last week I was in Karratha, or Murujuga, a place of staggering beauty, where red cliffs cascade across the landscape and the world's oldest rock art watches on over country. Yet, just beyond that sacred landscape, that oldest art gallery in the world—40,000- to 50,000-year-old rock art—gas plants and fertiliser factories rise like a dystopian skyline, eroding the rock art and directly impacting First Nations communities and their country. What is Labor doing in the face of this destruction? Greenlighting new fossil fuel projects, extending the North West Shelf for 45 years and protecting not country but the profits of Woodside, Santos and BHP.

When I gave my first speech in this chamber, I said I didn't come here for incremental change. I came here to get big money out of politics, to stop the fossil fuel lobby writing our laws and to protect the places we love in Victoria but of course nationally and across this continent. That purpose continues to guide me today. The Greens have used every lever we have to make these laws less damaging and more protective. I'm really proud of that work, and I want to applaud my colleague Senator Hanson-Young and our Greens leader, Senator Larissa Waters, for the enormous work, alongside our community, that they have put into making these laws something that will go some way towards protecting our precious forests.

Going into this, the fact that the Labor Party was willing to negotiate with either the climate deniers on the coalition side or the Greens really demonstrates why people are feeling like they don't know what this government stands for. I'm really glad and really proud that we have done this deal, because I think the alternative is unfathomable. The idea of new so-called environment laws coming into play that would fast-track new polluting fossil fuel projects through a 30-day window—we simply could not let that happen, and you cannot describe something as an 'environmental law' if it is speeding up fossil fuel projects.

As I said, the Greens have used every lever we have to make these laws less damaging and more protective. But, until climate is at the heart of our environmental laws, until coal and gas are rapidly phased out and until fossil fuel corporations are removed from the decision-making table, our work is far from done. We acknowledge that. We acknowledge the giant shoulders that we stand on and the huge volunteer and member groups across this country who roll up their sleeves—week in, week out—to fight to protect nature and to fight to protect our beautiful and precious forests, our ecosystems and the species that are just careering towards extinctions at a devastating rate. The ENGOs, the environmental non-government organisations, are working across this country to protect our waterways, to protect our soil and to protect these important carbon sinks.

To our First Nations elders and communities who continue to fight for country up against massive vested interests every single day, I want to thank you for your tireless advocacy and efforts and reassure you that we stand beside you every single step of the way. We know that this isn't done yet. We know that we've got a really long way to go. To everyone fighting to protect land, water, culture and climate from Murujuga to East Gippsland, thank you. We won't stop until our laws defend the planet, not the polluters destroying it.

I realise that I've only got a minute to discuss this very important bill that is before this place, the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025. This is a wasted opportunity for this government to finally deal with the impasses that businesses and projects are facing right across this country, particularly in my home state of Western Australia. What we have seen is the Albanese government look in the face of Western Australians and say: 'Too bad. You're not going to get the projects that you need for your prosperity.' He's done a deal with the Greens, a deal that we don't even know the details of, and we're about to guillotine this debate when we don't even know exactly what these amendments are.

It is absolutely appalling. It is appalling for the Premier of Western Australia to call on this government and this parliament to pass these laws when we couldn't possibly even have a test of what 'unacceptable impacts' is going to mean. We couldn't possibly know what this is actually going to do, because we have not had the time to review this legislation and test with industry what is required. It is unacceptable that this is happening right here, right now. Every single person in this place, particularly on that side and particularly my Western Australian colleagues, should hang their heads in shame. (Time expired)

Pursuant to contingent notice of motion standing in the name of the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent further consideration of the bills without limitation of time.

What we've seen here today, for the people who are watching, is that the government has done a dirty deal with the Greens under the cloak of darkness. None of us should really have been particularly surprised by this, because it is not the first time it has happened. This week we saw the minister, who I would have liked to think would be standing behind a piece of legislation he believed in, just point around the chamber and say, 'Well, I'll do a deal with you, or I'll do a deal with you,' knowing darn well that the issues of concern to the coalition were completely different to the issues of concern to the Greens. But he didn't care; he just wanted his deal.

Really, the question that Australians should be asking today is, 'What does this government really believe in when it comes to our environmental protection act?' They were prepared to do a deal with anybody just so they could get this bill through. This is an absolute hallmark of this government—avoiding scrutiny. We had no bills pass this place until midday yesterday, when eventually they got the first bill of the week through. They have passed nothing since, and then this morning they come in with a guillotine of nine bills.

Nine bills will receive no scrutiny at all. We have nine bills this afternoon, some of which are very significant bills that have very significant impacts. There will be no scrutiny at all of any of these bills. Instead, we will have extremely shortened scrutiny on a series of a bills—seven of them, with 1,500 pages in the primary bill—in the next hour or so. But no-one should be surprised, because this government thinks that the guillotine is actually a standard part of it doing business. In the last parliament alone, 230 bills were guillotined by this government. They don't even seem to care about the processes, the procedures, the conventions or the reports of committees. We found out that the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills have serious concerns about the lack of scrutiny undertaken on this series of bills.

As I said, there are many thousands of pages of bills being put forward here. Firstly, the primary scrutiny body of this parliament has expressed concerns about this series of bills, and the government is completely ignoring those concerns. Secondly, the secondary scrutiny body of this parliament, the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation, has also raised concerns about the fact that so much of what would normally be considered in primary legislation has been delegated to subordinate legislation. This is a government that is absolutely allergic to scrutiny. They are more than happy to bring bill after bill after bill into this place, with all of the headlines in them, but there is absolutely nothing in any detail. Who knows what might be coming. As we stand here today, we don't even know the details of the amendments that have been agreed with the Greens in order to get their support for this bill or what they mean. Of course, there is absolutely no scrutiny at all of these bills.

I remind the leader in this place that just a few weeks ago, on 6 November, she said:

What I would say to the chamber is that we shouldn't forget history. The committee system has been a really important part of our parliament.

There's no committee system and no committee report, and the two really, really important committees have been ignored when it comes to scrutiny. The thing that is really interesting here is the hypocrisy of what's going on. Senator Wong, back in 2021, said:

This is really undemocratic to turn up and say, 'We're going to roll over the Senate program.' … I am quite astounded at this way of managing the chamber. I am quite astounded that the government thinks it can just rock up with a few minutes notice … and say: 'We've got the numbers. We're going to ram this through.' … What sort of way is this to run government? I hope that for once you might actually tell us what the dirty deal is; usually we have to try and grab it out of you.

So what is the dirty deal that has been done with those at the other end of the chamber? Is it a new party room or something more that they have been offered in order to get their deal? I think the idea that the Leader of the Government in the Senate can come in here in this hypocritical manner and choose to do what she herself has condemned others for doing—this is absolutely a culture that is running rampant in this place. You would sell your soul for a headline with no regard for the consequences. Quite frankly, if you believe the rumours of a wedding on Saturday, I hope the PM hasn't prioritised the fitting of his tuxedo over scrutiny of these very important bills.

That was an unnecessary personal gibe.

Opposition senators interjecting—

No, there are some things that are beyond politics, and that should be one of them. But what I would say is this: the coalition have had an opportunity over many months to be in negotiations with the government, but the reality is they couldn't negotiate because that would require them to take out time from their favourite pastime, which is fighting amongst themselves. I move:

That the question be now put.

The question is that the motion moved by Minister Wong be agreed to.

The question is that the motion moved by Senator Ruston be agreed to.

The first question is that the Australian Greens amendment on sheet 3561 be agreed to.

Australian G reens ' circulated amendment—

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate:

(a) notes that sovereignty was never ceded, and that free, prior and informed consent should be codified in our nation's laws; and

(b) calls on the Government to develop and release for public comment a National Environmental Standard on First Nations Consultation and Engagement that incorporates principles of free, prior and informed consent".

I will now deal with the amendment circulated by Senator David Pocock. As this amendment was not circulated within the required timeframe, it can only be considered by leave.

by leave—I move:

The amendment was un available at the time of publishing .

We ask that paragraph (c) be put separately.

The question is that the amendment on sheet 3563, as moved by Senator David Pocock, excluding paragraph (c), be agreed to.

I will now put the question for paragraph (c) of the amendment on sheet 3563 as moved by Senator David Pocock. Senator Watt?

I think there have been some discussions with Senator Pocock about this paragraph of the amendment. This paragraph of the amendment seeks to refer the bills to the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee. Those bills have already been referred to the Senate environment and communications committee and, unless someone knows something different, that inquiry will continue. I don't think there is actually a need for this. I don't know whether Senator Pocock wants to pursue it.

I don't have any speakers. Senator Hanson-Young?

by leave—The bills have not been reported, and won't be reported. The inquiry will continue. It's important that the inquiry continues, because we have a number of regulations that have already been released, the standards both on matters of environmental significance and, of course, on the offsets, and there will be further to come. I think it is important that this parliament scrutinise those standards, and so we want the inquiry to continue, which is why it will.

I seek leave to make a two-minute statement.

One minute.

One minute is granted.

Perfect. Thank you. This just exposes what a farce this process is today. There's the speakers list. We've got 20 senators who aren't getting a say on our biggest changes to environmental laws in decades. We've got senators who haven't even been able to get amendments drafted to this. I've put in 22 amendments for drafting; I've had six back, despite chasing up the government since Friday about resourcing for drafters. This just doesn't seem to cut it.

This is important. We should get it right, and yet here we are ramming it through in the space of hours rather than actually providing some debate, allowing senators who you may or may not agree with to have their say on environmental law reform and then having a committee stage where you can actually ask some clarifying questions to find out what the details are. We're still scrambling to understand what these changes actually mean. Some of them are incredibly welcome, but, as Senator Cash often reminds us, the devil is in the detail. (Time expired)

The question is the amendment as moved by Senator David Pocock on sheet 3563 part C be agreed to.

I will now deal with the amendment circulated by Pauline Hanson's One Nation. As this amendment was not circulated within the required timeframe, it can only be considered by leave.

by leave—I move:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate:

(a) notes that:

(i) the bills legislate National Environment Standards for Matters of National Environmental Significance (MNES) that are not defined,

(ii) these standards will be drafted after the passing of the bills,

(iii) the Senate is being asked to pass the bills without knowing what these standards are,

(iv) these standards must be provided with the bill so that the Senate knows what it is voting on,

(v) the federal government will also be able to steam roll state government processes, which is an affront to the Federation and a misuse of external powers,

(vi) under these bills areas of environmental importance are not protected as the developer can bring the development into 'net positive gain' by paying compensation for residual significant impacts into consolidated revenue (offsets) and the Australian environment is going to be for sale, and

(vii) the bill does not allow for the constriction of nuclear fuel fabrication plants, nuclear power plants, an enrichment plant or a processing facility which should be a matter for a separate bill, and

(b) calls on the Government to adjourn further debate on the bill until the first sitting day of March 2026".

I was wondering if we could put paragraph (b) separately.

The question now is that the amendment on sheet 3562 as moved by Senator Roberts, with the exception of part (b), be agreed to.

The question is that part (b) on sheet 3562, the amendment as moved by Senator Roberts, be agreed to.

The question now is that these bills be read a second time.

(In division) Order! No-one should be moving. That includes advisers at the back of the room.

Advisers are actually entitled to take their seats. I'm sick of you picking on our advisers. You never pick on Labor advisers.

Order, Senator McKim! Senator, you also were late sitting down; I called you about three times. Come to order. The count is going on.

Pursuant to notice given yesterday, on behalf of the Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation, I withdraw business of the Senate notice of motion No. 1 for four sitting days after today, proposing the disallowance of the Competition and Consumer (Notification of Acquisitions) Determination 2025, made under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010.

I present the ninth report for 2025 of the Selection of Bills Committee, and I seek leave to have the report incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The report read as follows—

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

REPORT NO. 9 OF 2025

MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE

SenatorLisaDarmanin(ActingGovernmentWhip,Chair) Senator Wendy Askew (Opposition Whip)

SenatorSeanBell(PaulineHanson'sOneNationWhip) Senator Nick McKim (Australian Greens Whip)Senator Ralph Babet

Senator Leah Blyth SenatorRossCadell

SenatortheHon.AnthonyChisholm Senator Jessica Collins

SenatortheHon.KatyGallagher Senator Jacqui Lambie

SenatorFatimaPayman Senator David Pocock

SenatorTonySheldon(GovernmentWhip) Senator Lidia Thorpe

Secretary: TimBryant 02 6277 3020

1. The committee met in private session on Wednesday, 26 November 2025 at 7.16 pm.

2. The committee recommends that—

(a) the provisions of the Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025 be referred immediately to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 26 February 2026 (see appendix 1 for statements of reasons for referral);

(b) the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025 be referred immediately to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 20 March 2026 (see appendix 2 for statements of reasons for referral);

(c) the provisions of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Genetic Testing Protections in Life Insurance and Other Measures) Bill 2025 be referred immediately to the Economics Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 26 February 2026 (see appendix 3 for statements of reasons for referral); and

(d) the provisions of the Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) Bill 2025 and the Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2025 be referred immediately to Education and Employment Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 26 February 2026 (see appendix 4 for statements of reasons for referral).

3. The committee recommends that the following bills not be referred to committees:

4. The committee deferred consideration of the following bills to its next meeting:

5. The committee considered the Fair Work Amendment (Right to Work from Home) Bill 2025 but was unable to reach agreement.

(Lisa Darmanin)

Chair

26 November 2025

Appendix 1

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

To scrutinise this legislation and to hear from stakeholders about the importance of this legislation.

Possible submissions or evidence from:

Interested parties and stakeholders

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Community Affairs Committee

Possible hearing date(s):

December to February

Possible reporting date:

26 February 2026

14I Deferred Bills

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

Hear from stakeholders about changes to prescribing Possible submissions or evidence from:

Various stakeholders including nurses and nurse representative bodies, other health professional bodies

Committee to which bill is to be referred: Community Affairs Legislation Committee

Possible hearing date(s):

0-1 hearings during week of 16th Feb.

Possible reporting date:

26 Feb 2026

Appendix 2

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

To scrutinise this legislation and to hear from stakeholders about the importance of this legislation.

Possible submissions or evidence from:

Interested parties and stakeholders

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Community Affairs Committee

Possible hearing date(s):

December to February

Possible reporting date:

1 March 2026

15 I Deferred Bills

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

Hear from stakeholders about registration and safeguarding, as well any other inclusions in the Bill

Possible submissions or evidence from:

Various stakeholders including disability representative organisations, members of the disability community, service providers

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Community Affairs Legislation Committee

Possible hearing date(s):

2 hearings during 16-27 Feb, month of April

Possible reporting date:

30th March 2026—members of the disability community will require this amount of time to participate fully in the inquiry

Appendix 3

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Treasury Laws Amendment (Genetic Testing Protections in Life Insurance and Other Measures) Bill 2025

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration: T

To examine the Bill in more detail and hear from relevant stakeholders.

Possible submissions or evidence from: interested stakeholders.

Committee to which bill is to be referred: Senate Economics Legislation Committee

Possible hearing date(s):

Week of 16th February 2026

Possible reporting date:

26 February 2026

Appendix 4

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) Bill 2025 Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2025

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

To scrutinise this legislation and to hear from stakeholders about the importance of this legislation.

Possible submissions or evidence from:

Interested parties and stakeholders

Committee to which bill is to be referred: Education & Employment Committee

Possible hearing date(s):

December to February

Possible reporting date: '

5 March 2026

17 I Deferred Bills

I move:

That the report be adopted.

I move an amendment to the motion, as circulated:

At the end of the motion, add:

"and, in respect of the Communications Legislation Amendment (Australian Content Requirement for Subscription Video On Demand (Streaming) Services) Bill 2025, the bill be referred immediately to the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 3 February 2026".

The question is that the amendment as moved by Senator Duniam to the Selection of Bills Committee report be agreed to.

I move the amendment to the motion that the report be adopted, circulated in my name:

At the end of the motion, add:

"and, in respect of the Fair Work Amendment (Right to Work from Home) Bill 2025, the bill be referred immediately to the Education and Employment Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 26 March 2026".

Question agreed to.

Original question, as amended, agreed to.

I seek leave to postpone business of the Senate notice of motion No. 3, standing in my name for today, until the next sitting day.

Leave granted.

I seek leave to postpone business of the Senate notice of motion No. 5 standing in the name of Senator Hume for today, until the next sitting day.

Leave granted.

by leave—I move:

That leave of absence be granted to Senator Babet for 27 November for personal reasons.

Question agreed to.

by leave—At the request of Senator Lambie, I move:

That the following bill be introduced: A Bill for an Act to amend the Defence Act 1903 to establish the Sexual Assault Prevention, Intervention and Response Commission, and for related purposes. Defence Amendment (Sexual Assault Prevention, Intervention and Response Commission) Bill 2025.

Question agreed to.

I present the bill and move:

That this bill may proceed without formalities and be now read a first time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

I present the explanatory memorandum and move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

The Defence Amendment (Sexual Assault Prevention, Intervention and Response Commission) Bill 2025 establishes an independent commission, as a statutory authority, whose purpose is to address sexual assault in the Australian Defence organisation. It puts victims and survivors in Defence at the centre of the system instead of leaving them to navigate their way through a system that too often protects the institution before it protects its people. The bill is unusual in the current age as it is very prescriptive for primary legislation. This was a conscious decision that recognises both the failure to implement the necessary changes through current regulations and that the legal requirements can then only be changed by the parliament.

My office receives a high volume of emails and phone calls from current and former Australian Defence Force members. Many of these people contact my office because they feel abandoned, with nowhere to go. They tell me about sexual assaults that they have been actively discouraged to report, or worse, they are ignored. Reports go missing, investigations drag on for years with no outcome, or their reporting is followed by retaliation and the stigma that follows them long after they tried to speak up. Many have one thing in common—they made the decision to serve their country and were let down by a system that is supposed to keep them safe.

Defence and the parliament have known about these issues for a long time. There have been many reviews raising these issues in a multitude of reports, the most recent being the Royal Commission into Defence and Veterans' Suicide. The commissioners made it clear that sexual assault in Defence is not a new or a one-off problem. It is cultural, systemic and entrenched. Defence's efforts to address the issues have fallen well short and unfortunately the government's progress on this particular issue has been painfully slow. The support systems for the survivors of sexual assault have remained under-resourced. Leadership and accountability have been inconsistent at best, and the inconsistent support retraumatises the victims.

The Bill establishes an independent commission with real powers that address the crucial elements of prevention, intervention and response. It covers investigation, training, data collection, accountability and victim-survivor support and treatment. It sets out clear duties for Defence leaders and the role of staff and members, provides for protection of victims and the expectation of special investigators and prosecutors and evidence handling regime.

The bill makes it clear that if a Defence member commits a sexual assault, or knowingly covers one up, their character and values are inconsistent with expectations of defence personnel and they have no place in the ADF.

This reform is not just necessary, it is urgent. Every day we delay is another day someone in Defence is left without the support they deserve or the justice they are owed.

For too long victims and survivors have been hearing how things are going to change and then seeing nothing really changing. This parliament owes them more than words. We owe them action.

I look forward to continuing my remarks at a later stage.

I seek leave for Senator Lambie to continue her remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

At the request of Senator Lambie, I move:

That the Defence Amendment (Sexual Assault Prevention, Intervention and Response Commission) Bill 2025 be referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 4 May 2026.

Question agreed to.

I ask that government business notices of motion No. 1 and No. 2 be taken together and be taken as formal.

It's Thursday and the practice is that we do things in order, but you could seek leave of the Senate. Is leave granted?

Leave not granted.

At the request of Senator Canavan, I move:

That the following matter be referred to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee for inquiry and report by 30 June 2026:

The Government's changes to rural, regional and remote Medicare access and funding, with particular reference to:

(a) the impact of the 1 November 2025 Medicare changes on access to primary care, including telehealth, for rural, regional and remote Australians;

(b) the financial sustainability of independently owned rural general practices under current Medicare funding and incentive structures;

(c) the extent to which current Medicare settings contribute to avoidable emergency presentations and preventable hospital admissions in rural, regional and remote areas;

(d) the adequacy of Medicare support for the mixed-team models of care required in rural, regional and remote communities, including the roles of general practitioners, nurse practitioners, nurses, allied health professionals and visiting specialists;

(e) the impacts of current Medicare rules and incentive arrangements on large corporate providers compared with small, community-embedded rural clinics;

(f) reforms needed to ensure Medicare is fair, workable and sustainably funded for rural, regional and remote Australians, including the requirement for rural stress-testing of future changes; and

(g) any other related matters.

Question agreed to.

At the request of Senator Duniam, I move:

That the following matter be referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee for inquiry and report by 30 June 2026:

The illegal tobacco crisis in Australia, with particular reference to:

(a) the scale and nature of the illegal tobacco market, including the volume and value of illicit tobacco trade; sources, distribution channels and methods of smuggling or illegal cultivation; and the involvement of transnational serious and organised crime (TSOC) groups;

(b) the impact of illegal tobacco on public health and on government revenue, including smoking rates and the loss of Commonwealth excise and customs revenue;

(c) law enforcement, intelligence and regulatory responses, including the adequacy of:

(i) penalties and deterrence measures,

(ii) the strategy and effectiveness of onshore and offshore disruption activities, and

(iii) the current legislative and regulatory frameworks and the current levels of inter-government and inter-agency co-operation;

(d) the social and economic impacts, including on legitimate retailers, especially small businesses in regional and rural areas; the public health implications arising from the spread of unregulated tobacco products; and the safety implications for communities affected by illegal operations;

(e) forecasts, modelling and plausible future scenarios concerning the potential evolution of the illicit tobacco threat, including the prospect for increased violence and the effect of illicit tobacco on the wider TSOC threat;

(f) options for reform, including potential amendments to existing policies and to taxation, customs and/or criminal laws; and

(g) any other related matters.

The question is that business of the Senate No. 9, standing in the name of Senator Duniam, be agreed to.

I move:

That the following matter be referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee for inquiry and report by 1 June 2026:

Offshore processing and resettlement arrangements, with particular reference to:

(a) Australia's arrangements since 2022 with the Republic of Nauru, Papua New Guinea and other countries for offshore processing and resettlement programs, including:

(i) the payments made by the Australian Government to the primary contractors and subcontractors involved in offshore processing and resettlement programs,

(ii) the payments made by the Australian Government to other third parties involved in offshore processing and resettlement programs,

(iii) the outcomes and effect of payments made to primary contractors and subcontractors involved in offshore processing and resettlement programs and other relevant third parties, and

(iv) the integrity of arrangements made for the delivery of services and value money for Australian taxpayers; and

(b) any other related matters.

Question agreed to.

by leave—I ask that the government's opposition to that motion be recorded.

by leave—I ask that our opposition to that motion be recorded as well, please.

I move:

That the days of meeting of the Senate for 2026 be as follows:

Autumn sittings:

Tuesday, 3 February to Thursday, 5 February

Monday, 2 March to Thursday, 5 March

Tuesday, 10 March to Thursday, 12 March

Monday, 23 March to Thursday, 26 March

Monday, 30 March to Wednesday, 1 April

Budget sittings:

Tuesday, 12 May to Thursday, 14 May

Winter sittings:

Monday, 22 June to Thursday, 25 June

Monday, 29 June to Thursday, 2 July

Spring sittings:

Tuesday, 11 August to Thursday, 13 August

Monday, 17 August to Thursday, 20 August

Monday, 7 September to Thursday, 10 September

Monday, 14 September to Thursday, 17 September

Monday, 12 October to Thursday, 15 October

Monday, 16 November to Thursday, 19 November

Monday, 23 November to Thursday, 26 November.

Question agreed to.

I move:

(1) That estimates hearings by legislation committees for 2026 be scheduled as follows: 2025-26 additional estimates:

Monday, 9 February and Tuesday, 10 February (Group A)

Wednesday, 11 February and Thursday, 12 February (Group B)

2026-27 Budget estimates:

Monday, 25 May to Thursday, 28 May (Group A)

Tuesday, 2 June to Friday, 5 June (Group B)

Monday, 26 October and Tuesday, 27 October (supplementary hearingsGroup A)

Wednesday, 28 October and Thursday, 29 October (supplementary hearingsGroup B).

(2) That the committees consider the proposed expenditure in accordance with the allocation of departments and agencies to committees agreed to by the Senate.

(3) That committees meet in the following groups:

Group A:

Environment and Communications

Finance and Public Administration

Legal and Constitutional Affairs

Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport

Group B:

Community Affairs

Economics

Education and Employment

Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade.

(4) That the committees report to the Senate on the following dates:

(a) Tuesday, 31 March 2026, in respect of the 2025-26 additional estimates; and

(b) Tuesday, 23 June 2026, in respect of the 2026-27 Budget estimates.

Question agreed to.

I seek leave to move a motion relating to the consideration of general business notice of motion No. 300, on Israel's genocide in Gaza, as circulated.

Leave not granted.

Pursuant to contingent notice standing in the name of Senator Waters, I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion relating to the consideration of general business notice of motion No. 300.

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

I move:

That—

(a) the Senate notes that:

(i) in accordance with Senate resolution 44, government responses to parliamentary committee reports are required to be tabled within 3 months of a report being tabled,

(ii) the Finance and Public Administration References Committee tabled its report entitled Management and assurance of integrity by consulting services on 12 June 2024,

(iii) a government response has not been tabled even though it was due by 12 September 2024,

(iv) the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services tabled its report entitled Ethics and professional accountability: Structural challenges in the audit, assurance and consultancy industry on 7 November 2024, and

(v) a government response has not been tabled even though it was due by 7 February 2025;

(b) there be laid on the table by the Minister for Finance and Minister for the Public Service, by no later than midday on 15 December 2025, the outstanding government response to the report of the Finance and Public Administration References Committee entitled Management and assurance of integrity by consulting services; and

(c) there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Assistant Treasurer, by no later than midday on 15 December 2025, the outstanding government response to the report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services entitled Ethics and professional accountability: Structural challenges in the audit, assurance and consultancy industry.

Question agreed to.

At the request of Senator Bragg, I move:

That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Minister for Housing, by no later than 7 pm on Tuesday, 2 December 2025, the letter the Minister for Housing (Ms O'Neil) signed and dated to the Prime Minister informing him of Mr Ben Rimmer's appointment as observer of the Housing Australia Board.

Question agreed to.

This takes us to the hard marker at 12.15.

I appreciate the chamber being able to deal with these issues quickly and efficiently today. I know there are a number of people who have not been able to speak in the second reading debate. I encourage them to use this opportunity to put forward their views.

I want to ask the minister to put on the record a number of issues that I think will help with some of the questions that people have. Minister, I would like to understand what the government's commitment is to implementation of the remaining standards. We know there are two draft standards out for consultation. They will be inquired into by the ongoing Senate inquiry, the inquiry that we established in this place a month ago that does not report until the end of March. That inquiry will now turn its mind to these standards.

I'm hoping that you can give us a commitment to the time frame the government is prepared to follow in relation to the remaining standards that you have already identified, namely the First Nations consultation standard and the community consultation standard.

Thank you to the parliament for participating in this very important debate about major changes to our national environmental laws, which will deliver much stronger protections for the environment and much quicker decision-making processes for business. And thank you, in particular, to Senator Hanson-Young for the constructive negotiations that you've undertaken with me and with the government that have resulted in these big wins both for the environment and for the business community.

On your specific question regarding the national environmental standards, it's absolutely the government's intention to proceed as quickly as possible with the development of new national environmental standards. One of the key recommendations, in fact the centrepiece of recommendation, from the review of Professor Graeme Samuel, who I know is in the building today, is that we should create new national environmental standards that effectively set benchmarks for decision-makers, ministers, officials in departments and the future EPA when making decisions on whether to approve projects and whether to approve a range of other decisions under the act.

One of the important aspects of the bill that we're seeking to pass today is to grant the minister of the day the power to create national environmental standards, and they will operate as regulations, so subordinate legislation. Until we have this bill passed, no minister has the power to create national environmental standards. Those standards, being regulations, will need to go through the usual statutory consultation period of a minimum of 20 business days once they are published for consultation. We recognise there has been huge interest in the standards across the community, and that's why we have begun a consultation process around two of those standards, one regarding matters of national environmental significance and one regarding environmental offsets. As I say, if and when we pass this bill today—and I know that we will—we won't be able to create those standards for some time because a formal statutory consultation period will need to be undertaken. As I say, we thought it was a good-faith gesture to put online, on the department's website, those two draft standards, as they currently stand, to give people an early look at what those standards are likely to look like and provide their feedback, which we could take into account.

But, as I say, in the new year we will formally begin a consultation process on those two standards and, most likely, others. I think, Senator Hanson-Young, the two you specifically asked about were First Nations engagement and community consultation, both really important matters. We do, as a Labor government, want to make sure that First Nations communities are consulted at an early stage when it comes to the impacts of projects on matters of environmental significance to those communities. Further, next year, we'll be getting moving even more on a separate set of reforms to cultural heritage matters.

But, of course, what we're talking about here today is environmental protection. The purpose of that standard, in general, is to ensure the proponents of projects properly, and at an early stage, consult First Nations communities about the potential impacts of a project on environmental matters of concern to First Nations communities. Let's not get into scare campaigns about vetoes and all that ridiculous stuff that we normally see whenever we're talking about these kinds of matters. It's about consultation and engagement with First Nations people.

The other standard that Senator Hanson-Young asked about was community consultation. Again, we understand—and I think everyone in this chamber believes—that it is important for there to be a proper degree of consultation with local communities about projects before they go ahead. What we are doing in that standard is to set out the expectations that would need to be met regarding community consultation as part of a decision-making process. In terms of the timeframes for those, the drafting of the First Nations engagement standard is very well advanced, and we expect to have an early version of that, again, available for the public to see, if not by the end of this year, then very early in the new year.

The community consultation standard is not as far developed at this point in time as the matters of national environmental significance, offsets and First Nations engagement, but that will be an early priority as well. I would expect that, by about March or April next year, we should be in a position to create those first two standards that are already out for consultation, and, in the first few months of next year, we want to be making real progress on those two other standards—First Nations engagement and community consultation—in addition to other standards. We are working on a standard around data and environmental information, and there will be other matters, as well, that are the subject of standards that we will progressively roll out. I undertake to consult not just with the general community on the development of those standards but also, obviously, with all senators and political representatives. It's important to note that those standards will be disallowable instruments, as well. To be honest, it's probably in my interest to make sure that there's good consultation around the development of those standards so that the Senate doesn't believe that they need to be disallowed.

by leave—I move opposition amendments (1) to (5), (7), (9), (11), (12), (13), (14), (18) and (19) on sheet 3511 together:

(1) Schedule 1, item 85, page 17 (line 7), omit "or be likely to have".

(2) Schedule 1, item 104, page 26 (line 19), omit "or is likely to result".

(3) Schedule 1, item 114, page 34 (line 30), omit "or be likely to have".

(4) Schedule 1, item 117, page 40 (line 19), omit "or be likely to have".

(5) Schedule 1, item 121, page 46 (lines 21 and 22), omit "or be likely to have".

(7) Schedule 1, item 237, page 100 (lines 1 and 2), omit "or be likely to have".

(9) Schedule 1, item 241, page 103 (line 11), omit "or being likely to have".

(11) Schedule 1, item 247, page 106 (line 25), omit "or being likely to have".

(12) Schedule 1, item 283, page 128 (line 31), omit "or be likely to have".

(13) Schedule 1, item 283, page 129 (lines 5 and 6), omit "or being likely to have".

(14) Schedule 1, item 323, page 168 (line 32), omit ", or be likely to have,".

(18) Schedule 1, item 588, page 354 (lines 11 to 13), omit subsection 527H(1), substitute:

(1) A significant impact of an action seriously impairs something if, compared to the action not being taken, the impact results in an impairment or alteration of the thing that is of a severe nature and extent.

(19) Schedule 1, item 618, page 370 (line 35), omit ", either as a whole or in a particular region".

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.

Are you making a point of order, Senator Pocock?

I urge the Greens to allow time for questions in Committee of the Whole. That was a second reading speech.

The TEMPORARY CHAIR: There's no point of order.

The proponents of the legislation we are dealing with here seem to have a bet each way when it comes this legislation. They say it's terrible and it's bad and it's written by these awful people in Labor, but they're backing it; they're signing up to it. Have your cake and eat it too, Australian Greens! That's exactly what's going on here.

I will say that I understand that the amendments before the chair are identical to the government's amendments relating to unacceptable impact. Hopefully, the government will support these amendments when they're moved. I want to reflect more generally on the debate before—

No? We'll talk about it later, I'm sure, Minister. I have to commend the minister for being able to pull off this deal. It was masterful. I don't like it. I think it's terrible. I think it's dirty. I think it's dodgy. But you did a great job of getting this mob down here, the Australian Greens, to again name a price they were willing to pay. Of course it's the shutdown of the native forest industry. The workers out there are screaming into the phones now on radio stations across the country, and they're providing comments to journalists in print and the TV newsrooms. They are wondering how a Labor government that once used to stand for the worker has today said that they will sign the death warrant of the native forest logging industry.

The Prime Minister, ahead of the 2022 election, wrote a letter to Tasmanian forest workers committing that he would never do this. He reiterated that commitment in 2025, saying he would never do this. Guess what, he's gone and done it now. There's a bit of a concern now in Tasmania; I think there's a missing person report for the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Ms Collins, who's nowhere to be seen on this issue. Has she popped up to justify what the government have done? Has she popped up to defend this dirty, dodgy deal with the Greens?

The Greens are celebrating. I heard Senator McKim on the radio just before I went on, and I gave Senator McKim credit for consistency. The Greens have always been consistently against native forest logging. The only ones who've been inconsistent here are the government. They're the ones who've changed their position today by supporting this arrangement that the Greens put to them. I did commend Senator McKim and the rest of the Australian Greens for at least being consistently against this industry for its entire existence. They've never once changed their position, but the government now have.

As I said before, at the last two elections—in which promises were made around reduced power prices, and those promises were broken—promises were made to the native forest industry and its workers around their industry being protected, particularly in Tasmania, but they are going to see this unacceptable impact of shutdown. I would be interested to know what detail is out there on this $300 million—I think the government is calling it a growth fund, which I find rather odd, given you can't grow an industry that you're shutting down. The words are interesting, and it's kind of cute, but there are hardworking men and women out there who are now very, very concerned about their futures because of this deal done at the eleventh hour, as we prepare to rise for the year, by the Labor Party, who once used to stand proudly for the forest workers of this country but have now sold them out to the Australian Greens.

We heard Senator Faruqi before celebrating how the handbrake is going to be put on this industry and how there is now a spanner in the works. They were the senator's words, I believe. She nods in agreement. That is something the Greens are celebrating, so the government cannot get away from this fact. As I said earlier today, the Greens would not have signed up to this deal if it didn't mean we were going to kill that industry by a thousand cuts.

Save the forests!

'Save the forests,' says Senator Faruqi. I will take that interjection. What the Labor Party and the Greens have signed up to today is a deal to kill native forestry and, of course, take away all of the jobs that go with it. We can't escape that fact. It is just that simple. The Greens would not have signed on if it did not mean this industry would now be brought to its knees.

Ms White, the member for Lyons; Ms Collins, the member for Franklin in Tasmania; and my good friends in the Labor Senate team from Tasmania—we should go out on a road trip and talk to the forest workers of Tasmania who have been let down by this Labor government and have had their jobs suddenly pulled out from underneath them. These are people who have mortgages. They live in regional communities like those on the north-west coast of Tasmania. These are people who have kids in schools. These are people who are a part of communities, volunteer fire brigades and sporting clubs. And the Australian government have decided that they don't support these individuals anymore. They've cast them on the scrap heap. Their jobs are not important.

They do have a $300 million bailout package—buyout package, scale-down package, whatever it is—to try and ease the pain of shutting down this industry, to soften the blow of the news that today the Labor Party have sold you out. It is interesting, though. I do wonder how the Greens managed to be talked into providing a further $300 million to the native forest industry, an industry that just last Friday Senator Hanson-Young said—

Honourable senators interjecting—

Sorry, Chair. I can't hear myself.

Order! Senator Duniam, the call is yours.

Thank you, Chair. Now that the temperature has been taken down a couple of degrees, we might get back to the truth of the matter, and that is that the Australian Labor Party have teamed up with the Greens to kill forestry. Let's not forget, though, that this is the same party that was toying with the idea of—

Can you ask questions?

Yes. I'm about to ask a question, Senator David Pocock. I've got three minutes to ask my question. I will do that.

Let's not forget, though, that we had 700 pages of legislation thumped on the table. We had a Senate committee inquiry process out to the end of March. I'll try and find it in this pile of paper that's been put on my desk today by the government, who want these bills passed—I'm just going to quote Senator Sarah Hanson-Young again. She said in a Senate inquiry last week, 'The people know it stinks'—'it' is this legislation—'It absolutely stinks, and that's why it needs scrutiny.' Senator Hanson-Young also just said to the chamber, in asking her question before, that she appreciates the urgency with which this is now being attended to. I don't know what's happened in the last week. Something big, something seismic, has shifted here. Senator Hanson-Young, who is normally so strident in her opposition to terrible bills, has suddenly found a way to agree with the government on this arrangement.

It was, as I say, a deal to make it harder for resources projects to start. It will make it harder to get more gas into the grid, so we're going to have problems with supply when it comes to this critical resource of energy. It will make it harder to get housing developments up, despite any rhetoric we hear from the government on this. It's just going to be ridiculous. Of course, the crown jewel in their achievements of this week is to shut down the native forest industry and take away tens of thousands of jobs. And, of course, we won't be getting the beautiful timbers that adorn this chamber from Australia forests; we'll be ripping them out of the Congo Basin and we'll be displacing human populations and endangering even more species overseas. But, hey, if it's over the horizon, we don't care.

My question to the minister is: can the minister guarantee that not one job will be lost in the forest industry as a result of the arrangement that has been put in place here today with regard to the changes to the RFA?

Thank you, Senator Duniam, for that very long question. I also want to put on record my thanks to Senator Duniam in this chamber and shadow minister Angie Bell for their constructive approach through these negotiations.

The truth of the matter is that, over the last few months, and particularly over the last few weeks, I have had many, many, many meetings and phone discussions with a number of representatives from the coalition—not just one—as well as, of course, having many, many conversations with representatives of the Greens. That's what you do. When you're seeking to pass legislation, you speak to all sides to understand what the concerns are, what you're prepared to address and what you're not prepared to address. I do recognise the effort that Senator Duniam in particular has put in to seek a deal with the government. We were not able to reach that agreement because of differences of opinion about key matters. That is a key reason why we have now undertaken to pass these reforms with the support of the Greens Party.

I will make the point, as I have publicly this morning, that, of course, we have accommodated a number of amendments to be moved by the Greens in this chamber, but, in addition, we insisted on a number of amendments being made to this legislation to deal with legitimate concerns that have been raised by business groups over the course of the debate and in the Senate committee hearings in the last couple of weeks. That's why we feel so confident about saying that these reforms are a balanced package which deliver for both the environment and business.

I understand that earlier there was a statement or question from Senator Duniam about the definition of 'unacceptable impacts'. I'm advised that the government's amendment on this comes very close to the amendments being proposed by the opposition, but there are some differences. It's not entirely the same, Senator Duniam, but I understand there's a fair degree of alignment there. I couldn't tell you exactly which words, but we can get them to you.

I might also just call out a little bit of hypocrisy that we heard from Senator Duniam and his colleagues this morning about this. All of a sudden they're criticising the government for working with the Greens to pass these reforms urgently today. Senator Duniam well knows that the coalition had been absolutely willing to work with the government to pass these laws today had he been able to strike a deal. It's not Senator Duniam's fault that a deal was not possible, but he knows that the government was prepared to pass these reforms with the coalition and was in active discussions with the coalition about that well into yesterday and last night. So it's a little bit hypocritical of Senator Duniam, but I understand he's got a job to do to reclaim some ground for the coalition.

On forestry matters, I want to make one thing extremely clear, and that is that the government, through these changes, is not shutting down the native forestry industry. I'm a little bit disappointed to hear Senator Duniam, who I do respect—I mean, I know we're not allowed to accuse people of lying in this chamber, so I'll say that Senator Duniam has completely misrepresented and fabricated what the government is doing right now. We have been telling that to the industry, as we were speaking to them this morning. Members of the industry and workers in the industry, who we'd been working with through their union, were very concerned to hear, through the coalition, that we may have been seeking to do something through this legislation that we are not. You may have heard the Greens express disappointment that we have not agreed to shut down native forestry, so, unfortunately for Senator Duniam, the facts don't back up his arguments.

We are not shutting down native forestry. We are not shutting down plantation forestry. What we're doing today is requiring forestry that's conducted under regional forestry agreements in both Tasmania and New South Wales to meet the national environmental standards in the same way that every other industry is required to do and in the same way we are now requiring the agriculture industry to do when it comes to land clearing—the same rules, the same standards that apply to the mining industry, to renewable energy and to housing developments. What we are doing is delivering on the recommendations of Professor Graeme Samuel in his review, which was presented to Sussan Ley when she was the environment minister five years ago and which she and the coalition embraced at the time, where he recommended that, when it comes to regional forestry agreements, the national environmental standards should be applied in the same way they are to every other industry, and that's what we're doing through this legislation. Professor Samuel also recommended that regional forestry agreements be accredited under the new laws, and that's what we're doing. We are doing nothing more and nothing less than implementing the two recommendations that Professor Samuel made when it comes to regional forestry agreements in the review he presented to Sussan Ley, the former environment minister, who embraced his recommendations. So that's a little bit more hypocrisy there from the coalition.

What we are proposing is to make this change over an 18-month period and to work with the industry as that change around standards occurs. I will also note that there have been a number of representatives of the forestry sector who took part in the Senate inquiry and have made other public statements about this over many years who have said that forestry that occurs under regional forestry agreement meets very high environmental standards. So if that is the case, as the industry believe—and, being a former forestry minister and having worked with the industry in that capacity, I've got no reason to disbelieve the industry when they say that they meet very high environmental standards—they should have every confidence that they can meet the new National Environmental Standards that we are asking them to comply with, in the same way we are asking the mining sector, the renewable energy sector and the housing development sector to do that—and we are also, as a result of these changes, asking the agriculture sector to comply with the standards, at least in relation to some of their activities. That's what we are doing. We're not doing what the coalition, for their own cheap political gain, are accusing us of doing. We know the coalition have tried to wage a culture war in Tasmania over decades by misrepresenting policies and the future of that industry. What I'll say is that only a Labor government will stand by workers in the forestry sector and in every other sector to ensure that their jobs are secure and that the industries that they work in remain strong and grow into the future.

I should also make the point—because this is not widely understood by people who don't follow the debate around forestry closely—that members of the coalition like to talk only about native forestry and what the impact of these changes will be on native forestry. The changes we are making are to regional forestry agreements, which do include native forestry but also include plantation forestry. So there's nothing about singling out native forestry for special or unspecial treatment. The changes we are applying are to regional forestry agreements, under which native forestry and plantation forestry occur.

In addition, we have announced today a $300 million Forestry Growth Fund, which is all about supporting the industry to grow. It's in the name of the fund. This is not about closing things down; this is about opening them up and growing them. We know—and, if any of the coalition senators actually bothered to get out and look at the industry, speak to the workers and go to the mills in the way that I have and that all of our Tasmanian caucus have, they would know—that there are sawmills and other processing facilities in Tasmania and New South Wales, the RFA states, that need new investment to make sure that they can continue growing and employing people in those regional communities into the future. That's what we want to see happen, and that's why we've put $300 million on the table. I invite the Tasmanian government to join us in putting some investment into this industry rather than criticising what we've done. If they cared so much about that industry, they might want to put their hands in their own pockets to support those workers and those industries. But we put $300 million on the table today to invest, for instance, in retooling mills and installing new, modern equipment. I've seen such equipment in some Tasmanian processing facilities, and it has been funded by Labor governments, because we want this industry to keep moving up the value chain; to have more jobs, not fewer jobs; and to meet the environmental standards that the industry say that they already meet. The industry say that they need to maintain their social licence by demonstrating they meet good environmental standards, and this is another opportunity for them to do so. This is about more jobs, not fewer, and a bigger industry, not a smaller one.

Well, here we are. For decades now, Labor governments have entered into political stitch-up deals with their coalition partners, the Australian Greens. They've put political convenience ahead of working families and our sustainable forestry and farming industries. Here we are: another day, another decade in the Australian Senate and another stitch up—not for any technical reason required in the legislation or because anything needs to be done before the end of the year but simply for the political goals of the Albanese government. It's a tried and tested pattern of betrayal, turning cynical deal making into an art form and turning their backs upon families and workers who once supported them and their party. We are now watching this pattern repeat.

From the start, the Greens have been really clear about what they demanded and what they got. In their own press release, they were very clear. They boasted that they had secured the end of the regional forestry agreements. Those exemptions within 18 months have gone.

This exemption has been the cornerstone of regulatory certainty for the native forestry industry for nearly 30 years. Removing the RFA exemption is not a technical amendment; it is the structural dismantling of a system that has allowed a sustainable industry to operate with long-term planning and measurable environmental protections. The Greens describe ending the RFA exemption as a spanner in the works of the native forest logging industry. They celebrate it as winning extra tools to fight the forestry industry. So, for the minister to stand up and say there is nothing to see here by getting rid of the RFAs—I beg to differ, Minister; I think your coalition partners have a huge issue. They are celebrating this as the mechanism by which they can end native forest logging in this country. He talks a big game on New South Wales and Tasmania as the only states with RFAs. Do you know why? Because Victoria, my home state, doesn't have an RFA. This is what industry has actually said—I'm very happy to read it into the Hansard:

The loss of Victoria's RFA last year has had a terrible impact on local jobs and communities and undermined new plantation establishment.

In fact, my National Party colleague Darren Chester only just last week was down in Yarram, a small dairying and forestry community, where the local sawmill closed down and 70 people lost their jobs, because the Labor government in Victoria got rid of the regional forestry agreement.

So, Minister, these mechanisms have real impacts in the real world. They are required by the Greens for their ideological outcomes, but there are 70 families a month out of Christmas whose parents don't have a job. That's what's happening as a result of this. What the Australian Forest Products Association has also said is this:

Under the EPBC reforms, the removal of Regional Forest Agreements (RFA)—which have effectively served the nation and managed our forests sustainably for decades—will strangle the native forest industry in green tape and put at risk any future plantation investment. As the Federal Court confirmed last year, RFAs are an alternative mechanism by which the objects of the EPBC Act can be achieved.

So, Minister, empty words in this chamber are cold comfort to families who are losing their jobs in communities far away from Labor Party MPs and senators, in regional communities.

It's not just the forestry sector. The National Farmers' Federation calls this an outrage. They are bitterly disappointed by the agreement between the government and the Greens. They've warned that it will create new risks and new layers of complexity for people who manage more than half of Australia's landmass, the Australian agricultural sector. We all wanted to support genuine reform to what has been a complex and unworkable act, quite frankly. We all want a genuine reform. But we can't support this deal, because the detail is either unclear, untested or unworkable. The absence of detail around definitions and how the complexity contained within this legislation is going to work in the real world is shocking. The fact that this is now going to continue to be examined by a Senate inquiry just shows you what a farce of an operation is being run here. When the Senate actually looks under the bonnet, gets all the stakeholders together, gets their feedback and recommends changes based on that consultation, Minister, are we going to be back here in March or June next year moving amendments to yet another suite of government legislation because you got the drafting wrong again? The number of times this chamber has had to amend your own legislation over the last 3½ years is embarrassing.

So there are concerns about the continued use provision and its removal. It's a provision that has allowed for the routine management of regrowth for decades for Australian farmers, not for some dirty, big corporate farm. You're a former agriculture minister. These provisions have actually allowed for basic land stewardship, weed control, feral pest management and bushfire mitigation. Hello! Thank you, Labor! You're not able to do that at all.

One of the things that I would have liked to have seen in the reforms of the EPBC Act is the removal of the moratorium on nuclear energy. That's why I'm foreshadowing amendments on behalf of the opposition to remove the ban on nuclear, amending both the EPBC Act and the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act. Do you know what? We want to lower emissions, and we want to stay a rich economy. We want to be able to provide world-class jobs in advanced manufacturing. We want to be able to power the data centres required for artificial intelligence in coming decades, and we're not going to be able to do that with windmills and solar farms.

Why can't we, as an advanced economy with a backyard full of uranium, do what every other nation that is as rich and prosperous as us is doing and use nuclear energy as part of the mix of our energy system? Right now the renewables-only push has pushed energy prices up in excess of 37 per cent. That doesn't hurt just mum and dad when they get their power bill and it's gone through the roof; it hurts every bit of our economy—every doctor's surgery, every hospital, every data centre, every school, every factory. In a country like ours, we need to be able to make metal, in our big smelters and refineries. If we don't make it here at home it'll be coming in from China, and we know that is not about being a sovereign country, which the Prime Minister talks a lot about.

Energy security is important. If you care about the environment, you want to have low-emissions energy powering our economy, and the very best source of that is nuclear energy. So I will be moving this amendment to make that a reality, just like in other countries, or to at least remove the ban so we can start having a sensible, respectful conversation about how we're going to power our nation in decades and centuries to come. It is a shame that the Labor government has chosen to prioritise political expediency and punching out media releases at the end of a parliamentary sitting calendar year, rather than getting the results of this right.

I think it's a shame on the Australian Greens, but at least they're upfront about the fact that they're up for a deal. How the Labor party conducted itself and how the Labor party continues to treat this chamber—and to Senator Pocock's very sensible commentary, why couldn't we sit all through the night, like we did when we were in government and were putting through significant reforms in certain areas of our country? The Senate has to do its job, and then you still get the deal but we've actually held you to account.

I think we just saw a very good example of why the coalition was unable to strike a deal with the government on these reforms. What we're talking about here are major reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, Australia's main national environmental law, which is all about protecting the environment and putting in place a process for projects to seek environmental approvals. That's what we're talking about here, and that's what we've been seeking to talk about for months now, with both the coalition and the Greens.

I've said repeatedly that the biggest challenge the government has faced in reaching an agreement with the coalition is that they are completely distracted by their own internal leadership turmoil and their ideological preoccupations. There is no better example than what we just heard from Senator McKenzie, the Leader of the Nationals in the Senate, who spent half her speech talking about something completely unrelated to the legislation that we're talking about. Instead she spoke about her and the National Party's, and now the Liberal Party's, obsession with nuclear power. That's what the National Party and the Liberal Party have been wanting to talk about over the last few weeks while they've been trying to work out who sits in the big chair and how they keep Barnaby in the National Party.

Is it any wonder that the government have agreed to pass these reforms with the Greens, who we don't always agree with? There are things that the Greens wanted in this deal that we have said no to, but at least they could work out what they wanted—unlike the coalition, who were in absolute shambles through these negotiations. Even today, they're wanting to bang on about nuclear power and their other ideological preoccupations rather than what we're actually here to talk about. So thank you, Senator McKenzie, for demonstrating to the Australian people, who are watching this, exactly why doing a deal with the coalition was, frankly, impossible.

Again, there's this running theme of hypocrisy from the coalition speakers. We had Senator McKenzie getting in and doing the usual gripe of: 'We could have sat through the night to pass this legislation. Why are you ramming it through?' Only this week, Senator McKenzie was out there in the media saying she was pushing the opposition leader to push these reforms into 2026, but now she's so desperate to pass these reforms that she was prepared to stay here all night. I think the Australian people can see through what's going on here.

This is a coalition that don't know what they want, that can't focus on important reforms for the Australian people, that can only focus on themselves and their ideological preoccupations and that are therefore unable to work out what on earth they want to do when reforming environmental laws. I'm not going to look at anyone here, but there are a number of coalition members who agree exactly with what I'm saying and who are disappointed about their own team's effort over the last few months and their inability to reach an agreement with the government. There are a lot of members of the business community—traditional supporters of the Liberal Party, in particular, and of the National Party—who are aghast at the way the coalition have handled these negotiations and their inability to advocate for the interests of the business community.

What's happened with these reforms, as I said, is that it's the government who have requested that amendments be made to this bill to address some of the major concerns of the business community and who have insisted on inserting those amendments into this bill as part of an agreement with the Greens party. There are changes here in this bill around protecting the environment, and we're happy to support those. There are also changes here that are about giving business more certainty, which they were looking for, and there was no-one in the coalition who made that happen, because they were all deciding amongst themselves who was talking to who and what they would agree on. It was the government who made those amendments. Let's be very clear about that.

Finally, I want to pick up on the misrepresentations and falsehoods being peddled by the coalition, particularly around forestry. Senator McKenzie claimed that the reforms here are getting rid of regional forest agreements. That is completely untrue. I invite Senator McKenzie to actually read the legislation to see that that is completely untrue. Just like Senator Duniam's claims that these changes shut down native forestry, it is completely untrue, Senator McKenzie, that the reforms are getting rid of regional forest agreements. These changes, as I've said, implement the direct recommendations of Graeme Samuel to apply the national environmental standards to regional forest agreements, under which native forestry and plantation forestry occur in New South Wales and Tasmania, and they require the accreditation of those agreements. Exactly the same rules apply to the mining industry, the renewables industry, housing development and every other industry in this country. It is important that people get the facts about what is in this bill and what is not. So far, we haven't heard a lot of facts from the coalition.

I'd like to take the opportunity to table three supplementary explanatory memoranda relating to the government amendments to be moved to the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025.

Minister, I've got a bunch of questions. I know we don't have much time left, so I might put a few at a time, if that's alright. You mentioned the $300 million growth fund. Could you clarify for the Senate if that is exclusively to grow the plantation sector, or could it, in fact, be used in native forest logging? Secondly, I mentioned how the rulings power is envisaged to be used. Would the rulings power enable the minister to make a ruling that a particular action would meet a standard, even where factually speaking it clearly did not?

Senator Pocock, you kept your questions short, so I'll try to keep my answers short so that you have time for further questions. As I said earlier, the $300 million Forestry Growth Fund that the government announced today is all about supporting the future growth of that industry and supporting ongoing employment in the industry. While the information about the fund that's been published today gives an indication of its likely priorities, what we've also said in that information is that we will now be working in more detail with the industry, unions and state governments on the design of that fund. But we have not inserted a ban on funds being used for native forestry or for plantations. We have said that one example of what the funds could be used for is to expand plantations, just as we've indicated that the funds could be used to retool mills and to assist business buy and install new technology to allow for higher-value-adding products from forestry. That's the general detail about the fund, but clearly there's more work to do with all of those stakeholders around exactly what the funds can be used for, when it will be available and those kinds of things.

On rulings, this was a specific recommendation from Professor Samuel in his review. The idea there is that, just as the Australian tax office can give a ruling about its interpretation of a particular section of the tax act, this will enable the minister of the day to issue rulings to the public about how particular sections of this act will be interpreted. It would certainly not be envisaged that it would be used as a way for a minister to rule on a particular project and as to whether a particular project or particular action met a standard; it's more a matter of providing guidance. Again, frankly, that enables better protection of the environment and gives business a bit more certainty about how decisions will be made.

Thank you, Minister. I appreciate that explanation. I understand that there is more to do on the $300 million fund, but I'm just wondering if you could rule out using the funds to in any way extend the life of any native forest logging operations. I also have a couple of questions on offsets. I'm interested to know why the government is duplicating an offset system that we know was found to be deeply flawed in New South Wales. The Audit Office of New South Wales found that the scheme was poorly designed and has issues with integrity, transparency and sustainability, so I'm interested to know why, at a federal level, we're essentially duplicating a failed scheme. I'm also interested to know whether the government will require that restoration contributions meet all principles in the offset standard, including a requirement that they be like for like and delivered in a timely way.

Thank you, Senator Pocock. I acknowledge that you have raised previously with me some issues around the restoration fund and what we've seen occur in New South Wales. I'm not going to provide the assurance that you're seeking in relation to the forestry fund and how it might be used. We need to work through the detail about the design and use of those funds with all of those stakeholders in the way that I outlined.

In terms of environmental offsets in the restoration fund, this is an important reform that's part of this package. Again, it's something that was recommended by Professor Samuel in his review. Just very briefly, for those who aren't across it, people would be aware that when a project is seeking environmental approval, if that project is likely to have a significant impact on nationally protected environmental matters, then one of the changes that we're making in this legislation is to require by law, for the first time, a proponent to avoid and mitigate or minimise its environmental impacts before moving to offsets. What we've said is that those environmental offsets need to produce a net gain for the environment, so another positive outcome for the environment as a result of these reforms.

We have offered, through this legislation, an alternative way of delivering environmental offsets for proponents to what exists at the moment. One of the issues we have at the moment with environmental offsets is that the requirement on individual project proponents to find their own environmental offsets that are like for like—similar to what environmental impacts they are having—frankly doesn't always generate a very good environmental outcome. That's why we've taken the opportunity in these reforms to make some changes around environmental offsets. The purpose of setting up this fund, the restoration fund, is to give proponents an alternative to finding their own environmental offsets if they simply cannot do that, if they don't have the capacity as an organisation to do that, because that is a particular skill that not all organisations have. What we've said is that, for proponents, there will be the option to make a financial contribution to this restoration fund commensurate to what they would have needed to find in terms of their own environmental offsets.

One of the benefits of going down this path is that we believe—and certainly Professor Samuel believed—that this has the capacity to actually deliver a better environmental outcome than what we see with individual proponents finding their own individual offsets. If there were 10 different project proponents who all had to find their own little environmental offsets, put together, that might not actually produce much of an environmental outcome. If those 10 project proponents make a financial contribution to a fund that's managed by government, those funds can be pooled to, for example, purchase land and regenerate vegetation on land in a much bigger and more meaningful way than each of those proponents doing their own thing. I know you understand that, Senator Pocock, but I just thought I should explain the rationale.

In terms of New South Wales, I have seen the reports, news reports and audit reports, identifying issues with the New South Wales restoration fund scheme. We, of course, intend to learn the lessons of what's been done in other funds and design this fund in as robust a way as we possibly can.

To just quickly answer your other question, I think what you meant to say was, 'Why are we not requiring like-for-like offsets in the restoration fund?' That's really because what we're seeking to do is to develop those landscape-scale or across-a-region environmental benefits, rather than one on one. That may produce like-for-like outcomes, or it might not produce like-for-like outcomes, but I reckon it's going to produce a much better environmental outcome, and that's really what's behind the scheme.

This is an absolute betrayal of Western Australia. Even Labor premier Roger Cook has said that this is a poor piece of legislation that could have been better.

No, he didn't. He said exactly the opposite.

He said it could have been better, Minister. This is a betrayal of the Western Australian gas industry, particularly when we've got potential shortages on the horizon. Minister, of Labor premier Roger Cook's five red-line issues, how many have you addressed?

The TEMPORARY CHAIR: Minister, I heard your interjection.

I withdraw.

The TEMPORARY CHAIR: Thank you.

Again, we've had three speakers from the coalition who have completely fabricated this and are peddling falsehoods. Senator Brockman, and I don't remember his exact words, claimed that Premier Cook is opposing this legislation and has bagged this legislation. Let me tell you what Premier Cook has said about these laws today, and you might be interested in this Senator Brockman. He has said, 'The reason there is a deal with the Greens is because the Liberals are an incoherent fringe party who dealt themselves out of negotiations.' That's what Premier Cook said.

He also said: 'While we're still digesting the detail, these laws will be a major improvement on current laws. They are a win for WA industry and a win for the WA environment. The creation of a streamlined process will greatly benefit our mining industry. Industry advocates appear to have had a number of wins, including around the definition of unacceptable impacts. Murray and I have agreed that WA will be first cab off the rank for bilateral negotiations, and we hope to address any outstanding issues through that process.' So Senator Brockman, you should apologise to the Senate and to Premier Cook for completely misrepresenting his position.

In the other part of your question you asked how many of the five items that Premier Cook asked to be addressed have been addressed. The answer is all five. In fact, I explained that to Premier Cook when I spoke to him late last night. Premier Cook's five items that he raised are very similar to the Chamber of Minerals and Energy of WA.

First, he was seeking amendments to the 'unacceptable impact' definition. Done. It was a condition of us reaching an agreement with the Greens. Second, he asked that we keep streamlined pathways for all projects. Done. We have kept the streamlined pathway for preliminary documentation. Third, tighten the use of stop work orders or environment protection orders. Done. That's 14 days in length, with the option of an extension for another 14 days, with more evidence to be provided. Done. Fourth, tighten the net gain definition. Done. We have committed, in the standard around offsets, that we will provide greater clarity around the definition—in the same way we committed to the coalition, but they just couldn't get their act together to make an agreement. Bit of a shame. Fifth, climate disclosure must not be part of decision-making. Done. That is in the explanatory memorandum.

Five out of five is what Premier Cook got. Five out of five is what the Chamber of Minerals and Energy of WA got. And zero out of zero is what the federal coalition got because it is a complete rabble. You don't know who your negotiator is. You don't know what you want. You have profoundly let down business across the country, you have profoundly let down the environment and you have profoundly let down Australia, because all you care about is who gets to be the leader.

Minister, these bills are a betrayal of Queensland, a betrayal of Australia and a betrayal of democracy. As an aside, before I start my question, on the first list of speakers to this bill in the second reading debate, I was speaker No. 9. The other One Nation senators were further down the list. On the revised speakers list, I was third last, Senator Bell was second last and Senator Whitten was last. No chance at all of getting to speak! One Nation is the party the other parties fear. We are the real opposition.

Minister, another day another dodgy deal between the Labor Party and the Greens, which, as usual, sells out everyday Australians to advance the government's overarching agenda of virtue signalling and TikTok video production. From the moment the deal was done, this government has chosen to make a mockery of parliamentary process. What matters to the Labor Party is not the outcome. No, it's the so-called win. Yet all Australians lose.

The Greens are the spiritual bedfellows of the ALP in this regard. No sooner is the ink dry on this dirty, backroom deal than they immediately move the goalposts. The Greens now want one set of rules for Australia's natural environment and a whole new set for Australian Aboriginal environment. I thought all our land was unceded and belonged to Aboriginals. Surely, the Greens motion doesn't in fact acknowledge that Australia belongs to Australians, regardless of skin colour. Who knows! One could go mad thinking too much about Greens motions. Certainly, they don't do much thinking about them.

It will be left to a One Nation government to clean up the mess this bill will create, and we shall clean it up. One Nation will repeal this bill and replace it with protections to our natural environment based on sensible, honest stewardship—on outcomes and on data, not on feelings. Our second reading amendment set out some of our objections to the bill. Given time constraints, I'm not going to repeat these now, Minister.

Liberal senator Duniam has an amendment coming up which has a fair crack at fixing one of the major errors of this bill. This is an environment bill that does not define what the environment is! Senator Duniam's amendment sets out what areas, which most Australians would agree, are the actual environment—World Heritage areas, listed wetlands, the Great Barrier Reef and so on. One Nation will support that amendment.

One area of our environment which the government and the Greens misunderstand completely is forestry logging. The whole point about logging is that it provides timber for use in Australian home construction—the same homes the Labor-Greens government are promising to build, apparently without timber! Oh, and, yes, apparently they'll do that without steel frames either, because they want to stop coal.

The National Farmers' Federation has provided a question to the minister, which is as follows because they've said it very well:

As stewards of more than half of Australia's environment, farmers understand the importance of doing the right thing by the land—

it is in their own interests—

They've also historically borne the brunt of complex federal environmental laws, often at odds with state obligations.

That's why the NFF has supported genuine reform, but not this deal.

Our key concern is the announcement of 'closer controls' of 'high risk land clearing'. The specifics of this remain unclear—

what a surprise!—

and we are urgently calling for clarity.

The introduction of reduced regrowth thresholds to the long-established 'continuing use' provision will promote poor environmental outcomes and increase bushfire risk—

which, as an aside, will increase fire damage, hurting the natural environment and the human environment. The NFF quote goes on:

It will interfere with routine vegetation management of regrowth to prevent bushfires, keep land productive, and manage weeds.

The misunderstanding of agricultural practices is bitterly disappointing.

That's the end of the quote. Minister, why does this bill include measures which will 'increase bushfire risk' and place lives in danger; reduce the health of our forests; reduce food production—and, from that, increase food prices for all Australians—destroy the timber industry; destroy the communities that rely on timber; and damage the home construction industry, which will be left to bid in the international market for timber which is already in short supply and is from countries with lax environmental protections?

():  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.

It's okay to blow up the ridgelines!

Senator Canavan might not care about the Great Barrier Reef or the 60,000 jobs in Queensland that rely on the Great Barrier Reef and its tourism industry, but we do. That's why we're saying that, if farmers want to clear within 50 metres of rivers or creeks in the Great Barrier Reef catchment, because the Great Barrier Reef is a nationally protected matter, then they need to go through an EPBC assessment and approval and follow the same rules as every other industry. These changes for land clearing, in some circumstances, and forestry are about levelling the playing field and saying that agriculture and forestry activity should meet the same rules as the mining industry, the renewables industry, the housing industry and every other industry.

The time for debate has expired. The committee will report to the Senate.

Progress reported.

This Labor government is unserious about defence. Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz famously said:

The conqueror is always a lover of peace; he would prefer to take over our country unopposed.

He said that in 1832, but it is as true today as it was then. Prime Minister Albanese's current defence spending would deliver the conqueror his preference, and Australia would find it difficult to defend itself in the face of aggression. This is a dire proposition, because Australia faces an existential threat now—a real one. It is the threat of a regional conflict becoming global. If this is realised, it will be the worst human catastrophe on record. Our experts in defence and national security have warned of this escalating threat for 3½ years, and yet the Labor government has cut back defence in real terms. Indeed, the Chinese Communist Party came to the very heart of our democracy this week to remind the Prime Minister of the CCP's 2027 ambition to subjugate democratic Taiwan.

The Australian people need to better understand the gravity of the situation in our region and how this Labor government is negligent by not bringing honesty to the conversation. We need defence through strength, peace through deterrence and leaders making the hard decisions that will pay dividends by directly saving Australian lives, because spending now safes lives later. We need to avoid the unavoidable war. That starts with recognising the threat before us and funding our defence forces appropriately.

Today I want to pay tribute to the advocacy work of the mighty Transport Workers Union. The TWU have stood up to major multinationals like Uber Eats and Door Dash. They stared down their unscrupulous behaviour and won, which means food delivery drivers will finally have fair working conditions. They will receive a minimum hourly pay and have accident insurance for injuries sustained on the job. Australia should be immensely proud. This is a world first. We are officially the world leader in protecting contract and gig workers from abuse because our unions refused to accept exploitation dressed up as innovation, using apps to chew up and spit out Australian workers. Not on our watch! Australia will never accept billion-dollar corporations treating human beings as a disposable commodity.

These aren't small wins; they are life-changing outcomes. For years, delivery drivers earned as little as $22 an hour before paying for fuel. They had to wait outside restaurants unpaid, and if they were hit by a car on a rainy night, they were left to lie there on the road without any protection or compensation from their employer. Drivers bore all the risks while big tech companies reaped all the profits. That is disgraceful, and it had to end.

Thanks to the TWU, those workers will finally have a wage floor, real protections and the dignity they deserve. In a cost-of-living crisis, it is unions, not multinational CEOs, who ensure vulnerable workers can survive, support their families and live with security rather than insecurity. This outcome is a statement of who we are as a country. When workers are being exploited or abused in Australia, we will always fight for fairness here in the Australian Labor Party.

Ten years ago, almost to the day, I had the privilege of taking a group of young Greens on a journey into New South Wales native forests for three days of walking amongst giants, learning from forest defenders and understanding what's at stake. Many of those young people are still in the movement today, and they know what today means.

We now have a pathway to end native forest logging. While it was negotiated in this place and voted through only because we have 10 Greens senators, the conditions were achieved by decades of work by activists and ratbags. Greens champions like Bob Brown, Janet Rice and Sue Higginson have fought relentlessly in parliament. Groups like Circa, the North East Forest Alliance, National Parks Association, Manyana Matters and others have stood watch over our irreplaceable ecosystems. I particularly want to honour friends and comrades Harriett Swift, Joslyn van der Moolen, Carol and Joseph and so many others I've had the privilege of walking alongside in these forests, spotting greater gliders and bearing witness to the devastation of industrial logging. Nature, our forests and this beautiful planet are irreplaceable. It's that simple.

An environment bill without real action on climate change just doesn't cut it. The Australian Labor Party, like the coalition, is owned by the coal and gas lobby and willing to sacrifice the future of this planet for its donors. Real climate action won't come from Labor. It will happen despite them. Ultimately, power doesn't flow from parliaments owned by fossil fuel lobbyists. It comes from millions of ordinary people demanding more. We hear these voices and we hear the calls for action. That's why the Greens negotiated with Labor in this fossil fuelled chamber to fight for nature, and it's also why we're ultimately here—to replace them. We will always put survival of this planet over corporate profits.

At this last sitting of the year, I wish you, Acting Deputy President Ciccione, and all my colleagues a merry Christmas. To the topic at hand, the coalition firmly believes that Australia needs an energy policy that puts our nation first. Our priority is affordable and reliable energy for households and businesses while also reducing emissions. This is an achievable task, but it needs to be done in a responsible and practical way.

Under Labor, we've seen electricity prices soar by over 40 per cent, putting industries under strain and jobs at risk. While important, emissions reduction must never come at the expense of Australian families, their jobs or economic stability. Protecting our environment is, of course, also important, but right now we are facing an unprecedented and deeply concerning development. A United Nations' special rapporteur is seeking to intervene in an Australian legal case on the Woodside North West Shelf Project, a cornerstone project in my home state of Western Australia. It's important to our economy. It's one of the largest job-creating energy projects in the nation.

For over 40 years, this project has played a nationally significant role and delivered Australia's LNG industry and economic growth. Recent environmental approvals to extend its operations were hard fought for by my colleagues and me and would allow operations to continue until 2070. But that approval is under threat. If this intervention proceeds, it could set a very dangerous precedent. Inviting foreign oversight into domestic environmental decisions is undermining Australia's sovereignty. It risks undermining parliamentary sovereignty and jeopardises the stability of a project that supports thousands of WA workers.

Amazon is making bank built off the back of hardworking Aussies. Behind unbeatable low prices and next-day delivery are questionable work practices that keep people in economic precarity. Warehouse staff are employed as casuals or through labour hire, and delivery drivers are pushed into the gig economy. We know these workers are overwhelmingly young people and migrants. Amazon maximises its returns off the back of hardworking Aussies, who deserve their fair share.

What's the size of that pie? In 2024, Amazon Commercial Services earned an eye-watering $3.12 billion in Australia but paid just—wait for it—$24.9 million in tax. That's a mere 0.8 per cent. A nurse pays more tax than Amazon. We are all being taken for a ride, people! We are all being taken for a ride.

This is exactly why unions like the TWU and SDA are so important. Unions hold powerful corporations to account. They hold their feet to the fire. Unions commission research. They engage with leaders and their workers to help deliver better conditions, like stronger safeguards for gig workers, protected penalty rates for casual employees, payday super, banning wage secrecy, and multi-employer bargaining—all these measures that, with the help of our unions, this Albanese Labor government has delivered for Australian workers. There is no standing up to the corporate giants unless you stand together. Join your union.

Almost 100 years ago, one of the fathers of conservation, Aldo Leopold, said:

We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.

I think this whole EPBC debate has shown just how far we have to go in in this place when it comes to the way that we think and talk about and act towards the land that we live on, the land that sustains us. We've seen this whole debate being about the politics of it rather than actually turning our minds to the places and species that sustain us and that we love and rely on for our very survival. It's probably no surprise that we've ended with a mishmash of bills that may provide an improvement on the first EPBC Act but where it's really questionable how much they're going to turn things around.

So I urge my colleagues to think more about that. As farmer and conservation Doug Duren puts it, 'It's not ours, it's just our turn.' We have to start to think about this differently. We have to start to think longer term and make decisions that will let us hand this incredible continent to future generations, to young people, in better shape. That takes political leadership. That takes people who are actually thinking beyond the next election. I haven't seen that from the Albanese government when it comes to the environment and when it comes to nature. So I urge the government: think longer term. Let's change the way we talk about nature in this country. We are entirely reliant on it. It is in our self-interest as a species to act in a way that aligns with that.

Well, we have 12 federal Labor parliamentarians who represent South Australia in this place, and they have let our great state down. There's the BOM failure, the algal bloom, your ever-rising energy costs, new environmental legislation and the latest hit on inflation. In Port Pirie, locals were caught unawares this past weekend when hit by a tornado-like storm. The responsible minister in this place said, 'Don't look to the Albanese government.' Despite BOM's forecasting failure and the cost blowout from $4 million to $96 million for its website, somehow they think that is the fault of a previous federal government.

It is a similar story for the devastating and ongoing algal bloom crisis. The Senate inquiry concluded the actions of the state and Commonwealth Labor governments were too little and too late. The Premier and the federal minister were slow to appreciate the risk to marine life, to businesses and industries and to coastal communities and too slow to respond and roll out financial assistance, leading to devastating consequences for those most affected.

South Australians pay some of the highest costs for electricity in the country, yet this government is doubling down on its energy plans. It is the Albanese government's race to net zero that that will push your electricity bills up even further this summer. The coalition energy plan puts Australians first, prioritising affordability and a balanced energy mix while doing our fair share on reducing emissions. Labor continues to ignore the evidence. Inflation is up to 3.8 per cent, and South Australians are hit disproportionately hard because we are different to everywhere else. Energy is everything, just as energy is the economy, and this Labor government, including its members representing South Australia, is failing on all of it.

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating once said of the environment:

We depend on it for our resources.

And for the national wealth in which all of us share.

For our recreational pleasure and spiritual inspiration.

For our soil, air and water.

And he said that we rely on the environment for our survival. Very rarely are there issues that bring people together in the way that recognition that we needed environmental reform has, be it from stakeholders from industry and the environment or from MPs from all parts of this building. What we know is that Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act needs reform. It is more than 25 years old. It is not protecting the environment and it is putting unnecessary handbrakes on economic projects and resources projects across the country.

Thanks to the Albanese government and the work of Minister Murray Watt, Labor is delivering what we promised we would: genuine environmental reform. For the first time, the amended EPBC legislation will set national environmental standards to provide clear and strong guidelines, a national environment protection agency to ensure compliance, and tougher penalties for those people who breach our environmental laws. But it also takes us to a place where we will do our planning at a regional level so that we plan projects and environmental protection at a landscape scale, not project by project, which will allow holistic and more certain approvals to be given and projects approved or not approved more quickly. Bilateral agreements with the states will remove duplication of assessments and get approvals through quicker as well, as will streamlined pathways.

As the chair of the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, I would also like to note that these reforms have recently been before my committee. We've had three public hearings. We've heard from 78 witnesses and 42 organisations and received hundreds of submissions and thousands of letters. I thank all of those who have taken the time to make those submissions and give evidence before our inquiry.

Today the Greens negotiated significant wins to protect our forests and to stop Labor's fast-tracking of coal and gas. We stood up to end decades of exemptions for forest destruction and to remove the ability for coal and gas projects to use fast-tracked approvals or the national-interest loophole. We've pushed and pushed for powers to stop illegal land clearing and we have negotiated saving the water trigger and ensuring that the federal minister can step in to protect the environment. These are such important wins, which were only possible because the Greens are here in the parliament fighting for nature. That's why South Australians have put me here: to do everything I can for our planet and for future generations. The outcome today is far better than the train wreck we would have seen had there been a deal between the climate deniers on that side of the house and Labor.

Despite the significant wins for nature, our climate crisis needs more—so much more. Labor has repeatedly refused to support a climate trigger despite huge public support for it, preventing the environment minister from considering climate damage when approving projects. What a failure. What a travesty. Labor's refusal to take meaningful climate action shows the power that the coal and gas lobby still holds on both parties in this place. That's why, for the third year in a row, I'm delighted to be joining Rising Tide this weekend in Newcastle, to paddle out onto the beautiful Hunter River to protest our export of coal, along with hundreds of South Australians and Australians, including my kids, my family and my friends. Through our participation in Rising Tide, we are mounting a powerful protest against fossil fuels—against coal—and the damage they're doing to our planet, and for the transition that places like the Hunter Valley need for a safe planet for the future.

This government does not understand the value of science and is trashing Australia's international reputation as a result. The CSIRO is cutting another 350 jobs, following the more than 800 jobs that have been cut since Labor came to power. Between 130 and 150 of the roles that are slated to go in the latest cull come from the environment unit. This is Labor, the defender of the environment!

What is happening to the CSIRO is not an isolated incident. It is one of the many fronts on which this government is waging total war on the Australian scientific community. At ANSTO, world-leading instruments are being turned off and highly skilled professionals are being let go. There are huge reservations about the cuts in ANSTO's lower ranks, but they're too afraid to speak out. They're worried that, if they voice opposition to these cuts, they'll be sacked and have their sacking framed as part of the job cuts.

The Prime Minister talks about being a 'friend of science'. On the issue, as on many others, the government pretends to greatness but is just as bad as the Libs. In fact, they're worse. This government has sacked more scientists than Tony Abbott. If that's what a friend of science looks like, I'd hate to see what an acquaintance of science looks like, let alone an enemy! Wifi, polymer currency, Aerogard—we've led the world in the past. What is the aspiring scientist growing up in Australia today meant to make of all this? I'll be seeking more information at estimates next week because, when it comes to science, there are those who pay lip service to Australia's proud record of scientific discovery and those who work to defend it.

Migrant communities like mine understand the promise of Australia because we have lived it. My family, who arrived here from India, Burma and England with little more than determination, built lives, businesses and futures anchored in stability that this country once took for granted. My own maternal family could come here only because White Australia was abolished by the Holt government and finally dismantled under Whitlam and Fraser. That moment did not weaken Australia; it strengthened it. It opened the door to people who worked hard, played by the rules and made this country better.

That stability depends on an immigration system that is orderly, fair, transparent and centred on the national interest. The hard truth is that the current system is failing to meet that standard. It is too large, too chaotic and too vulnerable to exploitation by universities, labour hire operators and those who see migration not as a nation-building project but as a commercial product. When migration becomes a volume business rather than a values based program, pressure falls hardest on the communities who welcomed newcomers first: migrant suburbs where housing is already strained, schools are crowded and job competition is real. People who have journeyed across the world to make Australia home know better than most that citizenship is earned, not purchased. They understand the value of secure borders, clear expectations and a program that prioritises contribution, cohesion and capacity over raw numbers. They know that rapid, unmanaged growth risks social fragmentation, wage suppression and reduced trust between communities who should be standing together. This is the task before this parliament, and migrant communities expect us to get this right.

Today we have seen the betrayal of Australian workers. Labor and the Greens, in their coalition, have stitched up a dirty backroom deal and sacrificed our forestry industry because they want to ram through legislation with as little scrutiny as possible. We know this is what they're doing. We know it's about shutting down a lawful, sustainable industry to keep the Greens happy, because the Greens are boasting about in their press release and in the chamber. Timber workers, mill operators, truckies, contractors and whole timber communities have been treated as expendable. Forestry supports thousands of Australian jobs and provide the timber we need to build homes. It's a renewable, tightly regulated and essential industry to our housing supply, but Labor has decided those jobs, those communities and the timber they provide are collateral damage in their rush to do a deal with the Greens.

And it's not just the forestry industry that is in the firing line. This is not just about saving trees; it's about making it harder for Aussies who actually do the work in timber, in mining, in fishing, on farms, in factories and on building sites. If you wear steel caps or high-vis to work, this legislation is going to hit you. This deal will push up the cost of building materials, tighten housing supply and make it harder to open and expand projects that actually produce things. At the same time, Labor and the Greens are rolling out the red carpet foreign owned solar and wind companies to cover prime agricultural land with panels and wind turbines contaminated with asbestos. They're showing a blatant disregard to local communities.

So One Nation will not support this rushed legislation. We'll stand with the workers who keep this country going. We'll stand for real jobs, real industries and regional communities because Labor and the Greens will talk to each other and do their deals but won't speak for working Australians. One Nation will.

Have you ever wondered why primary schools need to host Bunnings sausage sizzles? It is because of government failure. 'But it's okay; our kids are used to being tossed aside and monetised by the time they reach primary school.' We have let the for-profit childcare sector turn our early learning into a money-making machine for domestic and foreign corporations. Then our kids roll up to underfunded primary schools while this government refuses to tax our coal and gas exports to pay for the things that we need. 'Sorry, teachers, there'll be no pay rise again this year. The government has already handed that money over to the likes of Woodside.' While teachers are doing $11.5 billion in unpaid work to keep schools functioning, most of them still pay more tax than big fossil fuel giants. It's outrageous.

If our kids make it through school without a gambling addiction due to this government's inability to regulate gambling advertising while taking donations from Sportsbet and Tabcorp, they might make it to uni, where government starts paying attention because they can make money off uni students. 'Hey, $50,000 bachelor degrees are completely reasonable, kids. Education isn't free—anymore.' But our uni students are doing an important and patriotic job for this Labor government: they're giving the government more money from their student debt payments than the government collects from the petroleum resource rent tax, which is great, because students can afford it and we wouldn't want to burden those innovative startups like BHP, Chevron and Santos, would we?

This government is selling out our kids for their big corporate buddies and political donors. Make no mistake about it. Our kids' early education should not be monetised. We shouldn't need to fundraise for our primary schools at our primary schools. Uni shouldn't be a debt sentence. We should ban corporate donations, make the big corporations and the billionaires pay their fair share, and make education free, accessible and high quality from early learning all the way through to university. (Time expired)

In September, the Prime Minister wrote to state health ministers, telling them that they needed to cut spending on public hospitals. Is he serious? States and territories are trying to get the government to keep their promise of extra hospital funding, but, instead, the PM is issuing ultimatums. Has the Prime Minister told the states which hospital departments he'd like to see cut back? Maybe emergency departments, maternity wards or intensive care. Labor and Liberal premiers across the country are urging the government to increase hospital funding to, in part, help people in need of aged and disability care. There are over 3,500 people stranded in hospital beds right now who aren't actually sick. They are just waiting on long-term care. There are 200,000 older Australians waiting on aged care, often for up to a year or more. Why? Because, rather than ensuring that every older Australian who needs help at home can get it, Labor and coalition governments have capped the number of aged-care packages.

If Nonna needs some help at home with the shower, to take her medication or to eat a proper meal, Labor says: 'Too bad. Get in the queue.' So what does she do? She ends up in the only place where she can ultimately get help, and that's in hospital. That's Labor's decision, not the states'. If the Prime Minister wants savings, he can start by ending the rationing of aged care. Give our older people the dignity that they deserve and support their need to stay at home. This is a wealthy country, and the Greens believe that means everyone should get access to the health care that they need. The Greens will continue to fight so that every older Australian gets timely access to care at the time that they need it.

Today is the third day of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence. This year, the UN Women's campaign focuses on digital safety, with a powerful message—#NoExcuse for online abuse. Women fleeing domestic violence are now often followed by digital violence. Artificial intelligence is now also being weaponised against women and girls, fuelling image based abuse through deepfakes. Research shows that 90 to 95 per cent of all online deepfakes are non-consensual, pornographic images and that nearly 90 per cent depict women. These acts are not just violations of privacy; they are violations of dignity. This culture of impunity must end. Deepfake technology takes this abuse further—with a photo and a click, anyone can be turned into a victim. Together, we must demand accountability for tech platforms. I am pleased that the eSafety Commissioner is demanding that tech companies shut down 'nudify' sites and that our government is protecting children through the social media ban.

My question's to the Minister representing the Treasurer, Senator Gallagher. Monthly inflation figures that came out yesterday show that inflation is again out of control and firmly above the Reserve Bank's target band, both in underlying terms and the headline rate. Penelope Smith, the Head of the International Department at the Reserve Bank, said in a speech yesterday:

Factors that could push neutral rates higher include growing fiscal deficits …

Is the Reserve Bank right or wrong?

Sorry, I didn't hear the quote you read out. There was just a bit of noise.

Can we be really quiet? Would you remind repeating the quote, Senator Sharma?

I was quoting Penelope Smith, the Head of the International Department at the Reserve Bank, who said in a speech yesterday:

Factors that could push neutral rates higher include growing fiscal deficits …

Minister, is the Reserve Bank right or wrong?

I appreciate that, Senator Sharma, in terms of repeating that part of the question. I think we've always accepted that the government has a role to play in partnership with the Reserve Bank to ensure that inflation is heading down from when we were elected and get it back into band. Part of that is getting the budget in better shape. That's why our two surpluses, getting the debt down, getting interest on debt down, reducing the deficits—we've seen the most substantial turnaround in the UCB in a positive way since we came to government on record.

I know those opposite want to ignore all of those facts. We know that you promised a surplus and then never delivered one. We have. We have halved the deficit, and we are doing the hard work in ensuring we're getting the budget in much better shape and, at the same time, assisting households and Australians with cost-of-living help. We've done that. At the same time, we've repaired the budget. We are conscious of the role we play in our decisions on our budget, but we are proud of the record of getting the budget in better shape and providing assistance to households during periods when inflation was higher than we would've liked for longer than we would've liked.

We know that the job is not done. We know that there is more to do, and this government will do it. We will take the same approach we took in our first term, which is to look for savings where we can and reprioritise across the budget. If we get upward revisions to revenue, we will use that to pay down debt and improve the interest burden on that debt. All of that matters, and that's why we've taken that approach when taking our decisions. But we didn't have the same approach that those opposite had at the election, which was to slash and burn and hurt everyday Australians with their cuts.

Senator Sharma, first supplementary?

Jonathan Kearns, the Chief Economist at Challenger and former RBA official, said yesterday:

Two factors mean the RBA is unlikely to be able to deliver 2.5 per cent inflation with the cash rate at that level: first, financing conditions remain easy; second, fiscal policy continues to provide some stimulus. The RBA needs to offset the stimulus from these two factors, and so a further cut is looking very unlikely …

Isn't it clear that your policies are contributing to interest rate rises?

I missed the end bit of that question, but I think I got the feeling of where you were going with that. The government has shown enormous fiscal discipline in the settings that we have in making sure that the decisions we take do not make the Reserve Bank's job harder. But we do not believe that the approach that those opposite took to the election—which was higher taxes and significant cuts on the budget, cuts to Medicare, cuts to pensions and a range of areas—

You can't just lie. That is a flat-out lie.

Senator Ruston, every time you criticise excessive spending, what you are talking about is the indexation of pensions. It's around Medicare.

Don't verbal me. Stop verballing me.

Well, those are the figures that you use, and you used them all through the election campaign when you cited the spending you were concerned about. That is what it related to. We hold you to account—

These are lies, Senator Gallagher. We know what you're like.

and we are conscious of the role that we play, including supporting Australians during periods of higher inflation.

Senator Henderson, withdraw.

I withdraw.

Senator Ruston, I believe you need to withdraw as well.

The correcting the record?

Senator Ruston.

To assist the chamber, of course I will withdraw, but I still think the minister should perhaps correct the record.

Thank you, Senator Ruston. Senator Sharma, second supplementary?

Minister, EY chief economist Cherelle Murphy said yesterday in response to the inflation figures:

If the re-acceleration in inflation is sustained over coming months … interest rate hikes are more likely than cuts in 2026.

Do you agree with this assessment?

I listen to a lot of economists, including many that are reported in the paper today, and, unsurprising to the chamber, there are different views. I will leave the commentary to others, and I leave the decisions the Reserve Bank makes to the Reserve Bank. That is their responsibility. They are independent of government. Our job is to get the budget in better shape, to pay down debt where we can, to return revenue to the budget and to ensure that services are being delivered in an efficient and effective way at the same time as delivering on our election commitments and making sure that we are supporting households. That is what we've done in the first three years, and we will continue that approach.

My question is to the most magnificent minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Wong.

Honourable senators interjecting—

Yes, I know. On this final Senate sitting day of 2025, it's an appropriate time to reflect on the year that was. At the election in May, the Albanese Labor government recommitted to delivering for Australians, to ensure that no-one is held back and no-one is left behind. Minister, how has the government been delivering its ambitious agenda?

Thank you, Senator Sterle, for that question. Senator Sterle knows the answer because it is something that he has done all of his political life and as a trade unionist. The answer, of course, is that what we have been doing is delivering for Australians. What better example than the announcement today as to the agreement to reform environmental laws, not only to protect our environment for future generations but to speed up decision-making for projects in national priority areas like housing, renewables and critical minerals? I want to pay tribute to Senator Watt for his tremendous work. President, this is what serious government looks like: recognising what Australia needs and delivering it.

We've made real economic progress, but we know that Australians are still feeling cost-of-living pressures. That is why this government continues to deliver responsible cost-of-living relief before the election in the form of tax cuts for every Australian taxpayer and more to come, delivering cheaper medicines, more bulk-billing and energy bill relief. We're cutting student debt, like we said we would. In fact, 1½ million Australians will have their student debt cut by 20 per cent today. We're making medicines even cheaper, capping the price of a PBS script at $25—for pensioners and concession card holders, $7.70—from 1 January. And, of course, we are further strengthening Medicare with the largest-ever investment since it was established, with more bulk-billing for more Australians, and opening more urgent care clinics across the country so more Australians can get free, quality care when they need it. Our No. 1 focus on this side of the chamber continues to be delivering cost-of-living relief for the Australian people. That is the focus of the Labor government.

Senator Sterle, first supplementary?

Thank you, Minister, and to you too, Minister 'Mega Watt'. A central focus of the Albanese Labor government has been to continue to deliver cost-of-living relief to Australians. What progress has the government made, and has there been support across the parliament for our cost-of-living measures?

Australians deserve a government that is focused on what makes a difference to their lives, like the cost of living, and that's what we have spent 2025 doing. That's what we have done. That's what we'd been focused on prior to the election, and we have continued to deliver since the election.

Meanwhile, those opposite have opposed almost every cost-of-living measure this government has put forward. The only thing they have managed to promise in these last 12 months is higher taxes.

Of course, they could not even negotiate on these important environmental reforms, because that would have required them to take time out from their favourite pastime of fighting amongst themselves. It wasn't even clear who would be their lead negotiator. We couldn't wait for months for another Liberal Party review so they could come up with a position with which some of them might agree. There is no coalition to negotiate with—a coalition in name only.

Senator Sterle, second supplementary?

The Albanese Labor government has spent this year delivering for Australians and providing the strong, stable leadership Australians expect and deserve. What progress is the government making to build Australia's future, and what threats stand in the way?

Thank you, Senator Sterle. We are building Australia's future. We are delivering cost-of-living relief. We are strengthening Medicare. We are building more homes. We are investing in reliable and affordable energy. And we are taking action on climate change. We are focused on delivering for all Australians.

But what we see opposite is actually not a serious opposition. You see, they no longer represent nor understand what most Australians want. They insist on chasing the political fringes, trying to outflank One Nation, Mr Joyce already having jumped ship. Of those left in the coalition, we see a bevy of leadership contenders. We see Ms Ley, Mr Hastie, Mr Taylor, Ms McIntosh—maybe even Mr Wilson. What we know is that they have no clear plan for Australians, and they are trying to drag their country to where their internal party arguments have taken them. We will focus on work—

Thank you, Minister Wong. Senator Chandler.

My question is to the Minister representing the Treasurer, Senator Gallagher. Minister, yesterday Minister Ayres couldn't tell the Senate how much your government's role in the pre-COP next year will cost Australians. Can you confirm how much it will cost Australian taxpayers?

I thank the senator for the question. I did listen very closely to Senator Ayres's excellent responses to questions that he received yesterday. We are disappointed not to be bringing the world to Adelaide, but we think the agreement reached was a sensible one and one that reflects the importance of bringing the world's leaders to the Pacific so that they can see firsthand what some of their Pacific island leaders and communities are so concerned about in their response to climate change.

Are you going to answer the question at all?

Thank you, Senator Ruston. I don't need your instruction about how to answer a question. The question was on COP, and I am answering. I am answering and I am relevant to COP.

Australia, in partnership with the Pacific, will set the agenda for and preside over a special pre-COP for leaders and others in the Pacific in 2026, which, as I said, will give the world an opportunity to see the Pacific climate impacts and solutions firsthand, and an important part of our advocacy around COP31 was our advocacy on—

Minister, please resume your seat. Senator Chandler?

President, the minister has been attempting to answer for more than a minute and she is going nowhere near the question. The point of order is on direct relevance. My question was: how much will the pre-COP cost Australian taxpayers?

Thank you, Senator Chandler. You also referred to questions asked of Minister Ayres yesterday, so I think the minister is being relevant, and I will continue to listen carefully to her responses.

I'm unsurprised that this is the new line of attack on climate from the opposition, that—

No, it's not. Just answer the question.

Well, we understand—

Well, pretend you are doing something else, Senator Ruston, if it helps you sleep at night. I'm sure you argued very strongly for net zero! 'Don't walk away'! We saw the result of that. We have never seen a quieter Senator Bragg than we have seen in the last sitting week. Apparently, he got everything he wanted! We feel for you. In relation to costs, they will be determined in the usual way, as you would expect, just as costs of climate through our disaster relief fund and all the resources we put into that are dealt with— (Time expired.)

Senator Chandler, first supplementary?

Minister, has Mr Bowen briefed you on what next year's pre COP will cost Australian taxpayers?

One thing about how this government works is that we work together and we talk all the time. We talk about what's in the nation's interests. We have meetings, we have structured processes, we have decision-making—unlike those opposite, who do all of their briefings on Sky News and who trip over each other, presumably, in the corridor in order to get their slot—

Minister, please resume your seat. Senator Chandler?

The point of order, once again, is direct relevance. That was a very short, tight question. All we need to know is whether Mr Bowen has briefed this minister.

Thank you. I will draw the minister to your question.

We're really proud of the role that Minister Bowen played in Brazil. We're very proud of the role that he has secured as President of Negotiations and of the advocacy he provided on behalf of Australia and the Pacific. We think it is in the world's interests to continue the discussions and to bring the world's attention to what's happening in the Pacific. It is unsurprising that those opposite, who made a joke about how water lapped at the sides of the some of these nations, would be taking the view that they currently are on this matter important to our Pacific friends.

Senator Chandler, second supplementary?

Australian taxpayers and businesses are suffering with skyrocketing power prices under this government's failing net zero plan. Minister, why is your government so focused on grandstanding at COP and the United Nations?

I did notice actually—I saw it reported somewhere—that the shadow treasurer admitted yesterday that there were costs associated with the energy transition and that there would be costs under the coalition's approach, although we don't fully understand what that might be. This government believes in climate change. We believe that it is real, that it is having an impact in the Pacific and that we should be part of the global discussions about how to manage and reduce the effects that climate change is having. We accept that you, over there, don't believe in it and don't think you should do anything about it. Do you know why we know that is a real feeling? We saw it on display in the 10 years you had to actually respond to some of the energy challenges in this country. When all those coal-fired power stations said they were going to close, what did you do? You turned your back and walked the other way; you did nothing. This government responds, and we deal with things in the national interest.

My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Minister Wong. The federal government and specifically your department, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, was made aware of serious evidence of corrupt payments made to senior Nauru officials, including the current and former presidents of Nauru by AUSTRAC. How on earth did your government then sign a $2½ billion secret deal with a government that you knew to be corrupt?

Thank you, Senator Shoebridge. First, I'd make the point that actually the MOU, I think, was negotiated by the Department of Home Affairs. What I would say is that we have zero tolerance for corruption, but unlike you, Senator, I will not comment on the contents or nature of classified AUSTRAC reporting.

Senator Shoebridge, first supplementary?

Zero tolerance, huh? Is it because you know the current Nauruan government is so corrupt that your government has sought to hide every detail of this $2½ billion deal from the Australian public—hiding the MOU, hiding even the speech the Nauruan President put on his Facebook page? Is your response to corruption, as we see again today, to hide it from the public?

As I said, you've addressed those questions to me, as foreign minister. I don't believe the MOU discussion is in the portfolio of the foreign minister.

Senator Shoebridge, second supplementary?

Well, Minister, that says it all, doesn't it. Reporting in the Sydney Morning Herald today found that your government has been indirectly funding the criminal bikie gang the Finks through dodgy contractors like MA Services, both in Nauru and even in the NACC here—guarding the NACC, apparently. Why hasn't your government and why haven't you taken action to stop these contracts, or is giving Australian public money to bikie gangs now Labor policy?

I refer to my very first answer. Australian expectations about—

Honourable senators interjecting—

Order! I'm sorry, Senator Wong; please resume your seat. There's a three-way conversation going on across chamber when the minister is answering the question. Minister Wong, please continue.

I refer you to my first answer, Senator, and I would also say to you that Australian government expectations about the use of Australian government funds are clear.

Senator Shoebridge?

The minister is not being relevant to my question here, which is about bikie gang payments, which were not covered by AUSTRAC but indeed by the SMH reporting. The minister knows that and is trying to avoid the question.

Senator Shoebridge, three times I called you! I'm answering a question. The minister is being relevant to the question. Minister, did you want to make a further contribution?

Yes, I did. I again would say Australian government expectations about the appropriate use of Australian government funding are something we apply across government.

Order! Senator Shoebridge, we have moved on.

The disrespect that is being shown by Senator Shoebridge to you, President, is disgraceful. He should withdraw that.

Senator Shoebridge, you've been invited by Minister Wong to withdraw those comments.

I withdraw them, President.

My question is to the Minister for Women and Minister for Finance, Senator Gallagher. Today's release of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency's gender equality scorecard is a timely reminder of why closing the gender pay gap matters for fairness and economic growth. Equal pay strengthens families, boost productivity and lifts living standards. What do the latest figures reveal about progress, and how are the Albanese Labor government's reforms helping to deliver better outcomes for women and the economy?

I thank Senator Mulholland for the question and for her ongoing interest in gender equality and the gender pay gap. The report today from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency's use of data shows that the gender pay gap continues to narrow, dropping to 21.1 per cent, down from 28.8 per cent. This report includes CEO and manager pay and captures total remuneration for workers in private sector firms with 100 or more employees. The median gender pay gap is down to 16.4 per cent, from 18.3 per cent, the biggest drop since median pay gaps have been reported.

This progress follows significant reform by our government to introduce gender pay gap reporting at the employer level, bringing transparency and accountability to the gender pay gap conversation. From next year, employers with 500 or more employees will need to set targets for gender equality in their workplace, driving faster change. There are some promising signs reported in this year's scorecard. More men are taking paid parental leave, with men representing 20 per cent of all employees who took primary carer parental leave, which is a great result. The scorecard also shows that 99 per cent of employers have a policy to prevent sexual harassment, following reforms by our government to implement the Respect@Work recommendations. Employers are also advancing gender equality by adopting flexible work arrangements, especially for managers continuing to review gender pay gaps.

There is still work to do. Progress to improve gender balance on governing boards is too slow, with nearly a quarter of all governing boards having no women on them at all. The scorecard also shows that discretionary payments such as performance bonuses, allowances and overtime are driving up the gender pay gap, with men on average earning 60 per cent more than women through such payments.

Senator Mulholland, first supplementary?

There's been some great progress achieved to date, and, just like narrowing the gender pay gap, the strength of our economy depends on secure jobs and fair wages. How are the latest job and wages figures reflecting the Albanese Labor government's broader economic plan, and what do they mean for sustaining growth and lifting living standards across the country?

I thank Senator Mulholland for that supplementary, and, as Senator Mulholland touched on, driving women's economic equality has been a key priority for our government. That means lifting wages and closing gaps where we see them, including in pay but also in super. We've done a lot of work, and I acknowledge Senator McAllister, who, when we first came to government, did a very significant piece of work around inequality when it comes to women's superannuation.

Labor's tax cuts also ensured that women taxpayers were 90 per cent better off under our arrangements, and of course we've reformed the low-income super tax offset to support lower-income women to save more for their retirement. We've introduced payday super to ensure that people get their super earlier, and that will assist in closing that gap as well. It has, of course, joined with our broader focus on driving wages and getting wages moving again.

Senator Mulholland, second supplementary?

This year we have already seen a strengthening economy with a narrowing of the gender pay gap, record employment and rising wages across the economy. How do these results position Australia for the year ahead, and why is it critical to maintain these gains for families and businesses, especially in the face of those who would take a different approach?

Thank you, Senator Mulholland, for that question. We are delivering more real, practical and ongoing help with the cost of living to all Australians, and much of that has been opposed by the coalition, including our pay rise for minimum- and award-wage workers, increasing the superannuation guarantee to 12 per cent, looking at paid parental leave, our boost to Medicare with our expanded bulk-billing, our cutting of student debt—and many students and former students will be getting those text messages that are rolling out now—and our opening of another 50 Medicare urgent care clinics.

This has all been part of how we're not only focusing on wages and women's economic equality but also ensuring that other things like services and structural changes, including for paying super on PPL, are being made to continue to show that we are trying to make things easier for people and reduce women's economic inequality at the same time.

I am informed that Senator Thorpe has given her question to Senator David Pocock.

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Communications, Senator Farrell. Minister, the parliament passed 355 bills in the last parliament, the 47th Parliament. There are a hundred bills in front of the current parliament. I think there are 16 bills in this afternoon's guillotine alone. None of those bills deals with banning gambling advertising, which was a recommendation over two years ago by the Murphy report. Minister, given we've had so much time for all these other things, I'm interested to know: when will the government actually get around to introducing legislation that bans all gambling ads over three years, in line with a recommendation from the Murphy report?

Minister Wong?

Senator, I may have misheard you, but I thought you directed that to Senator Gallagher. It is Senator Farrell.

Yes, I understood it as Senator Farrell.

Thank you, and I also understood it to be me. I thank Senator Pocock for his question on the issue of online gambling. I think it's important that we put into perspective the work that the Albanese government has done in the gambling space since we came to office in 2022. I think it's fair to say that this government has delivered the most significant online wagering harm reduction initiatives of the past decade, including launching BetStop and banning the use of credit cards for online wagering. The minister has had several meetings with the harm reduction advocates, broadcasters and sporting codes as the government seeks to make further minimisation of the harms associated with gambling. In other words, we are seeking to engage all of the stakeholders who have an interest in this issue in order to make further progress. So we've made progress and we're engaging with stakeholders to make further progress.

The Minister for Social Services and the Minister for Communication are determined to continue the work of previous ministers in this space. Both of the relevant ministers understand that there is more work to be done, Senator Pocock, and they have set about ensuring that that process continues and comes to a finalisation.

Senator Pocock, first supplementary?

Minister, gambling ads have so normalised gambling amongst young Australians. I had a father write in saying that his 16-year-old son had up a sports betting account and lost $20,000, and now he and his wife have to sleep on his son's floor because he is suicidal. I'm wondering why your laundry list of things you and other ministers read out have avoided this sort of harm given we know it's such a challenge in our communities.

Thank you, Senator Pocock. Obviously the circumstances that you've just outlined are tragic, and nobody would want that to happen in their family. I can only reiterate that progress has been made already in limiting gambling—online gamble in particular—by this government. I said in my previous answer that we are working with all the stakeholders to come up with a solution to this issue and provide fresh legislation to continue the good work that has already been done.

Senator Pocock, second supplementary?

Minister, we've seen online gambling increase over the last 12 months, which kind of flies in the face of what you're saying. I'm really interested. We have these awful harms happening in communities across the country. You have a landmark report that laid out how to treat this as a public health issue—with recommendations. Why is the government not implementing the Murphy report?

I thank Senator Pocock for his second supplementary question. Progress is being made. Can I just give you a few facts in this space? BetStop has officially reached over 50,000 registrations—in fact, the figure is 51,079—39 per cent of whom chose a lifetime ban. Of these, 32,610 are active exclusions. Around four in five people who have registered for self-exclusion—

Minister Farrell, please resume your seat. Senator Pocock?

On relevance: the Murphy report didn't recommend BetStop. I'm specifically asking about the recommendations of the Murphy report.

Yes, and the minister is being relevant. I will draw him to the Murphy report, but he is talking generally about what the government has done. Minister Farrell.

Around four in five people who have registering for self-exclusion have experienced a better overall quality of life.

Senator Pocock?

Sorry, President; maybe I will try again. On direct relevance: BetStop was not part of the Murphy report. I'm really interested in the Murphy report and when that will be implemented.

Thank you. I will continue to listen carefully and, if necessary, I will draw the minister to your question. Minister.

We have made progress in this space, Senator Pocock. We've banned the use of credit cards for online wagering. We've forced online wagering companies to send their customers monthly activity statements, outlining wins and losses. We've provided direct— (Time expired)

My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Wong. Reports today say the housing minister 'read the riot act to Housing Australia bureaucrats'. The HAFF scoreboard is not good. It has bought 889 homes, built none and, in some cases, is spending $1.3 million per dwelling—almost three times the average Australian cost to build one—all while Housing Australia faces accusations of severe governance dysfunction. Will the government admit that it has lost control of its housing agency?

The answer to the last part of that multifaceted question is no. I would also say that, as you know, Senator, this government is making it a priority to invest more in housing. I appreciate that has not been the position of the party of which you are a member, though you weren't a member of the relevant government. I would appreciate that you may not be aware of the history, but obviously we have a housing affordability challenge in this country. It is regrettable that over many years of coalition governments there was not federal government involvement in increasing supply. We are determined to change that.

That is just so untrue, Senator Wong!

You built 373 social and affordable houses in nine years, Senator Henderson. Why don't you stand up and defend 373 in nine years? I'm not going to let Senator Henderson disrupt your question, Senator Kovacic. The minister is very focused—

Do not say something you know is not true!

Senator Henderson, I've called your name at least four times! Minister Wong, please continue.

The minister is very focused on making sure that we deliver our $43 billion housing plan as effectively and efficiently as possible. That is a good thing. It is a good thing for the country, for the economy and for people seeking to own their own home.

Senator Kovacic, first supplementary?

Why does the Albanese government continue to disobey Senate orders to make the $24,000 report into the governance dysfunction at Housing Australia public? What is the government trying to hide?

I'm not sure which of the many, many Senator Andrew Bragg OPDs you were referring to, but I can say that we have received multiple OPDs from Senator Bragg. I can say that, frankly, I don't think he is utilising that mechanism of the Senate with any seriousness. When governments get requests that are due that day, I think he knows—

Disastrous economic policy!

Senator Henderson, I am trying to answer the question.

I have a point of order on relevance. The question was: when will the government comply with the order?

The minister is being directly relevant to the question. Minister Wong, please continue.

I think I am being directly relevant. I do respect this institution, and I have used OPDs in opposition, too, but what we see from the opposition, and particularly Senator Bragg, is not a serious use of the Senate's powers.

Why are you covering it up?

You give us a day or less to provide— (Time expired)

Senator Kovacic, second supplementary?

The Albanese Labor government is spending $60 billion to build fewer homes than the previous coalition government. Will the Albanese Labor government apologise—

Senator Kovacic, please resume your seat. Minister Wong?

I would really appreciate it if you could start that again. Your colleague Senator Bragg was obviously very keen to talk about himself, but I'd quite like to hear your question.

Senator Kovacic, if you would start your question again, we'll start the clock again. Thank you.

The Albanese Labor government is spending $60 billion to build fewer homes than the previous coalition government. Will the Albanese Labor government apologise to Australians for making the housing crisis worse than ever?

Senator, you know that that statistic isn't true. The reality is you're comparing all houses built, including private construction, with what the government is contributing to. The people who wrote that question don't want to compare what your government supported with what ours supports, because the coalition government wasn't interested in supporting more housing. Let's be clear. What we have been very clear about is that we are delivering homes, building more homes and making it easier for first home buyers. We are cutting red tape, we are making it easier for builders to get on with the job, we are delivering social and affordable homes and we are delivering homes for first—

Are you? You're talking about it.

Senator Ruston, even though they are quiet interjections, I can still hear them and so can the minister.

We know that those opposite had a decade in office and they built 373 social and affordable homes. We have over 5,000 that have been completed under Commonwealth programs. (Time expired)

My question is to the Minister representing the Treasurer, Minister Gallagher. Minister, at the last sitting week, I put it to you that Labor was putting young people at risk of mortgage stress with the five per cent deposit scheme, given all the economic indicators pointing to a rate hike. The economists agree with me after the latest disastrous inflation numbers driven by housing. Now they're saying there will be up to two rate rises in 2026, just in time for Labor to start cutting jobs. Will Labor now accept that they have put people, especially young people, at risk of mortgage stress with their housing Ponzi scheme?

I thank the senator for the question. The government are very proud of the housing policies that we've put in place to deal with the challenges on housing supply because of, again, what we inherited from those opposite after a decade of ignoring housing, having nothing to do and nothing to say, and allowing housing affordability to be ignored—

Opposition senators interjecting—

You're building fewer houses. Your scoreboard's terrible. It's horrendous.

Senator Bragg! I don't think I need to have to call a whole list—

Okay, I'll go back to—

You're not in a debate with me. There have been a number of interjections across the chamber from the left. You need to listen respectfully and quietly.

I'm sure the senator has read the Treasury modelling and the Treasury evidence around the five per cent deposits. We don't apologise for looking at every single—

Opposition senators interjecting —

I remind the chamber that this is a question from Senator Whitten. The interjections from the opposition are disorderly and rude to Senator Whitten. He has the right to have his answer heard in silence.

Probably relevant for this discussion as well is the fact that construction cost inflation has fallen under this government. From a high under the coalition, when it was running annually at 17 per cent, it has now fallen to 2.1 per cent under Labor. There are more first home buyers under Labor. We've directly helped 197,000 Australians into homeownership sooner. That's three times more than the former government. Housing approvals are up 15 per cent compared to a year ago, with townhouses and apartments up 55 per cent compared to a year ago. New home starts are up, new dwelling commencements were up 9.2 per cent in the March quarter and, overall, over 520,000 new homes have been built under the Labor government. This includes more than 5,000 social and affordable homes delivered with federal government investment compared to—how many?—373 over a decade by those opposite, because they didn't care about social and affordable housing. That is the progress we are making. We will use every lever available to us to ensure that everyone has access to secure and sustainable housing. (Time expired)

Senator Whitten, first supplementary?

We all remember the GFC. We all remember the destruction that was brought down on the world economy by subprime lending. Now APRA have had to step in. For the first time, they have had to introduce debt-to-income limits on lending to slow down the issuing of high-risk debt that is being pumped by Labor. Does Labor accept that APRA's actions are a result of Labor pushing high-risk subprime lending on Australia's most vulnerable borrowers?

We support the responsible lending obligations and have been part of arguing—including post the period of time that you talk about, the global financial crisis—to make sure that those obligations for lenders are in place. We have a strong, well-run banking system in this country. The banks and the lenders take their obligations seriously around ensuring responsible lending, and that's an important part of the regulators' responsibility. Our job is to make sure that we're doing what we need to do under the policy arrangements that we have on our housing agenda and to make sure that all those arrangements are in order. We believe they are, and I commend the housing minister, Minister O'Neil, for her work and for all the effort and energy that she brings to this portfolio, which, as we said, had been ignored for almost 10 years under those opposite.

Senator Whitten, second supplementary?

APRA has had to put the brakes on Labor's subprime lending scheme.

Honourable senators interjecting—

I'm sorry. Order across the chamber! Senator Whitten, could you start again. I'll ask that the clock be set again.

Order! Minister Wong, I have asked the senator to start his question again.

APRA has had to put the brakes on Labor's subprime lending scheme. Inflation is rocketing. Economists are seeing rate rises in the future. Labor has been lured into a hyperinflated housing market, taking out mega mortgages based on Labor's false promises and outlandish predictions. Has Labor modelled the default rates on the five per cent loan scheme in the event of two rate rises in 2026, and how much will this cost the Australian people?

Government senators interjecting—

Order on my right!

Minister Wong, I have Senator Gallagher on her feet.

I reject the assertions that have been put in the question. I make that clear. In relation to whether we work with the banks and understand what's happening in the housing market, yes, we do. If you look at some of the comments that the bank CEOs made to the House standing committee just a week ago, you'll see that they've made comments in this regard, including, from the Westpac CEO, 'I don't think the first home buyers scheme is the driver of housing prices,' and, from the CEO of CBA, 'I know Treasury did some'—

It helps them with market share. How naive are you? It helps the big banks.

Minister Wong?

President, if Senator Bragg can't contain himself, perhaps he should leave.

I quite agree, Senator Wong. I have called you to order. Senator Bragg. You've apologised. You've kept interjecting.

You are answering me back now. We're not in a debate. If you can't---

Senator Colbeck! Senator Bragg, if you can't listen in silence, you can leave the chamber. Minister Gallagher, do you wish to continue?

Indeed. I should remind the chamber that lending rules and serviceability requirements remain the same under this scheme. Five per cent deposits help first home buyers get a home sooner and save tens of thousands in mortgage insurance. They do not increase how much a person can borrow. So I reject the question that was put.

My question is to the Minister for Early Childhood Education, Senator Walsh. Highly skilled educators are the backbone of our early learning system, and we know that their hard work delivers benefits for children that last well into their school years and beyond. But for too long these educators have been underpaid, undervalued and overlooked. Can the minister outline what the Albanese Labor government is doing to overcome this and ensure we retain hardworking, highly trained and experienced educators?

I thank Senator Grogan for her question. I know that everyone on this side of the chamber, including Senator Grogan, values our nation's hardworking early childhood educators. Next Monday is a historic day for our nation's dedicated professional early educators because this is when the second part of our 15 per cent pay rise rolls out. It means an extra $160 a week in their pay packets. When combined with our support for minimum wage rises, that's an extra $200 a week all up. This is a game changer for this workforce.

I can say that I am proud to have represented early educators through their union before I entered parliament. I'm proud to have stood with them as they advocated for the respect and recognition that they deserved under 10 long years of Liberal governments who never listened and never acted. I am proud to be part of an Albanese Labor government that has listened, that has acted and that is delivering this much-deserved 15 per cent pay rise.

This is a predominantly female workforce who for too long were asked to accept low wages for the love of caring for children. For too long, our dedicated early educators were underpaid and were undervalued by those opposite, and we are changing that because we know that love doesn't pay the bills. We know that traditionally female dominated work, like education and care, is highly skilled work. We know it deserves to be valued—valued in the community, valued by government and valued through the pay packets of our educators. (Time expired)

Senator Grogan, first supplementary?

Minister, that's great to hear about that five per cent pay rise next week. I think this side of the chamber are all very excited about that. You've also spoken about the importance of the pay rise for early educators who are already feeling that relief in terms of the cost of living. Can you please outline for us how the pay rise is stabilising the sector, and what impact that's having on children and on their families?

Thank you, Senator Grogan. When the Albanese Labor government first came to office, we inherited a sector which educators were leaving in droves. That was because of a decade of coalition neglect, a decade of talking down this workforce and a decade of low wages by deliberate design. We inherited high vacancy rates, high burnout rates and widespread casualisation. But, since educators received the first 10 per cent of their pay rise in December last year, we have seen this turn around. The number of educators is up. Vacancy rates are down. Educators are able to stay in the jobs that they love. And, when educators can stay in their jobs, it means more stability for children, more stability for families and more stability for the sector that they rely on. (Time expired)

Senator Grogan, second supplementary?

Thank you, Minister. That's excellent news. We know that a quality, respected workforce is the foundation of a quality early education system, and the Albanese Labor government is delivering for these workers, as you've pointed out, with a well-deserved 15 per cent pay rise. Could you take us through why the government has taken this approach to the early childhood workforce?

Thank you, Senator. We are delivering that pay rise, and we have had to take this approach because, unfortunately, not everyone has always backed this vital workforce. When we announced our historic 15 per cent pay rise, those opposite dismissed it as 'a sugar hit'. Senator Canavan even called it a handout. On this side of the chamber we know that our early childhood educators earnt this pay rise. Families know that educators earnt this pay rise. But those opposite don't believe that early childhood educators deserve a cent more. Those opposite left educators stranded, and they left services stranded. That is their legacy, on that side of the chamber. Educators tell me that they finally feel valued.

You can jeer all you like, Senator Canavan and your colleagues—

Minister, direct your comments through the chair.

but educators know who backs them. (Time expired)

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Senator Ayres. Minister, new data released today shows that Australia is barely reducing its carbon emissions. They have slightly fallen to 437.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions for the 12 months to June 2025. When the government came to power over three years ago, annual emissions were 440.5 million tonnes. So in three years the government has achieved an annual emissions run rate of just one million tonnes per year. During the last coalition government, emissions reduced at a rate of 13 million tonnes per year. Minister, why was the last Liberal-National government able to cut emissions at a rate 13 times your rate, despite your promise to get the net zero by 2050?

It's a tough day for our colleagues in the National Party. I know that our opponents hope for and pray for a little bit of bad performance, because nothing fills their hearts full of joy more than a bad outcome. But this is an unambiguously good outcome. It is true—it's a bit like the opposition's approach to covert accounting in a range of other areas—that during the COVID period emissions in areas like transport declined. That is true. But what has happened here is an unambiguously good outcome where the equivalent of our whole aviation sector, in emissions terms, has reduced.

No, that's not it, mate. That's not it.

Senator Canavan, you've asked your question.

I don't want to trigger anybody over there, but it is an uptick in emissions performance. And that is a good thing. But I know that this question really is framed by the politics of negativity and the old fogey politics of hating on the science of climate change, hating on emissions reduction and really being absolutely focused on trying to talk national endeavour in these areas down. By all means, continue on that path.

Senator Canavan, first supplementary?

To get to the government's target of 62 per cent emissions reduction by 2035, Australia must cut its emissions at an annual rate of 21 million tonnes per year for the next 10 years. Given the government's only been cutting emissions at a rate of one million tonnes per year, how is a 62 per cent target realistic or affordable for Australians?

In the year to June 2025, Australia's total emissions decreased by 10 megatonnes, or 2.2 per cent.

What's a megatonne?

What is a megatonne?

Our annual emissions are now 29 per cent below 2005 levels. We've seen decreased electricity emissions, reflecting record renewables generation. What we are seeing is—

Megatonne Timmy!

Senator Canavan and Senator McDonald, come to order!

You can't get your numbers—

Senator Canavan!

We've seen decreased emissions in agriculture, decreased emissions from industrial processes, decreased emissions in stationary energy and decreased fugitive emissions. These reflect the efforts not just of the Commonwealth government but of industry to work hard to achieve these outcomes in the national interest.

Senator Canavan, second supplementary?

Minister, to get to net zero by 2050, Australia's required run rate for emissions reduction is 18 million tonnes per year, but the government has been going at a run rate of just one million tonnes per year. At that rate, we'll hit net zero in the year 2462. Minister, isn't it time to declare your innings on your failing net zero batting efforts, given that even Travis Head couldn't lift a run rate this low? Let's face it: Chris Bowen ain't no Travis Head.

I don't want to overdo the cricket analogy, but it's sort of like Jonny Bairstow wandering out the front of his crease—you know, wandering around. What's happened? Barnaby's gone! Like the National Party, he's gone so far right he's stumped!

Honourable senators interjecting—

Order! Senator Henderson.

A point of—

She's setting the pace!

Order on my right! Minister Watt! Senator Henderson.

Minister Watt, stop making faces at me, would you?

Senator Henderson! Resume your seat.

Government senators interjecting—

Order on my right! Minister Watt! Senator Henderson.

On a point of order, President, Senator Watt just made a very inappropriate comment which was unparliamentary. Could you please ask him to withdraw that.

Senator Henderson, I did not hear any inappropriate comments, but I know that Minister Watt, if he thinks he did make an inappropriate comment, would withdraw that.

I've been misrepresented before, so what I said is that Senator Henderson is setting the pace for the coalition, and I withdraw.

Thank you. Senator Henderson.

President, I ask that, when withdrawals are being made, they be made unconditionally, without commentary. I ask that you bring the minister to order.

Senator Henderson, I invited the minister, if he made an unparliamentary comment, to withdraw it. He repeated, I think, the comment. I don't know, because I said to you—

No, he said something else.

You're not in a debate with me—

You are not in a debate with me, Senator Henderson! I will refuse to hear you any further if you keep speaking at me. You've made your point of order. I said at the outset of the point of order I didn't hear anything unparliamentary. I think my record on pulling people up on unparliamentary behaviour speaks for itself. I invited the minister, if he made a comment, to withdraw it. He made a comment which was not unparliamentary. Let's move on. I'm going to invite Senator Ayres to continue his response. I remind him that he needs to address the chair.

Well, I have to confess I have, over the last couple of minutes, lost the thread of whatever the cricket question was over there, President. I'll just say we have got a job to do. We have set targets. Australians have elected this government to deliver lower emissions, to build an electricity system that is modern and fit for purpose, and to get Australian industry up and off the mat. After a decade of disinvestment, of forcing business offshore, this is a government that's for manufacturing and for a modern electricity system.

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.

I move:

That further time be allotted for the remaining stages of the bills listed in the motion agreed to earlier today, as follows:

Commencing from 3.30 pm until 5.00 pm.

I also move:

That the question be now put.

The question is that the motion to close the debate as moved by Senator Wong be agreed to.

The question now is that the motion as moved by Senator Wong be agreed to.

Question agreed to.

I seek leave to move a motion relating to the motion.

Leave note granted.

In the name of the Leader of the Opposition, I move:

That the Senate suspend so much of standing orders as would prevent me from moving such a motion to enable me to amend this motion.

The reason I do that is because this motion has been amended from the 3.30 pm timeframe that put on it because, quite clearly, everybody in this place decided they wanted to go home tonight but then realised that they hadn't left themselves enough time to finish the dirty deal they did with those down the end of the chamber, so they needed more time to get their paperwork in order. We're not going to stand in the way of more scrutiny of this bill, which is the reason we supported the motion put forward by Senator Wong to extend the time. But why can't we extend that time now until 7.30 pm and at least give us some chance for some level of proper scrutiny of this particular bill? We already know, from all of the committees, that absolutely no scrutiny has been able to be done on this bill. So much subordinated legislation has had no scrutiny. At least give us the opportunity of another 2½ hours over and above what the chamber has already agreed to—or do we still all want to get on the plane to go home tonight?

This bill is not being determined by this chamber. Quite frankly, this bill has been determined in the Prime Minister's office. They come in here and completely and utterly disregard this chamber so that we can end up with a deal that's been done in the Prime Minister's office overnight. Who knows what's been promised to the people at the other end of the chamber in other words for this bill to pass. We are not going to stand in the way of scrutiny, but I tell you what: we're also not going to allow the government and the Greens to get away with the fact that they did a dirty deal in the middle of the night and they didn't cross their t's and dot their i's. We find ourselves in here, right now, having to have a motion moved for more time just so you can get your paperwork in order. I think the Australian public deserve better on a bill of such significance. You actually might have got your act into gear. Who knows what else is being mucked up in this bill? We won't know, because we're not allowed to scrutinise it.

So here we are on Thursday afternoon in the last sitting week of the year. We've had a dirty deal done in the middle of the night. They've messed up their paperwork. They've failed to attend to the detail. They haven't done their administration, so they come in here and give us a little more time. Well, don't come in here and pretend you're giving us more time for scrutiny. You're not. You're just fixing up a mistake of your own making. If you're really genuine about applying a level of scrutiny and giving us more time, give us until 7.30 pm. I would ask the Greens, at the other end of the chamber: if you really are genuine about this—I've heard Senator Hanson-Young talk very strongly about the importance of the bill—what's wrong with a little bit more scrutiny?

Maybe we could stay here until 7.30 tonight. No-one's catching a plane home anyway, so why don't we actually do our job that the people of Australia elected us to do: come in here, scrutinise legislation and make sure we get to ask the questions of the government, who have been secretive throughout the entire process of these bills? We've got legislation that is so big, you'd be lucky to high jump over it. Yet we've had no time for scrutiny. This government's track record on scrutiny is obviously something to behold. Never before has there been a government that has lacked scrutiny the same way that this government does. We will not have the Australian public believe that the government has come in here and allowed more time when, quite frankly, it is nothing more than fixing up their own mistake.

I would ask the government: if you really are genuine about this—no-one's going home tonight anyway—why don't we all accept our responsibility as elected members of the Australian parliament and allow some additional scrutiny? When I watched the interrogation of Minister Watt during committee before we came in for question time, Minister Watt was filibustering his own bill to stop us asking questions. If Minister Watt were prepared not only to answer the questions but to not sit there and lecture everybody with a filibuster, maybe we could get some more answers about some of the things that are in this bill, some answers about what's intended and some answers about what the consequences are of this bill instead of him hiding behind the fact that he completely disregards this place.

The deal was done in the Prime Minister's office. This chamber has not decided the outcome of this really important suite of legislation; the Prime Minister in his office has. And I think it is incumbent on this government to allow more scrutiny and to not just hide behind the fact that you made a great big mess and now you're trying to fix it.

I welcome this motion. Clearly, these are big changes that need scrutiny, and we're currently having amendments legislated as we speak and hurtle towards the guillotine. I have questions on offsets, how that system is going to work and why we're replicating a system that has failed in New South Wales and has been called out by the auditor there. I've got questions about the ruling powers and the proposed national interest pathway—'the NACC trap' as it's been described by a member in the other place. I have questions about net gain. I have questions about devolution of powers and questions about standards that we haven't seen yet, so I would welcome more scrutiny of these enormous changes.

I welcome some of the amendments that are currently being circulated, but, again, I would note for the Senate that, as crossbenchers, we haven't had the drafting resources to actually get our own amendments drafted. I had 22 amendments submitted on Friday. We've had six done. Then we had the drafters say: 'I'm sorry. We just don't have time.' They may not be supported, but I feel, as an elected representative of the ACT, that it's my duty to actually listen to experts, listen to Canberrans, get those amendments drafted in good faith, put them to the Senate and be able to make my case in a second reading speech, which I and 20 other senators haven't had the opportunity to do. I may disagree very strongly with some of the views in those second reading debate speeches, but isn't that how this chamber is meant to work? I welcome this additional time, and I would say to Senate colleagues let's actually spend an extra couple of hours looking at this. Let's go through the detail. Let's think about what we're doing. Let's vote on amendments with a clear idea of what they do, what they don't do and what unintended consequences they may actually have.

There are still a lot of unanswered questions, particularly when we haven't seen the Senate committee process actually report. I would note that in the more than 100 submissions to the bill, looking through those and getting someone to actually analyse them, I don't think there was a single submission that said we should pass this legislation as is. Everyone, every stakeholder had a view. Yes, potentially extremely divergent views on what the legislation should look like, but they had a view.

I'm really concerned about the process today and no second reading debate speeches. It's a deal that was done so hastily that they then have to extend Committee of the Whole so they can move their own amendments. That kind of points out that we probably should have had a different approach from the start, and some more scrutiny.

I really welcome this. You can say that it's easy for a senator for the ACT to say, but I care deeply about this and Canberrans care very deeply about environmental laws. They want environmental laws that actually protect nature, that aren't just a thing where we say, 'We've done a great job,' and then, when we're looking back in 10 years time, we're saying: 'What the hell did we do? What did we do? We missed a golden opportunity to reform our broken environmental laws, and we just simply patched it up, put a few little patches on it and said, "She'll be right mate."' We can do better than that. We should do better than that as the Senate. Thank you. I hope that we do actually get a couple of extra hours from this amendment.

The fact that we are even having a debate about additional time at the government's instigation demonstrates how grubby this whole process has been. This is one of the most complex pieces of legislation that will come before this parliament. It affects industry from a whole range of perspectives. The government didn't even allow the committee process to be completed—a process that this chamber decided on. There has been no proper scrutiny of the legislation by this chamber, which is this chamber's job. That process was scrapped by the grubby deal done overnight by Labor and the Greens.

And the fact that the embarrassment will continue out of the Labor Party's process is demonstrated already by the fact that they themselves have to extend time for the debate in the committee stage of this legislation. It is absolutely shameful that senators stand in this place to say that they haven't had the parliamentary resources to have their amendments for this legislation drafted. How shameful is that? And of course we know what sits behind that. The Greens don't have theirs ready either, which is why we're standing here debating additional time, and the government is put in the embarrassing situation of having to extend time for the committee stage of this legislation.

I have questions that I would have liked to ask during the committee stage before lunch with respect to the standards, particularly around the treatment of the forest industry, which I've worked very closely with over a period of time. But the minister's response to questions and submissions made as part of the debate here belled the cat on the whole show. Labor are about the politics and the deal. They're not about looking after the environment. They're not about looking after Australian communities. And they're not about looking after people in our communities that rely on an effective piece of environmental legislation. They're all about the politics. Every time a coalition senator stood up to make a contribution, the minister's response was all about the politics.

It's absolutely shameful that senators in this place would have to get up as part of this extension debate to say that they are being told by officials of the Senate that they can't get their amendments drafted. How is that a proper process? How does the government and how do the Greens see that as a proper and reasonable process to pass one of the most important pieces of legislation that this parliament will pass—that senators cannot get their amendments drafted? That is a failure of this place, and it's a failure of the way the government is running this place. They should be ashamed. They're not. They think it's a joke. It shows how much they respect this chamber and it shows how much they respect the Australian people. They don't. It is all about the politics and it's all about the deal, and they should all be ashamed.

The Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 is a very important piece of legislation. It deserves the proper scrutiny that this parliament gave it through the committee process which was to report at the end of March next year. What we are finding, and what industry and those who are going to have to work with the legislation are finding, is the more we look into it, the more problems we find. This government is going to go through further embarrassment next year when they have to come back with an EPBC Act reform bill, because they're going to have to fix up the mistakes that, to their shame and embarrassment, aren't being dealt with right now. They'll see it as a joke. They'll blame somebody else. But it's their bill; it's their dirty, grubby deal; and they should all be ashamed. They should give this chamber enough time to debate it properly. (Time expired)

The question is that the motion moved by Senator Ruston be agreed to.

The committee is considering the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 and six related bills, and the amendments to the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 moved by Senator Ruston on sheet 3511. The question is that amendments (1) to (5), (7) to (9), (11) to (14), (18) and (19) be agreed to.

Minister, I've got some questions about standards. I'm interested in if the government would commit to implementing the full suite of national environment standards that are listed in Professor Samuel's review, prior to allowing for accreditation of any entity with assessment or approval powers under these reforms.

Thanks to Senator Pocock for the questions. While I'm on my feet, I will acknowledge a few high-profile and very committed people in the gallery, leaders of a number of Australia's peak environmental organisations. Thank you, of course, for your engagement through this process over a long period of time. I hope that today you can celebrate some of the big wins for the environment that have come through your advocacy—of course, in addition to the big wins for business because, remember, this is a balanced package.

I want to also acknowledge, in the gallery, the person who first argued for a balanced package, Professor Graeme Samuel, whose review, handed down over five years ago today, really did lay the groundwork for what we've been able to achieve today. Professor Samuel, I really appreciate also the personal support you've provided to me through this process. You've been at hand anytime that we've needed any of your advice. I hope you feel really proud of what the parliament will be achieving today as well.

Senator Pocock, in terms of the national environmental standards, you're right that Professor Samuel's report recommended a number of standards—in fact, provided draft standards for consideration. As I indicated this morning, in the earlier committee stage, there are two standards that are now available and open for consultation regarding matters of national environmental significance and environment offsets. There will need to be a formal statutory consultation period regarding those standards, and I would anticipate that will commence in the new year.

I also indicated, as to questions from Senator Hanson-Young, that we are well advanced in the drafting of a First Nations engagement standard. We will also be preparing a community consultation standard. And, as you've recognised, there are a range of other standards that Professor Samuel recommended; I would expect that we will be proceeding with all of them. To be honest with you, I've forgotten exactly what they are, but certainly, in broad terms—we are also preparing one regarding data, environmental data and information. Put it this way: I certainly haven't decided to not proceed with any of the standards that Professor Samuel recommended.

Thank you, Minister; I appreciate it. My question was not so much about standards but whether or not you will do the standards prior to allowing for accreditation of any entity with assessment or approval powers.

I'm not really in a position to give that commitment today, Senator Pocock. We are committed to both preparing the standards as quickly as we can, noting that no minister has the power to create standards until these laws are passed, but, nevertheless, that's why we got started on drafting a number of those standards, because we do want to create them as quickly as possible. Again, as I said this morning, they will be disallowable instruments, so there'll be an opportunity for the Senate to consider those as well. At the same time, we are committed to proceeding as quickly as we can, with, for example, entering bilateral agreements with states and territories around the assessment and approval of projects, and also regarding the accreditation of a number of state and territory processes.

We want to get moving. I know there have been some people in the community who—and I think you, Senator Pocock, yourself—have said that we shouldn't be rushing this and that we should take this into the new year. We've got to get moving! Poor Professor Samuel—he handed down his report five years ago. We don't want to take another five years, because, in another five years, there will be another review of the act. So we've got to get moving, and that's why we want to get moving as quickly as we can with as many aspects of these reforms as possible.

Thank you, Minister. Will you at least confirm that it's your intention to implement the standards prior to accrediting any entity with assessment but, more importantly, approval powers, prior to allowing accreditation?

To your point about the timeline: anytime in the last parliament, you had a majority of crossbenchers who were urging the government to undertake environmental law reform that protected nature. So I can see what you're saying with the criticism. But I don't think it's grounded, because you have a majority on the crossbench who have been urging you to do this—in fact, negotiated with your predecessor, and we all know how that went down, at the final hour, with the Prime Minister stepping in. So I think that's probably important to be on the record.

Just in terms of the history of this, I will make the point that, in the last term, when my predecessor and my good friend Minister Plibersek put the building blocks in place for these reforms, the Senate was a little bit different, and we didn't just need the Greens party to pass these reforms; we needed the Greens party and a collection of Independents, and that made it somewhat more difficult to get things, rather than only requiring support of either the coalition or the Greens, but that's by the by.

In answer to your question, as I said, I'm not going to give a commitment today that the standards will be finalised prior to any accreditations or bilateral agreements, but I think it would be reasonable to expect that it will take a number of months at best to finalise some of those processes and bilateral agreements. As I say, we want to get cracking as quickly as we can, but I think there's a very good chance that at least some of those standards will have commenced by the time we enter into such an agreement or accreditation processes take place.

Minister, I wanted to go back to the conversation we were having, before the hard marker earlier, about offsets. You were saying that, when small proponents potentially don't have the ability to play in that space and actually find like-for-like offsets, they can pay into the fund. You then said that it potentially wouldn't be like for like, but there's the potential for much more broadscale conservation work. Could you explain to us how that would work when you have fairly small but really significant impacts on critically endangered ecosystems—say, temperate grasslands and box gum woodlands, where we're down to less than one per cent or a couple of per cent of what is left of these ecosystems. Say 50 or 100 hectares of that were damaged or destroyed and someone pays into a fund, what guardrails are there in place to ensure that it's not 50,000 hectares of rangeland that are actually offset, where, clearly, there are very different species and a bunch of species that probably aren't as threatened? How's the government going to work that one out?

One of the other amendments that's been moved to the bill, which hasn't had quite as much attention in the media today—and I'll do my best to paraphrase it—

What number?

Amendment? I'll come back to you on that. We're just trying to dig out the amendment number. As I said, I'll be paraphrasing here, but in essence what the amendment seeks to do is to give the Threatened Species Scientific Committee a role in establishing whether there are particular species that are so endangered that the environmental offsets should not occur in the form of restoration fund payments. There would be probably a fairly small category of species, and if an offset was required then that would need to be delivered on a like-for-like project basis, as opposed to making a payment into the restoration fund. I'll come back to you with the amendment, and that will no doubt express it a lot more clearly and accurately than I have, but that's the general principle.

Will all critically endangered species be on that list?

Not necessarily, and I'm advised the amendment is No. 3565.

Minister, how can critically endangered species not be on that list? I'm interested in how you offset a critically endangered species, and, if the government is, how are you going to work out the exchange rate? What does a swift parrot translate to, in terms of bettongs, phascogales or antechinuses? How does that work?

As I said, Senator Pocock, the intention is not to prevent payments into the Restoration Contribution Fund for every single critically endangered species. Sadly, that is a relatively long list in Australia, and that's why it's a Labor government that is proposing reforms to our laws which we'd really like you to support, Senator Pocock. Don't ever forget that it's Labor governments that actually deliver environmental reform.

One of the objectives of these reforms—and Professor Samuel made this point in his report—is to get away from the ongoing managing of decline in nature and shift the dial towards restoration of nature. We do want to see critically endangered species recover. There's a range of government policies and investments directed towards that, and it's very pleasing to see that there are critically endangered species whose numbers are growing. It's still not at the rate we'd like, but it's good to see that there are some critically endangered species in which we're seeing a recovery. We want to see more of that. It's not and never has been the intention to effectively rule out contributions to the restoration fund for every single critically endangered species. But the opportunity exists for the Threatened Species Scientific Committee to provide advice to ministers—and, again, I'm paraphrasing what the amendment says—if there are species for which, in the judgement of that committee, contributions to the restoration fund are not enough.

You also asked how you would calculate this. To my surprise in taking on this role, as it stands, our department has developed a calculator that proponents can use now to determine what their environmental offsets are required to be. We will need to adapt and upgrade that calculator to determine what the financial contribution will be. But one of the really important things that we've done and committed to in that process is that there needs to be a net gain for the environment in that process. Again, this comes straight out of Professor Samuel's report. Rather than having the current system, where environmental offsets need to deliver no net loss to the environment, we are lifting the requirement so that any environmental offsets deliver a net gain for the environment. That calculator, as I was saying, needs to be adjusted to recognise that change.

In summary, what this means is that proponents in some cases would be able to make a financial contribution that delivers a net gain for the environment—not more of the same but something better—and that would be possible for a range of species. But, with the Threatened Species Scientific Committee having the ability to provide advice around particular species, that opportunity should not arise.

Could the minister please give some comments for the record that relate to how regulations will be required? We're talking about standards, here. I'd like to know, so that it is clear, that there will be regulations that declare which standards will apply to relevant decisions. Obviously, one of the things we need to make sure of is around when there is an application of the various standards that you have outlined. Knowing that there could and inevitably will be new standards—because that's the whole purpose of this particular amendment to the act—the minister has the power to create a standard to ensure that there is a higher level of protection for threatened species or the environment. Could you please confirm that you will require regulations to declare all core standards to apply to relevant decisions?

Obviously, Senator Hanson-Young, this is a matter that we discussed over the last couple of days. The short answer to your question is yes. We would envisage that the two, if you like, core standards—I'm thinking of the two core standards that we've got out for consultation at the moment, on MNES and offsets—but also potentially other core standards such as First Nations engagement, would apply to all approval decisions. I know that there has been some discussion about whether all the environmental standards should apply to every single assessment and approval decision. While at first flush that may seem like a sensible thing to do, it may well be that over time we develop particular standards that are relevant to particular industries. For argument's sake, if we were to develop a standard specifically relating to the renewable energy sector then it wouldn't make a lot of sense for that to be taken into account if you're assessing a housing development. As I recall, the intention, therefore, is to provide a regulation which sets out which standards apply to which kinds of decisions, but certainly the intention would be to apply those core standards to all approval decisions, regardless of the sector.

Minister, in relation to the amendments that have been circulated by the Greens in relation to removing the land-clearing exemption, could I ask you to commit to the chamber today that land clearing will indeed be a priority for the newly established environment protection authority. Obviously, we know that land clearing is rampant across the country. In fact, an area the size of the MCG is cleared every two minutes in Australia. That is an extraordinary amount of Australian bushland that is devastated, bulldozed and destroyed simply in the name of development—and often multinational profit. I would like a commitment from the government that this cracking down on land clearing, this tightening of the rules and our ensuring that we protect more of our bushland and forests will be a priority for the Environment Protection Authority.

Yes, the new provisions regarding agricultural land clearing and the enforcement of those provisions will certainly be a priority for the new National Environmental Protection Agency. This is a good example of why it's important to have a national environment protection agency, which we don't currently have. In colloquial terms, it will be a strong cop on the beat, with strong powers and real teeth to enforce environmental laws in a way that we haven't seen to date at the national level, despite the good efforts of officials in my department to do so.

I might quickly elaborate on the provisions regarding agricultural land clearing, which I addressed in some detail earlier on in the committees stage in answer to Senator Roberts. We know, and the science tells us, that one of the biggest causes of biodiversity loss in Australia is unregulated agricultural land clearing. I want to be clear: I'm not saying that all farmers do the wrong thing or anything like that, but at the moment we lack national regulation of agricultural land clearing even where it impacts in a significant way on threatened species. And so that is the major motivation for lifting the exemption from the act which currently applies.

Similarly, we're proposing in these amendments to lift the exemption that currently applies to agricultural land clearing that, effectively, occurs within 50 metres of the rivers and creeks in the Great Barrier Reef catchment. Again, the motivation for that change is that we know that one of the major threats to and impacts on the Great Barrier Reef is sediment run-off, which occurs at least partly through some of that clearing that takes place on riverbanks and creekbanks. Again, there are people who deliberately do the wrong thing. There are others who don't necessarily recognise or realise that that sort of clearing can have those major impacts. Before the scare campaign starts about this, it's not about saying that farmers can't clear their land; it's about saying that, if that kind of clearing in those sorts of circumstances is going to have an impact on a nationally protected matter, then farmers and the large corporates that own farmland will need to seek EPBC assessment and approval in order to undertake that clearing. They may very well get that approval. They may get that approval subject to conditions. But it's really about levelling the playing field across all industries. In the same way a mining company, a housing developer, a windfarm developer or a solar-farm developer currently, under the law, need to seek EPBC assessment and approval if their activity is going to significantly impact on a nationally protected matter, as a result of these changes, that will also apply to the agricultural land clearing that I was talking about.

I'm not sure if you were in the chamber earlier, Senator Hanson-Young, when I made the point about those exemptions that were included in the original legislation passed in 1999. One very interesting submission that was made to the Senate inquiry was from Robert Hill, the former federal environment minister whose legislation we are now amending. He was, in fact, a former federal Liberal Senate leader. Even though he was the minister—in no way do I mean this as a criticism of him; quite the opposite—for reasons that probably related more to his party room at the time, his own legislation included those exemptions, for agricultural land clearing and for regional forestry agreements. He made a submission to the Senate inquiry saying those exemptions should be lifted. When the former federal Liberal minister for the environment whose legislation was passed in 1999 is telling us that we should revisit that and remove those exemptions, that's probably something worth listening to, quite apart from all of the other groups who made submissions to similar effect.

Just to bring it back to the compliance and enforcement point, as I said, it would be our intention that enforcing these new provisions around land clearing would be a priority for the new National Environment Protection Agency. I might also make the point that, while many of the provisions in this bill will not commence for roughly 12 months time—there are a few others that will start sooner than that—we will be commencing the provisions relating to agricultural land clearing and removing the exemption that currently applies on the date of royal assent. So that is probably in the next week or two. The reason we've done that is that we have seen, in other circumstances where particularly state and territory governments have sought to regulate land clearing, what's known as 'panic clearing' occur. That is where people, for either good reasons or bad, decide to get in there and start clearing land urgently in a way that is about to be prevented by legislative change. We want to make sure that that doesn't happen, and that's why we are commencing the provisions around land clearing and removing those exemptions as quickly as we possibly can.

I want to come back to the idea that you can offset a critically endangered species. My understanding of a critically endangered species is that it is under almost immediate threat of being extinct in the wild. Populations are on the edge of being functionally extinct. The IUCN talks about some of the criteria: a very fast population decline; catastrophic drops over the last 10 years or three generations; a tiny population size; sometimes only a few hundred or fewer mature individuals left; an extremely small range, living in a very limited area, so one disaster could wipe it out; ongoing decline plus fragmentation; and quantitative models showing a very high probability of extinction soon. I'm wondering how that will square with the government's commitment to no new extinctions—if we are, in fact, saying that you could, in some circumstance, offset the destruction of a critically endangered habitat or affect a critically endangered species. That's one question: whether you think you can do that and still hold your 'no new extinctions' commitment to the Australian people.

The other question is on net gain. I'm interested in what circumstances will the regulations prescribe or the minister be satisfied that a net gain has been achieved. How will net gain actually be determined?

In relation to your first question regarding critically endangered species, for starters, I want to say the government is absolutely committed to our commitment made last term to not see any further extinctions of species. That is the reason why we're investing heavily in programs like the Saving Native Species program and a range of other investments. It's one of the reasons why we're keen to change these laws, to provide greater protection to critically endangered and all threatened species.

Before I answer your question directly, Senator Pocock, I might just add to what I said earlier about the ability to prevent financial contributions being made to the restoration contributions fund in some circumstances. The amendments that have been introduced will allow the minister of the day to create a list of matters that cannot be compensated through financial contributions to the restoration contributions fund. The minister would need to get advice and consult with advisory committees, including the Threatened Species Scientific Committee, in making or changing the list. That list would be a disallowable legislative instrument and would be published on the department's website. What that's all about is that these amendments recognise that there are some matters and some species that cannot be appropriately compensated through financial contributions to that restoration fund. That's what we're doing.

Regarding the point around critically endangered species, I recognise that it is not easy to offset significant impacts on critically endangered species. In the short time I've been the minister, these are some of the most difficult decisions that you need to make around whether a project that is going to have a significant impact on critically endangered species can be offset. I'm sure there would be occasions where it's simply not possible to find an offset, whether that be in the traditional way of finding an offset, a like-for-like offset. I'm sure that will be difficult, at times, to do through this new fund as well, but that's not to say it can't be done.

One example that I've dealt with—and I know it's a project that not everyone in this chamber supports—is the Robbins Island wind farm in Tasmania. It is a large wind farm that will produce enormous amounts of clean energy, not only for Tasmania but also for the mainland, to be transported through Marinus Link. One of the concerns that many in the community have had about that project is its potential impact on the orange-bellied parrot, which is a critically endangered species. It would appear, from recent data monitoring, that there has been some recovery in the numbers of that species—nowhere near as much as we want—but it's still a critically endangered species. One of the decisions that I had to make was whether that project and any impacts that it may have on that species could be offset. Again, there would be people in this chamber who say that can't be done, but the evidence that I reviewed in making that decision persuaded me that those impacts could be offset in certain ways.

For example, we have required the proponent in that case to make financial contributions toward captive breeding programs, which are very successful in helping recover the number of particular threatened species. Those sorts of programs don't always work, but much of the time they do. We've seen them work quite successfully with other critically endangered species. Also, for that case, as I recall, there were conditions attached to the approval of that project that required the preservation of habitat for that critically endangered species, again, to give it the best chance of not just surviving but growing and recovering. Of course, there were a whole range of other conditions attached to that project which were all designed to reduce the impacts on that and other threatened species. The point is that, in my view, based on good scientific evidence, it can be possible—not always, but it can be possible—to offset the significant impacts on a critically endangered species.

I think that addresses your first question. The second question regarded net gain. Can you just remind me exactly what the question was?

Thanks, Minister. It was: in what circumstances will the regulations prescribe or the minister be satisfied that a net gain has been achieved? How will net gain be determined?

Thanks, Senator Pocock. I'll provide a little bit of background to begin with. Again, I may have said this in the earlier committee stage today. One of the really important changes to this legislation which were recommended by Professor Samuel was to state in law for the first time that project proponents would be required to avoid and mitigate their environmental impacts before moving straight to offsets and that, where environmental offsets were to be delivered, they had to produce a net gain for the environment. I think I was just saying before that that's an improvement, from an environmental perspective, on the current test, which requires no net loss to the environment. Of course, what we're talking about there is offsetting residual significant impacts after those impacts have been avoided or mitigated.

The net gain test will apply when the minister of the day considers whether to approve an action that has an residual significant impact on a protected matter, considering any conditions attached to an approval, and it will also apply to accredited arrangements and landscape-scale approaches, such as regional plans. The net gain test requires that any residual significant impacts to a protected matter be fully compensated and have an increase or improvement to that matter to achieve a net gain. This helps address environmental decline by ensuring that offsets do more than just deliver no net loss and improve the viability of protected matters. To give you an example, if a development project removes 20 hectares of habitat for a threatened species but delivers more than 20 hectares of equivalent or higher-quality habitat elsewhere, then we would consider that to be a net gain for the species.

We're not proposing to define in the act the amount of net gain required for a protected matter. As I've undertaken consultation on this over the last few months, there are definitely some groups that would like us to specify, for example, a percentage increase in environmental terms as what we would mean by 'net gain', but our judgement was that it wasn't necessary to do that. What was necessary to do was to insert the requirement that there is a net gain for the environment, and that in itself is an improvement in environmental terms compared to the current legislation. So, instead of doing that, instead of defining the term 'net gain' in the act, the minister will be able to prescribe requirements relating to net gain or offsets in the regulations. The regulations will contain detailed requirements for the net gain test and exemptions to the net gain test for certain protected matters and prescribe the amount of net gain required for a particular protected matter.

Again, I think I made the point earlier today, Senator Pocock, that we have heard from stakeholders on all sides of the debate that there is probably more that could be done to provide clarity around what would be considered 'net gain', and it is my intention to further clarify the department's view of what net gain is when we come to finalising the national environmental standard regarding environmental offsets. So there is more to come there. That will be fully consulted on. That will be disallowable by the Senate, as will every other national environmental standard. So there is more we can do in this space as well.

I have some questions around the continuous use exemption, Minister. After the Samuel review, when your government embarked on this journey years ago, I asked in Senate estimates whether the government would consider looking at shark nets being removed from continuous use exemptions—I'll wait.

Minister, I think—

That's alright. I can wait.

Sorry.

That's alright, Minister. You've had a long few days. I understand.

I know you were talking about shark nets.

Exactly. I was just outlining something I've been raising for a number of years. When I first raised it, I think the department said no-one had brought this to their attention, and, of course, it wasn't in the Samuel review. But you are aware, as you've had a number of groups raise this issue with you. On the record today, for those groups who are obviously very disappointed that there's nothing in this package today to remove shark nets from continuous use exemptions or a pathway forward on how to do that, could you explain whether the government has looked at this and why there was no concession made on this? You've obviously made concessions, which we're very grateful for, on land clearing, the Great Barrier Reef catchment and critical vegetation, but these nets have been weapons of mass destruction off our coastline now for many, many decades. They are exempt from federal environment laws.

The Senate did recommend, back in 2016, that the government review this and have a very important role to play in providing information—which could be provided through Environmental Information Australia, for example—on the impacts on protected and threatened species, target sharks and non-target sharks. Why didn't your government consider removing the exemption or, at least, reviewing the exemption with this once-in-a-generation reform? What have you got to say to those Australians who are very disappointed that this is not in the bill?

I know that this has been something that Senator Whish-Wilson has advocated for, for a very long time, and I know that's based on a very sincere belief. In some respects, you've answered your question by pointing out that this was not a recommendation of the Samuel review. While I'm not going to pretend that we've delivered every single recommendation in the Samuel review—although we've delivered the absolute vast majority of them—and while I wouldn't want to pretend that we haven't done additional things beyond the Samuel review recommendations, delivering those recommendations has absolutely been our priority in this reform package. I'm sure you'd acknowledge, Senator Whish-Wilson, that even the bill that we are debating today is an incredibly comprehensive bill. There is a huge amount in it. It's much broader than any other bill this parliament has considered around the reform of these laws, and my judgement was that there were only so many things that we could do in these reforms. Simply delivering the recommendations of the Samuel review was a pretty herculean task in its own right.

I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to both my office and the departmental officials, who've absolutely worked their guts out over the last few months—and, in some cases, the last few years—to get us to this point. So even delivering these recommendations has been a mammoth effort from a very large team of people.

You're right, Senator Whish-Wilson. There are some groups who have advocated to remove the continuous use exemption that applies in relation to shark nets. I'm particularly thinking of the humane society, and, as I recall, the Australian Marine Conservation Society has also been quite active on that issue. There may be others that I've momentarily forgotten, but my memory is that those two have been the most vocal about this, and I welcome their contributions to these debates. But my judgement was that we needed to focus in particular on the recommendations of the Samuel review in delivering these reforms.

My summary of that summary, Minister, is that this wasn't an important enough issue for this bill. Feel free to correct me if that's not the case. Will you commit to some kind of pathway to reviewing shark nets and their exemption under these new federal laws? Is this something that you will continue to take representations from the community on? Will you seek a pathway forward to stop these shark nets from killing protected species, including endangered and critically endangered species, and federally protected cetaceans like humpback whales and dolphins?

No, the government has no plans to make any changes in that regard. It's better for me to not pretend that we do.

Today, I am proud that our parliament is passing long-awaited reforms to environmental laws here in Australia—laws that signal improvement, are better than the ones put forward by this government alone and will provide some relief to many climate campaigners across this country. I am massively grateful to my Greens colleagues in the Senate, who have shown incredible determination in their negotiations to get these concessions from the government. However, these laws still fail to address some of the greatest threats to our environment: climate-polluting corporations and the billionaires who are fuelling our changing climate.

For this vote today, I am reflecting on my recent trip to Karratha in WA's Pilbara region, a place of rich Australian history and ground zero for Woodside's Burrup Hub. Guided by elders and custodians, I got to experience our World Heritage listed Murujuga and its ancient rock art. I also saw firsthand the catastrophic impact of industry, devastating First Nations land and eroding the Murujuga rock art. I saw the uninterrupted flame of gas from the Burrup Hub, an open source pouring millions of tons of emissions into the world each year.

Following Labor's approval of the North West Shelf expansion, it is estimated that emissions from WA gas exports will reach 15 billion tonnes over their lifetime. This is what happens when we have environmental laws that don't actually protect our environment and do not consider the climate crisis. Above the safety, health and wellbeing of Australians, this government chooses the private industries who gain profit from our land and resources—the private industries who do not pay their fair share of tax, who do not support Australian communities and who do not protect our natural world. It is disappointing that this government refused to negotiate on having environmental laws that would stop new fossil fuel projects in their tracks and protect nature for years to come.

These laws presented an opportunity for strong leadership and for genuine reform for Australia's environment. I am really proud that the Greens secured significant improvements that have ensured this bill is better than our current nature laws. We have stopped the fast-track approval process for coal and gas projects so that they cannot be rushed through in 30 days. We have secured new protections for our native forests by ensuring that native forest logging projects will be assessed under the new environmental standards. We have closed land-clearing loopholes, protecting Australia's threatened wildlife and natural treasures like our Great Barrier Reef. We have saved the water trigger, which will continue to be a key tool for people fighting against fracking projects in the Kimberley.

We have a lot more work to do. We have a lot more work to do to protect the northern jarrah forests. We have a lot more work to do to save Scott Reef. We have a lot more work to do to protect our precious Kimberley from the frackers. I look forward to continuing to work every day to protect nature, to protect our forests and to ensure a safer climate future.

I just want to make a few comments and I'll have some questions, Minister, in relation to some of the interactions within the bill. But I want to go back to some comments that you made with respect to the exemption for the RFA process in particular. I happened to be here—I think I'm the only one who was—when the RFA bill was passed. I remember quite clearly the delight of the forestry industry, because the exemption that was placed into the act, with the passing of the RFA legislation, took away the continuation of green lawfare that was imposed on the industry. With every particular harvest they wanted to undertake they had to go through a separate environmental approval process. That's why that process came about; it was because of the green lawfare of environmental groups who wanted to use that to cost the industry out of existence. That's where it came from.

You made some comments with regard to my former government leader in the Senate Robert Hill when the RFA legislation was passed—that was the background to that. I remember why. I remember the impact on industry by environmental groups, who we know don't always tell the truth. We know that because a court recently found that they actually fabricated evidence in one particular case where they were looking for an outcome. But it was done to mitigate the impact of that green lawfare.

I'm very keen to understand if the operation of the new system will continue to allow industry to operate on a reasonable basis so that they are not on a coupe by coupe basis, for example, required to come back for environmental approval. This sector already operates under an environmental standard. It's called Australian standard 4078 for sustainable forest management. I would be very curious, Minister, to understand how that standard, the Australian Forestry Standard—benchmarked globally against other forest standard systems; established through the principles of ISO 14000—will that be applied? How will industry be able to manage a reasonable process for their operations without constant interference and interruption? This will be an important part of what happens into the future.

There's a good reason why people in my home state of Tasmania don't trust the Labor Party with respect to this. I go back to Graham Richardson, I go back to Mark Latham and I go back to former minister Tony Burke. That's why I'm concerned about this. We have good reason not to trust them, and I would be very keen to have assurances and some understanding of how the industry, with the work it has already done to establish the standards under which it operates, that are benchmarked globally and that operate under scrutiny and regular auditing, can continue to operate on a sustainable basis and not be priced or costed out of the market by continuous challenges through green lawfare.

We know that's what will happen. That's the method of operation that these green groups utilise. We know that they're not always honest. Courts have found that to be the case. What guarantees do we have that the processes that they have in place will work properly with the new system and that they won't be continuously interrupted on a microbasis as a part of the way they conduct their business? All of the states, particularly the two RFA states, have good forest management systems and forest approval systems to ensure that they do comply with the Australian forestry standard. It's bemusing to think that the government is proposing that we will have to establish a new standard when we already have one.

The minister said earlier that the industry is moving more and more towards the utilisation of plantation timber. That's certainly true in the context of structural timbers. They are more cheaply grown and developed, and the way that manufactured timber works these days is that it's not just about the timber that provides the structural strength. So having enough capacity within the plantation industry is extremely important for the forest industry in this country. In fact, demand for timber in this country is projected to double by 2050. That's really important. But so too is the native forest industry. It's important to the people, the workers and the communities in my home state of Tasmania, and I know it's important in a number of others. I know that, from talking to my friends in the farming community, they are very concerned about whether their private forests will still be able to be appropriately operated. Of course, the forest standards will apply to those, so how does that work? How do our private foresters, who are operating a native forest private industry, ensure that they still have the basis of an industry to work with?

One of the things I have to say that I lament in my home state of Tasmania and that occurred in the nineties, when we were moving much more towards plantations, was the conversion of native forest to plantation. It was a very difficult period of time in my home state. When we talk about the comparison between the plantation based industry, which I know the minister accepts is important, and a native forest based industry, one of the things I now understand, having worked very closely with people in the forest industry and forest scientists in particular is that, when you compare a plantation forest with a native forest, a native forest is better for biodiversity, water quality—I know the minister is concerned about that; he's made that point a number of times during his presentations today—and carbon storage. It actually stores more carbon. It uses no chemicals. At the end of the day, it produces a higher value and higher quality product. We're sitting amongst it today. If the native forest industry folded, you wouldn't be able to build what we enjoy today in this place because the timbers would not be available.

I know that's what some in the environment movement want, but, quite frankly, that is the wrong response. It's against the science, and it's an ideological and philosophical perspective. Now, that's fine; I don't object to people having their ideology and their philosophy. But, if we're going to do this based on proper science, then the attributes that I've already listed are really important. In that context, there is a genuine case for the continuation of a strong native-forest based industry, because it's basically a natural forest based process. Are there considerations that need to be made with respect to native species, endangered species and all of those things? Absolutely, there are, but they are already built into our forestry standard. The Australian forestry standard already incorporates those things.

Minister, how do you intend to ensure that the industry has the capacity for continuous flow and not the possibility of interruption after interruption, which is basically designed to inhibit their operations? We know that that can happen, and that's why we had the exemption in the first place. Also, there's the Australian forestry standard and the chain-of-custody standard that works with it, which is also an important element, that ensure timber that is being sold in our marketplace is sourced appropriately. It's a very important piece of work, which Minister Burke started, which I continued and which has been followed since. But they're important questions— (Time expired)

There were a couple of questions there. Certainly, in terms of where you ended up around forestry certification, I am well aware, from my time as the forestry minister, of the great efforts of many foresters in Australia to meet both national and international certification when it comes to the standards they adopt. The reality, though, as I've said previously, is that the current law means that forestry that occurs under RFAs is one of the few industries where these national environmental standards and the EPBC Act do not apply. So, as I've said before, these changes are about levelling the playing field between forestry and all other industries that are subject to these laws.

As I've said already today, this is not about shutting down native forestry. There's nothing in the bill about shutting down native forestry. I challenge anyone who says it's about shutting down native forestry to show me where it says that in this legislation, because it doesn't. It's about assisting the industry to meet these new standards, to apply the same law that applies to every other industry, and we're confident that that can be done in a way that doesn't interrupt the flow that you're talking about. I'd be happy to have further discussions with you, Senator Colbeck.

Minister, I have a question about the new provisions intended to stop fossil fuel projects from being fast-tracked. I'm wondering if they extend to and include exploration activities. Could exploration activities for fossil fuels be fast-tracked under the amendments agreed to with the Greens? We know that some of the activities can be extremely damaging, particularly to water resources in relation to coal-seam gas or fracking. I visited the Pilliga a couple of times and saw some of the gas test sites that have leaked and damaged the land around them. So I'm interested in whether it will also include exploration activities.

The short answer is no, exploration activities for coal and gas projects would also be precluded from those new fast-tracking processes.

I want to make some comments that broadly go to amendment on sheet 3511 and the bill itself, particularly given I was denied the opportunity to speak during the second reading debate.

You are not being denied the opportunity to speak, Senator Canavan.

Well, we have been. We very much have been denied the opportunity to speak. The government continues to use gags and guillotines at a rate we've never seen before. Once again, a very complex piece of legislation is being rushed through the Senate without any necessity. There's no reason this has to be done before Christmas, and there's certainly no reason it has to be done before the sun goes down here in the ACT. We could be staying here a lot longer.

The main point I want to raise here today is that this is a bill that is going to put at risk people's jobs. We have a situation right now in our economy. Inflation is going up, unemployment is going up and interest rates are probably going to be going up in the new year, yet this government's priority this week, before Christmas, is not to try and get the economy going or to bring inflation under control but to push through a bill that puts at risk thousands of jobs in our forestry sector—thousands of union jobs, too. Good union members have now had their Christmas made a little more uncertain because this bill is going through and tearing up regional forestry agreements.

Those agreements have been in place to protect those jobs, to protect those forestry workers, and the Labor Party used to profess that they supported those jobs, that they were on side with them—until today. As with so many other industries in this country, time and time again, the Labor Party sells people's jobs down the river. They did it with the live export industry in the last term of parliament. The shearers, the truck drivers, the farmers—they were not considered by the Labor Party. They were not worthy of their protection, because they had to do a deal with the Greens and the Animal Justice Party to get preferences and be elected. And now we see the sequel in this term of parliament, where they're willing to shut down the Tasmanian forestry industry. We have Tasmanian senators who say nothing. They don't stand up for their state. This is meant to be the states' house, but they stay completely silent and just let these jobs get sold down the river again. That is exactly what is happening here.

This EPBC Act does have separate provisions for different sectors. It has them for the oil and gas sector, which are still maintained through NOPSEMA, despite this bill, and we had them for the forestry agreements as well, so that there were easier ways of managing environmental issues in industries we know a lot about—we know a lot about the risks, and we have a long history and tradition of doing forestry sustainably in this country. This government has ripped up all that experience, ripped up the record of achievement of the forestry industry, and thrown the sector to the wolves of litigators and green activists, who will now use these changes to shut down the industry by tying it up with green tape and litigation in our courts. Nothing could be more true than that, given this bill.

We then have the spectacle of a dodgy environment minister trying to tell those workers that somehow he's going to help grow their jobs. Earlier in this debate, I heard Senator Watt say: 'It's all okay. Your jobs will be fine. We're going to have a forestry growth fund. It's in the name.' That's what he said! You know it's going to be growth because we've called it 'growth'. How could it not be? It's called growth. It's like somebody from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea saying, 'Look! We're a democracy. It's in the name. Of course we're a democracy. It's called the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. How dare you accuse us of being authoritarian?' When the minister was pressed—'Okay, you've called it the Forestry Growth Fund. That sounds excellent, Minister. What exactly are you going to invest in with that $300 million?'—he said, 'We're still working through the details.' He's got no idea!

We in the National Party have seen this so many times before. The government will say, 'It's okay. We're going to remove these tariffs. We're going to change these regulations. We're going to have dairy deregulation. We're going to get rid of wheat marketing. It's all good. We'll have a fund, and we'll invest in new equipment and technology.' Before you know it, the tobacco industry is no more, we lose sugar mill after sugar mill, and we're lucky to have a few hundred dairy farmers left in Queensland. All these workers aren't as gullible as you think, Minister. They're not naive. They know a spiv when they hear one, and you are being a spiv tonight, because you're gaslighting them into suggesting that somehow a $300 million fund will make up for the massive risks you've imposed on their industries and jobs today.

What we've seen here, ladies and gentlemen, is the reunion of a beautiful relationship. Do you all remember, about 15 years ago now, when Bob Brown and Julia Gillard—they had little wattles in their lapels, I remember—signed the agreement, exchanged vows and formed a Greens-Labor coalition in 2010. They agreed to have a carbon tax that we were never to have. And, today, isn't it wonderful to see such a loving couples, even though they have fallen out over the years at different times.

Speak for yourselves!

That's right! But I want to focus on the positives today, because we've seen this beautiful relationship return. The Labor-Green marriage is back together. They walked down the aisle. They're now a happy couple about to go on their honeymoon just before Christmas. And, in doing so, they're willing to sell out whatever Australians they need to, just like they did 15 years ago.

Ultimately, decisions and deals like this are about the government's priorities. What are their priorities for the Australian people? Clearly, the government's priority right now is to increase the amount of regulation and red tape that businesses face in this country. Their priority is to put above the protection of workers and their jobs the prosecution of green, left goals that many in the Labor Party want to pursue. The green, left wing of the Labor Party are happy. The AWU, right-wing part of the Labor Party are a little bit less happy. The government's priorities are on display on this last day before Christmas.

Our priorities on this side were always to stand up for the jobs of the hardworking men and women in this country who don't get the time to go on marchers and protests or spend their whole lives on social media, making comments and demanding more legislation and laws. They're too busy right now trying to balance their budgets and too tired at the end of their day after working in the sun, getting dirty and hot, to be the activists that the Labor Party seems so close to now. Those people are just forgotten about. They're totally ignored and forgotten about by this Labor-Green cabal. But, like many instances following a conjugation of a Labor-Green relationship, eventually those people—those workers—wake up. They find out the deals that have been done behind their backs, that their jobs are now at risk and that sometimes they get the pink slip and no longer have a job. When that happens, there will be a backlash. Those people will have more time then to be on social media, and they will find out that, despite the Labor Party having Labor in their name—like the minister says, it's in the name—they don't represent workers, people who have to labour for their livelihood. They don't represent them at all. They're just like the democratic republic of Korea. They're not a democracy. They're not a labour party. They're now a greens party using the costume of a once-proud workers' party to try and defraud the working people of the Australian population that, somehow, they're on their side. They're not.

This week and today just underline that with a big red pen. They are willing to do a deal with the very people that want to sign the death warrant on the forestry industry. Make no mistake about it. The Greens political party want to end the native forestry industry. It is a stated goal of them, and the Labor Party are dealing with them and signing up with them. Ultimately, you can judge somebody by the company they keep, and the Labor Party are keeping company with people who want to shut down industry and put thousands of Australians out of work. That's why we're fighting. I'm always proud to stand up and fight for the workers of this nation. I'm proud that we won't be supporting this rubbish. One day we'll fight to make sure we have this corrected and that we once again protect the vibrant, sustainable Australian forestry industry.

I have a short statement; I'm not intending to ask the minister a question. It's been very difficult this afternoon to make a proper assessment of the Greens amendments, as they are still being tabled in the afternoon. So, for many of those, it's very difficult to vote for them, although they may have tremendous merit.

In my view, nature should be at the centre of all decision-making, and I'd like to think the Environment Reform Bill 2025 and related bills are an evolution to that. I don't think they get there, and I also do not believe that nature, in this bill, has a sufficient voice. The regulator may play a role in that, but I do think we need to have a paradigm shift in the way we structure our environmental protection laws—less binary about development and nature and more of a structure that can drive more sustainable development that lives in harmony with nature.

I appreciate the minister's kind comments on the Hon. Robert Hill. He saved me asking him a question, because I was going to ask whether the bill accommodates Robert Hill's submission, which I think was one of the more insightful submissions. I hold him in the highest regard, being a South Australian, and I would suspect that when he reviews the bill, if he has enough time, he will be well pleased with some of the work that you and your staff have done.

To those that may not forgive me for voting for some of the Greens amendments, I say it is too late to make a proper decision as a parliamentarian, and I may well abstain.

I want to make a short statement; I don't have questions. Today the Greens have announced that we will support the Environment Reform Bill 2025 and related bills, having achieved significant amendments for new protections for our native forests and excluding coal and gas from fast-tracking. We've negotiated significant wins, but we know it's nowhere near enough. This package, however, is better than the status quo—considerably better than the status quo—and it's a whole lot better than it would have been if negotiated with the climate deniers on the other side of this chamber.

Labor's first draft was a wish list for corporate environmental destruction. It would have gutted our environment laws, given corporations the green light for new coal and gas projects with just a 30-day approval process, and introduced new loopholes to an already very weak act. Instead, Greens pressure made this bill better than the weak laws we have and infinitely better than if the government had done that deal with the climate deniers in the coalition.

While Labor had clearly hoped to pass a bill on behalf of big corporations, the Greens held firm during negotiations on protections for nature, boosted by community opposition to a bill that took us backwards. We won outcomes that forest campaigners have fought for across this country for decades—not enough, but a significant step in the right direction to begin the proper protection of our native forests—and we made it harder for big corporations to keep wrecking nature—our beautiful forests and all the creatures who live in them. We have ended an outrageous legal carve-out for logging that's resulted in devastation of our forests and threatened the habitats of our species that are at risk. We've fought for and won the removal of the ability of coal and gas projects to use fast-tracked approvals or the national interest loophole—such important wins. We've fought for and won the protection of the water trigger.

We said from the start the Greens wouldn't accept a bill that would take nature backwards and we would fight to protect forests and nature. Millions of Australians who voted for the Greens and put us here didn't put us here to lead our vote backwards and weaken the protection of nature. We've won protections that go forward, and that is our job. We stand on the activities and activism of thousands of Australians who have put us here to make that fight. We know that our beautiful native forests and bushland, which protect our wildlife and biodiversity, are essential to fighting off the pollution of fossil fuels. It's only possible because there were Greens in the parliament to fight for our planet.

You know this is a good outcome when you're angering all the right people. The Minerals Council of Australia has called this 'an inferior and disappointing outcome'. The Business Council called it 'a missed opportunity', and the Liberals are in hysterics. Meanwhile, environment groups have backed in our improvements. Greenpeace have said this is 'a significant improvement on the broken laws that have for too long failed to deliver credible environment protection'. Climate Council said:

This deal strengthens protections for our native forests, and provides a faster yes to responsible renewable energy projects that cut climate pollution.

The Bob Brown Foundation has acknowledged the hard work of the Greens in making important gains, especially taking Australia a step further towards saving a forest and woodland habitats of threatened species. The Australian Conservation Foundation called this 'a historic step for nature', with our forests 'finally covered by national law' for the first time.

Despite these significant wins for nature however, we know there's a lot more to be done. Despite huge public support, Labor has repeatedly refused to support a climate trigger. This failure prevents the environment minister from considering climate damage when approving projects. How absurd. What a disaster. What a shocking weakness in the face of all the science that's telling us the climate crisis is coming at us harder and faster than previously predicted. As Bob Brown recently said:

Having an Environment Minister who can't act on the greatest threat to our environment and ourselves, which is climate change, is like a Treasurer who has no power over tax.

It makes no sense. Labor's refusal to take meaningful climate action shows that the coal-and-gas lobby still have way too much influence on both major parties in this place.

Take today's emissions projections report, prepared by the climate department, for example. It clearly shows that the current absence of climate policies has Australia on track to reach just a 48 per cent reduction by 2035, nowhere near the government's 62 per cent target. Forty-eight per cent is a country mile away from the 62 per cent emissions reduction that Labor promised. We know that Labor will fall significantly short of even its 2030 target without stronger action. These are diabolical pollution numbers that suggest we are on track for cataclysmic climate change. The numbers in this report show Australia is nowhere near meeting our supposed climate targets for pollution reduction, which is directly thanks to decisions like Labor's approval of the North West Shelf gas project within two weeks of being elected this year. Labor must stop approving new coal and gas. It should also build on the momentum of the EPBC agreement today and immediately move to end all native forest logging to help hit the 2030 target.

In the face of so much climate inaction from this government, I'm delighted to be joining Rising Tide in Newcastle for the third time tomorrow and to paddle out into the beautiful Hunter River to protest our export of coal. The show of solidarity of hundreds of South Australians will be joining that of so many other Australians from around the country at Newcastle's Rising Tide. It's a powerful protest against fossil fuels and the damage they are doing to our world. It is time to end new coal and gas. We see the effects of not having done so everywhere around our planet, including and not least in my own state, South Australia. Like so many South Australians, I grieved the loss and damage caused by the harmful algae bloom that's unfolding in front of our eyes on our beautiful beaches, with thousands of dead fish and no sign of abatement, a crisis that continues and, in some places, is getting worse. Scientists have warned us for years: fossil fuels are driving the climate crisis, and this ocean warming is risking our beautiful marine life, our food systems and our beaches. Labor can throw money at cleaning up climate disasters, but, as long as the government keeps opening up coal and gas, we'll keep seeing climate disasters like the algae bloom crisis in South Australia.

The show of solidarity at Rising Tide speaks for itself. Australians are fed up with the major parties' commitment to fossil fuels. There will be kids, parents, grandparents, coalminers and Novocastrians who know the need for transition, have seen it before and know that they're facing another one, busloads of South Australians. We'll be protesting for our future, for the future of all of us and for the future of all the kids to come.

It being 5 pm, the time allotted for consideration of the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 and related bills, as well as nine other bills, is expired.

Pursuant to contingent notice standing in the name of the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, I move:

That so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent further consideration of the bills until 6.30 pm.

In moving this motion, I think it's a great opportunity to continue to ventilate this dodgy deal that we've seen over here between Labor and the Greens, done in a smoke filled room in the ministerial wing of this building away from prying eyes, or maybe it was in the new sumptuous Greens party room down the corridor. We will never know, because these deals will never come out, but I think it is good to have this extended time for scrutiny. I now have realised why Labor and the Greens want to get out of this building tonight. The last speaker belled the cat on why. I now suspect that Senator Wong, Senator Gallagher and others are joining the Greens at this paddle-out in Newcastle. I did not know that the Labor Party were surfers as well, but they're going to go out, and they're going to blockade this coal port and prevent these important fossil fuels from getting in or out of our country and prevent the economy from functioning.

I think it is important that this sham process that these poor members of the Public Service have had to sit through—forced to sit here and watch the sausage being made. I'm sorry. I really am. There's no time for scrutiny, no proper accountability, no respect for this chamber of the parliament, no ability to answer basic questions and no respect for the people of Australia and the people of the forestry industry. We have established that here by the simple fact that the Australian Greens have celebrated this victory today. This deal done between Labor and the Greens is something that they've been wanting for a very long time because it brings about the death of the native forestry industry in Australia. They would not be voting for this if it didn't do that.

The ridiculous claims by the minister of, 'No, no. The Greens are voting for something that grows the forestry industry because of this growth fund of $300 million,' are madness. I can guarantee you that, when Senator McKim and Senator Whish-Wilson go back down to Tasmania, they're not going to be talking about forestry industry growth as a result of the deal done this week. They're going to be talking about the demise of this evil industry that's been propped up by the taxpayers for so long. So I tell you that this is why we need to get to the bottom of this dirty, dodgy deal that was done between Labor and the Greens to shut down these important industries and make it more difficult than ever before to do business in this country.

I feel most aggrieved at the way in which the Labor Party, along with their coalition partners in this new Labor-Greens alliance, have approached democracy and accountability. They shut it down. The point was made earlier on today that the one non-contro bill we had to debate in this place—was it an hour and a quarter or thereabouts of debate time for one non-contro bill? There are seven bills in this package, and, as was originally slated, that's about the amount of time we had to debate these bills in this place, bills that govern a public good, Australia's environment. It's something that belongs to everyone, not just the government and certainly not just the Greens—thank the good Lord; I can tell you. It's something that is an important driver for our economy and something that our future generations need to have a say over as well. They're going to need jobs. They're going to need places to live. They're going to need to be able to pay their power bills. But under this legislation, of course, there is a real concern that all of those things are going to be impossible. I really do worry about the short-sighted nature of this and the fact that we don't have any scrutiny available to do this.

So I am putting forward to this chamber—I suppose I'd better be relevant to the question before the chair, which is that we extend—that we need this extra hour and a half to interrogate this legislation. I'm sure that Senator Pocock, Senator Cadell, Senator Bell and Senator Barbara Pocock all have questions to ask this government that is so desperately wanting to get out of this place to join the paddle-out, to blockade the Newcastle port and to end fossil fuel exports, but honestly I'm just so disappointed. Maybe you could come down to Tasmania when the Senate rises, and we can look those forestry workers in the eyes and tell them what you've actually done. But, at the end of the day, it's not a surprise to us that of course this government has done this. They wanted to chalk up a win. They were happy to do a deal with anyone. It just so happens that the Australian Greens' price was—well, we don't actually know. Maybe I'll use the next hour and a half to ask about what that price was. I don't know how much bigger that sumptuous party room could be made, but maybe there's an ensuite being added on, an annex or a patio. I don't know. We'll see! Either way, it won't get through any EPBC laws—this government will have strangled any new development applications, and the party room will be no bigger. I commend this motion to extend the debate to the Senate.

Can I indicate—and this might truncate Senator Pocock's contribution—that the government is inclined to support this motion. It's up to the chamber, but I was proposing that I move that the question be put. If no-one calls divisions on that and the substantive motion, we can return to consideration of the committee immediately. I thought I would just explain that to the Senate. I'm not trying to shut it down, but, by closing this motion earlier, we return to committee quicker. On that basis, I move:

That the question be now put.

Question agreed to.

Original question agreed to.

I want to go back to one of the points that I was making about the reason why the exemption came in in the first place, which goes to the issue of the continuous flow of legal action and appeal against the forest industry, which is why we moved to the RFA model in the first place. I'm curious to understand the standing provisions and how the government intends to manage the situation under the new act so that the forest industry doesn't have to suffer a return to the process of continuous challenge to operations, which is basically a mechanism to disrupt. I suspect that the reason the Greens are supporting this legislation is that they know they're going to be able to go back to this continuous cycle of challenge to the industry. How does the government intend to manage that process?

Sorry, Senator Colbeck. Would you mind repeating the very last part, including the direct question?

My question is: how do you intend to manage the standing provisions within the act, which I know the Samuel review indicated should be expanded, which is of concern? As I indicated in my previous contribution, we already know that environmental groups don't always tell the truth. I go back to 1981, when the Wilderness Society were opposing the construction of coal-fired power stations in Tasmania, rather than renewable energy, and there's the recent action where a court found that one of the environmental groups was actually fabricating evidence against a proposal so that legal action could delay or stop the proposal.

My genuine concern is that that process will return with the removal of the exemption and that the forest industry will be killed off by a thousand cuts through that process. You'll say that that wasn't your doing. My view is that the removal of the exemption is what does it. How do you intend to ensure that the industry isn't subjected to a continuous flow of legal actions, which will effectively make it very difficult if not impossible to operate?

I apologise; I didn't hear your question the first time you asked it. Your question goes to the point around standing to sue, essentially, and there are no changes and no expansions of standing to sue in this legislation. In fact, I think I'm right in saying that Professor Samuel's review did not recommend an expansion of standing to sue. That is the key reason why we haven't done so. There's no extension of standing to sue. This is not a point around standing, but, on the general topic around the ability to appeal decisions under the EPBC, one change that we have made—I doubt that this is relevant to regional forest agreements—as you may be aware, is that under the act there's the ability for certain parties and certain individuals to seek a reconsideration of a decision as to whether a project is a controlled action or not. Currently, under the existing law, those sorts of applications for a reconsideration decision can be made in perpetuity. It's not uncommon for us to see applications seeking reconsiderations of much earlier decisions—that a project was not a controlled action. In fact, you will remember the Macquarie Harbour situation, where that's exactly what occurred.

You might remember my private member's bill to get over it.

I do. What we have done in these amendments is to limit the timeframe for someone to seek a reconsideration of an earlier, not-controlled-action decision. It will be limited to 28 days from the point at which the not-controlled-action decision is made. That simply brings the time period for those kinds of applications in line with the usual judicial review timeframes that exist across government legislation.

In the context of this debate, I just wanted to first say what an extraordinary job Minister Watt has done. I acknowledge the work that he, Senator Waters and Senator Hanson-Young have engaged in to achieve this legislation, which is important for the country. I want to express disappointment that the opposition was not able to participate in negotiations in the way that we would have hoped from a party of government. Also, because I need to put it on the Hansard, I indicate to the chamber that I'm not able to be here from 6.30 pm, and so I appoint Senator Gallagher as Acting Leader of the Government in the Senate from 6.30 tonight.

Minister, I've got a few questions about the rulings power. I might put two questions to you, if that's alright.

Yes.

Are rulings intended to be limited by the rest of the act? For example, do they have to be consistent with the objects of the act? Secondly, will the government commit to the rulings power under these reforms being only used to ensure improved environmental protection outcomes so that the public can be confident that it won't be used in any nefarious way by future ministers?

Thanks, Senator Pocock. I think we had a discussion earlier about rulings, and again that was one of Professor Samuel's recommendations. It's similar in nature to the tax rulings that the tax office can provide to aid interpretation of the tax act. It's a similar principle here. The purpose of this new power that ministers will have to issue rulings is to aid interpretation of sections in this act. One of the reasons for doing so is to provide all interested parties with a clearer sense of what sorts of decisions are likely to be made.

To answer your questions, yes, any rulings would need to be consistent with the objects of the act. Secondly, I don't think it's really possible to give a commitment that rulings will only improve environmental outcomes or reduce environmental outcomes. I wouldn't think of the rulings as taking a side on these sorts of issues. What they are simply about is providing the minister's interpretation of how the law should be applied.

Can you confirm that rulings were not recommended by Professor Samuel in his review of the act? Why are they contained in this package?

I'm sorry, Senator Pocock, I may have inadvertently misled you in my previous answer. I was of the understanding that Professor Samuel did recommend rulings in his review. I can see him up there, and he probably knows better than me. What I'm advised is that it wasn't in his review that he recommended rulings; he subsequently spoke of, including at the Senate committee inquiry, the benefit of rulings.

I have some questions about the national interest proposal pathway. Looking at the drafting, I'm interested in knowing what is envisaged to be the sort of information that is so confidential that it couldn't be included in the requisite reasons for a declaration that a proposal is in the national interest.

There has obviously been a lot of public interest in the provision in the bill that has become known as the national interest approval power. What this involves is rare situations where, in the national interest, the minister of the day decides that it is in the national interest to approve a project despite it not meeting the usual national environmental standards. That is a dramatic thing to do; I recognise that. That's why it is limited to national interest circumstances and we have said that it should be rarely used.

I would say that any decision to approve such a project in the national interest would only occur after a full assessment of the project under the EPBC Act and following the usual public consultation requirements that are undertaken during an assessment, and proponents would be required to reduce the impacts of their project. It's not a complete carte blanche of: 'Just go and do whatever you want.' It involves assessment, consultation, 'reduce your impacts' and 'avoid your impacts', but it preserves a power for an elected government and an elected minister to make that rare decision to approve a project even if it doesn't meet the national environmental standards.

The examples that were provided in the legislation related particularly to Defence and national security projects. I haven't got a particular project in mind, but you could imagine that there may be a time in the future, in a wartime situation, where a particular naval base or other Defence Force facility may need to be built urgently in a particular location that may have some environmental impacts and would not ordinarily receive an approval, because of those levels of impact and because it didn't meet the standards. But it may be in that type of situation that the minister of the day decides, notwithstanding that there will be significant environmental impacts and after whatever avoidance or mitigation of those impacts is undertaken, that it may still be in the national interest to approve that project going ahead if, for example, it was required for the conduct of operations in a wartime environment.

One of the other, if you like, safeguards or transparency measures associated with this power is that the minister is required to provide a statement of reasons or an explanation of the basis of their decision. However, as you pointed out, there are circumstances—which, again, are linked back to the national interest—where the minister may not be required to provide such a statement of explanation. To keep going with that analogy that I was providing you, it may be that, in a wartime environment, it's not a very good idea for a minister to put out in public, for all people and all countries to see, the full details relating to that project. They would be the sorts of circumstances that I can think of—perish the thought that we ever get to that—where a minister might not only decide it is in the national interest to approve that sort of project but also decide it's not in the national interest to publish their reasons in full and information about the kinds of environmental impacts that the project might have.

As you said, this national interest exemption is a dramatic thing, and I think that the example that you've given is probably the most extreme that most Australians could think up. I think most Australians would accept the wartime explanation, but the definition of national interest under the act is actually very broad. It includes things like strategic interest and international obligations. So I'm interested in what certainty this gives nature and business on the types of situations that would give rise to the national interest. Could you say a little bit more. If it isn't wartime, what are the reasons to not tell us the reasons and to say, 'This is so confidential that we can't tell Australians.'

I'll ask another question so we can get through them quicker. You go through the process as you've outlined, but then the government says: 'This is actually in the national interest. We need to do it.' Does that damage then also have to be offset, or do you just get a free pass on offsetting?

I think the short answer is that it depends on the situation. We've already acknowledged, and it's inherent in this power, that the type of project we're talking about would not meet national environmental standards, including standards relating to offsets. That's why, as I've said repeatedly, we would expect this power to be used rarely—only where it is in the national interest—with the minister in usual circumstances providing a statement explaining the basis of that decision. Another example of where you might not want to provide that sort of transparent statement might be that you may not want to specify the location of that particular facility for national interest, wartime or national security reasons. But we intend that it be used rarely and only in circumstances where it's clearly in the national interest to do so.

On my second question, would the government, Defence or whoever the proponent is then have to 'pay to destroy'? Would they have to pay into the fund as well?

It is entirely possible that in that situation a proponent could be required to pay into a restoration fund. That can absolutely be done.

Sorry, Minister—'could' or 'would'? We're getting to the point where they've gone through all the steps. It can't be avoided. You're giving them the green light, and then you're saying that they could pay into the fund? Surely this has been clarified.

The answer is 'could', because, as we've said earlier today, offsets can be delivered either by the proponent finding the offsets—in terms of the land that they might buy, maintain or regenerate—or equally, in certain circumstances, by the proponent being able to deliver their offsets requirement through financial contributions to that restoration fund. It's impossible to predict here and now whether a particular project would be required to meet 100 per cent of its offsets obligation or where it might be 90 per cent or 80 per cent. But absolutely it is entirely possible for those sorts of projects to contribute to that fund.

Minister, I think I've misasked the question. If the proponent can't find offsets, the last resort is paying into the fund. I just want to confirm that, if they can't find any offsets, they will then, even if it's for defence or national security, still have to pay into the fund so that we can get some sort of offset or net gain.

Again, because it is a national interest approval that doesn't comply fully with the National Environmental Standards, all I can say is that that project could be required to contribute to the fund, and the amount that is contributed will depend on the individual case.

Minister, I guess, for people listening, that would probably raise concerns. It's a bit like saying, 'If you're a person or a business, you can't cut down a tree, but, if we're the government, we can cut down the tree, because we're the government.' I would have expected that there would be similar rules. Regardless of who is actually destroying nature, nature is being destroyed. But I accept your answer there, and we'll try to look at the detail.

Just on the EPA, we look at compliance with existing EPBC laws, and we know that everything rests on these laws actually being upheld. We've seen a number of breaches of our federal environmental laws, and I really welcome your work on increasing penalties, setting up an EPA and ensuring that there is more compliance. But I would be interested if you could maybe tell the Senate about resourcing and give us a commitment that the EPA will be sufficiently resourced to ensure that it can undertake that function.

Thanks, Senator Pocock. We the government, and we the members of the Labor Party, have really held up the creation of the National Environmental Protection Agency as one of the most important aspects of this reform. It's a historic achievement in its own right, and the point of it is to strengthen the compliance and enforcement activities regarding environmental law, in addition to other roles that the federal EPA will have, including providing advice to a minister about whether or not to approve a project and including the assessment of projects which will be undertaken by an EPA.

We have begun the work around the implementation of these reforms. Of course, our highest priority has been finalising the drafting of this legislation and getting it through the parliament, but I've already mentioned that we've begun work on things that, frankly, we weren't required to do in order to get this law passed, such as starting the drafting of standards, and we've also begun the work around implementation of the reforms, with some early thinking being done about the structure and resourcing of an EPA. I'm not going to pretend that we've got that all solved yet. The new EPA won't start until 1 July next year, so there remains time to finalise that thinking, finalise resourcing and finalise the structure. But, certainly, that work has commenced.

It may well be that there are new resources required for the national EPA to undertake some of its activities, but equally I would expect that some of its resources would be found through savings generated in the department in the sense that some of the roles that will be performed by the national EPA are currently performed by officials in the department. It's reasonable to expect that some, many, most—whatever it might end up being—of those officials currently in the department would move across to the EPA. It's not as if it needs to be set up as if it has no staff; there would be staff who would move across. But it's quite possible there may need to be new resources—and, unfortunately, the finance minister is no longer in the chamber for me to prosecute my case about that. I'll do that offline.

We agree with your broader point about the need for active compliance and enforcement of these laws. That is actually one of the motivations for setting up the national EPA in the first place.

I have a few questions, if I may, quickly. I'm putting my emergency management hat on and then my forestry hat. I think there are a lot of outcomes we all share. It's just that the methods in getting to them may be different. I understand that hazard reduction burns and preparatory burns are not affected by this legislation—can you confirm that?

The short answer to your question is that there is nothing in these laws that prevents hazard reduction burns. However, if a hazard reduction burn would have a significant impact on a nationally protected environmental matter, such as a threatened species—any activity that is likely to have a significant impact on a nationally protected matter requires EPBC assessment and approval. A hazard reduction burn may fall into that category. It doesn't mean that can't occur, but it means that, if someone wanted to do that hazard burn and it was going to have that impact, they would need to go through an EPBC assessment and approval.

There are a couple of ways to shortcut that process. Having been in that portfolio, I know that these things get done every year but often at fairly short notice. It's dependent on what the weather is like at any particular point in time. The first step in getting those sorts of burns approved would obviously be to try and avoid those significant impacts on particular species. But, if that couldn't be done, then there is an existing provision in the act that goes to national interest exemptions from the act.

That's a little bit different from what we were talking about with Senator Pocock. He was asking about the national interest approval of an individual project, which, as I was saying, still needs to go through EPBC assessment, consultation et cetera. A national interest exemption is slightly different in that it provides an entire exemption from the act. It doesn't need to go through the assessment and approval process. I, in fact, granted one of them not that long ago in relation to remediation works following a natural disaster, which urgently needed to be done. If that had had to go through the usual EPBC process, that could have taken a very long time. This work needed to be done quickly. So I was able to grant an exemption from the act to allow that work to occur.

So even under the existing law it's possible to seek an exemption from the act—I guess it would most likely be a state government—if they could demonstrate that that activity were in the national interest. So that's one pathway where it could be approved more quickly than going through the usual processes.

You would have heard me talk about some of the new fast-tracking processes or streamlined assessment processes. At least one of those pathways could be used for this kind of activity as well. In fact, we are already in discussion with the Victorian government around some of these issues through a process which is known as a strategic assessment which, effectively, is a way of trying to in-build processes to allow for quicker approvals of these types of activities. So it's still paying attention to the standards that are needed, the need to avoid impacts, but trying to allow these kinds of decisions to happen more quickly while still not destroying the environment.

The specific perverse outcomes I want to get to are like the case of Pilliga. Pilliga had a population of, I think, 15,000 koalas. It had river gums and ironbarks, and it also had logging in it, with cypress. It was locked up, the fuel load increased, and there were fires in 2017-18. The recovery saw the non-native species overtake the gums and the koala habitat. The population is now estimated to be somewhere in the low hundreds—50 to 200. Under these EPBC acts, if they have to go through approvals, is the consequence of not acting taken into account for back burns for management for thinning in these cases?

What we're trying to do here is find ways—and we'll work with proponents, whether they be state governments or individual companies—for their activities to avoid those sorts of significant impacts on the environment. I think, in direct answer to the question, I'm not so sure that the government, in making this decision, would consider what risks arise from not allowing an activity to happen, such as a hazard reduction burn. There are obviously criteria within the act that need to be considered when deciding whether to approve something, whether it happens or not. That's what the decisions are always based on. In this situation, one way you might be able to do that is to come to an agreement that there'd be more regular but smaller and less intense burns that may not have as dramatic an impact on threatened species as if you did one really big one. So there are ways around these things.

I have two questions regarding forestry and the $300 million package. I've had communications from people not knowing what that is for or what that is about. I know it's new. Will there be an education program where things go out relatively quickly on that? If so, can you enlighten us as to what it may cover, what it may not cover and when we might expect some education?

Sure. It sounded like you were asking if there would be education and information about the fund, in particular. We've only just announced the Forestry Growth Fund today. I heard Senator Canavan making fun of the fact that we are saying that we will work with industry, unions and governments to design the fund, as if it's a bad thing that, in designing a fund, you would actually talk to the people affected.

What we've attempted to do today is to announce the dollar figures—$300 million—and the types of things that we would see those funds being used for, and we've said we want to work with all the interested stakeholders on the proper design and determine the very best use of those funds. As I've said before, it's actually about supporting the forestry industry to grow—to move up the value chain, to produce higher-quality, higher-value products, and therefore to ensure that the jobs in the industry don't just stay but grow, going forward. That's really broadly what it's about.

In the hours since this was announced, both the forestry minister, Julie Collins, and I have undertaken a fairly brief but important meeting with a number of industry players about the changes that we're making and about the fund. We also did take the opportunity to point out to them that certain coalition members have—I'm not sure whether you've done this, Senator Cadell, but certain coalition members have—misrepresented what we're doing here, so we took the opportunity to make very clear what we are doing and what we are not doing, despite what some people might be saying. Clearly we will need not only to develop this fund—exactly what it can be used for, who's eligible, when the payments are available and that kind of thing—but also to inform people about that fund. It was only announced at eight this morning, so we'll need a little more time than that to get the information out to people.

Finally, this is about the information and misinformation. There isn't a lot of certainty out there. Here's a text we've had from a player today: 'There's been no communication with us before making the announcement today. As a family business that has been involved in hardwood native forestry for at least four generations, we are devastated by this decision. The three-year timeframe'—and now I think it's an 18-month timeframe, but there's still that misinformation on time—'doesn't allow for the time it takes to grow hardwood trees in plantation of 30 to 50 years. We use a variety of timber species from native forests that cannot be successfully grown in plantation forests. We have to re-evaluate our business as to whether it's worth continuing in the industry.' What education or dissemination program will be there so that these people can make judgements, which they are seeking to do in a very short time?

Senator Cadell, it's a reasonable concern for people. They want to understand what this government policy means. Again, I'm not accusing you, personally, of doing this, but one thing that would really help would be for people to resist the temptation to go out and misrepresent to people what these changes are. We've seen, over the course of the day, members of the coalition, state and federal, and also members of the Greens party, state and federal, suggest that what we're doing here is closing down native forestry, or that this is another step towards native forestry, which it's not. So it would really help, in terms of not alarming people unnecessarily, if people didn't go out and misrepresent the situation.

One of the statements that Minister Collins and I made in that briefing of industry players earlier today was that we recognise that people want more information, and I get that. Over the course of the next few days and weeks, we will be providing further briefings to industry generally, including to unions that represent the workers in those industries.

I will say, there have been some discussions, over the course of this consultation process for these laws, about what, if anything, we should do regarding RFAs, given the recommendations Professor Samuel made. You know, we haven't just dreamt this stuff up. There are two clear recommendations in Professor Samuel's review that we're implementing. People might like them, and people might not like them, but the recommendations are there. Clearly, day one is not the day that you give everyone every bit of information, because people need a bit of time to absorb it, think about it and have that information provided. But, absolutely, we will be doing that.

Minister, I've got a few questions about unacceptable impacts, and this was something that came up in the Senate committee process, and I think there were some questions on notice to a few of the witnesses. Could you confirm that the precautionary principle will apply to the interpretation of the new 'unacceptable impacts' test being introduced in the act? In other words, where there's credible evidence that a proposed action may cause serious or irreversible harm to matters of national environmental significance, but there's scientific uncertainty, will the government ensure decision-makers are required to err on the side of environmental protection rather than wait for absolute proof of damage?

If something is likely to increase the risk of extinction, but we just don't have the data on that—noting that one of the big challenges in Australia is that we haven't put enough resources over decades into monitoring. Here in the ACT, we've been doing once-a-decade small mammal surveys. If you look at the surveys, there were antechinus and dunnarts and all these small marsupials in 1985, but when we did the surveys in 1994, they were gone. We have no idea what happened there. There is not enough data to be able to make good projections. So I'm interested if you can confirm whether the precautionary principle will apply.

Yes it will, Senator Pocock.

I'm interested in the planning aspects of this bill. Obviously, planning is central to both the existing act and the new act. Minister, what are the benefits of landscape-scale assessment rather than project-by-project assessment? How do the current reforms differ from the existing regulations?

Thanks, Senator Ghosh, for this question. Can I put on record my extreme gratitude to Senator Ghosh, as the Chair of the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, for so ably steering the inquiry into this bill to date. While I'm at it, I thank all senators, regardless of party, who've contributed and participated in this process. I recognise that these reforms and the legislation behind them are complicated, contentious and far-reaching in their effect, and I really do appreciate the immense amount of work that senators have put in over the last few weeks since the bill was introduced in the House, conducting an inquiry and providing an opportunity for a very broad range of stakeholders to be heard as to their opinion on the legislation. I note that the submissions made to that inquiry, both written and verbal, have very much influenced the government's thinking in terms of the amendments that have been provided and inserted here. Again, I really do thank all the senators, including Senator Grogan, who sits behind me, for the work they did on that inquiry.

In answer your question, Senator Ghosh, one of the reforms that we're driving through this legislation is to enable what are referred to as landscape-scale assessments. This particularly comes up in the context of regional planning, which is, again, something we're reforming in this legislation to make better use of it. What regional planning really comes down to is—the way I describe the usual situation is that an individual project might be seeking approval, might be assessed for its individual impacts and might have to find its own environmental offsets, and every project is assessed in its own right.

One of the downsides of doing things that way—there are a few—is that, first of all, we don't make use of the information that is provided by proponents and considered by assessors to think about what the impact of that particular project might be in a local landscape or local region in combination with other development that are occurring. While one individual project in its own right might not have a particularly significant impact on nationally protected matters, if you put together that individual project with the five others that are planned for the next couple of years in the same area, that could have a very dramatic impact on the environment in that local area. But because at the moment the system operates in a way that considers every individual project in its own right, that might mean that you're not considering the cumulative impacts on the environment of all of those projects put together.

To get back to regional planning, that is an alternative way of considering and approving projects that does take into account that cumulative impact of a combination of projects on the environment. Through the regional planning mechanism that we want to be using a lot more often, and will be able to as a result of these reforms, that will mean we can work with state governments, local governments, local communities, local industries, local scientists, local environment groups to nominate, first of all, with a state government a particular region where we want to do a regional plan. We can then work with all of those different parties and include community consultation around where, within that region, the areas are that have very high environmental values and so where we shouldn't be approving developments—what I call no-go zones—and, equally, what are the areas within that same region where the environmental values are quite low and where development could happen. And not just happen, but be approved much more quickly because we've already assessed what the environmental value of that part of the region is.

Of course there are a lot of other areas that are in between, that aren't necessarily a go zone or a no-go zone, and they're the sorts of areas where development might be able to occur with offsets in that region in order to gain an approval. That process allows us to think about the landscape in that region as a whole, rather than that one-off individual project impact, and to think about the cumulative impacts of several projects in a region. It allows us to consider what the environmental impacts of what those several projects might be when considering whether they should be approved, and when considering whether there are areas within that region where that combination of developments could go ahead without causing massive damage to the environment.

It's an alternative way of thinking about environmental impacts and planning. You'll think about where can you have a combination of projects happening that will be okay because we've already done the work upfront to identify that there are limited impacts in that area. Or where are the areas where one project in its own right might not be a problem, but a combination of projects might be a real problem. So it's a different way of approaching this, and I think it will be a really exciting way to approach these issues in the future.

Minister, I will put two questions to you. The first one is on recovery plans. As I understand it, looking at the legislation, recovery plans can now be overridden by protection statements. I'm interested in what is behind the desire to undermine recovery plans. As I understand it, recovery plans are the most robust document for helping a threatened species to recover.

Secondly, maybe just to assist the committee—I know Senator McKim would like to make a second reading debate speech—on no controlled action decisions, the reforms shorten the time frame for public interest consideration of no controlled action decisions to 28 days. Given we know that science is constantly changing and our understanding of ecosystems is constantly changing, does this 28 days not prevent the minister from considering good science after that period?

Thanks, Senator Pocock. I will deal with your second question first. We have made a change around the length of time someone can seek a reconsideration of a controlled action decision. As I was saying before, that really just brings that timeframe into line with the usual length of time that someone can apply for judicial review of a government decision for. I think the way you asked the question, Senator Pocock, implied that we were limiting the timeframe that people had to seek reconsideration of a not-controlled-action decision. We haven't done that. The change is to controlled-action decisions.

On the first question, which was about recovery plans, the way I think about it is that it's not so much that protection statements are replacing recovery plans. We see it more as protection statements forming a subset of recovery plans. Really, the purpose of the protection statements—again, this was based on a lot of feedback not just from industry groups but from environment groups as well—is that we have these recovery plans that don't necessarily influence decision-making in the way that they should, and protection statements are effectively a way of bringing up, to aid decision-making, the information that's contained in those recovery plans. We think that that will actually lead to better decisions that really take into account some of the risks to species, as set out in recovery plans.

Thank you, Minister. That makes sense. Is there a provision, then, that the protection statement can't go against the recovery plan and must actually aid it?

I'm advised that there's not such a statement. However, there's a role for the Threatened Species Scientific Committee in providing advice on both protection statements and recovery plans. I think that, to some extent, addresses the concern you have.

On that—and I guess it's also linked to the species or ecosystems you said earlier that can't be offset—if the Threatened Species Scientific Committee recommends that a species or ecosystem be included on their list, does the minister have to accept that? If they don't, do they have to provide a public explanation as to why they're not taking the advice of the scientific committee to protect a species from being able to be offset?

Senator Pocock, rather than risk giving you the wrong answer, I might just take that one on notice and come back to you in a few minutes, once I've got some further advice.

I rise not so much to give a second reading contribution as to make a few observations on the legislation broadly and how we find ourselves here this evening. I'm not going to indulge in a long, personal reflection here, but my journey into politics actually began in 1986, at a place called Farmhouse Creek in Tasmania, where I was arrested sitting in front of the bulldozers that were seeking to destroy beautiful old-growth and mixed temperate forest down there, with beautiful Eucalyptus regnans, the biggest flowering plant on the planet. I was arrested down there, and my mum famously told me that my life would now never amount to anything because I'd been arrested. Looking around me today, she probably had some kind of an argument about that.

The reason I mention that is that, as an activist, forest protection has been a core part of what's driven me into politics. Farmhouse Creek was where I first met Bob Brown, and I've done my best to fight for forests and to represent the need to protect our forest ecosystems for a large part of my life. That's why today I'm really happy that legislation will pass through this place that will end the outrageous carve-out from Australia's federal environment laws that has been enjoyed by the native forest logging industry for decades in this country. It never should have been carved out that logging done under a regional forestry agreement did not have to comply. It never should have been the case that logging conducted under an RFA did not have to comply with the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, and I acknowledge that in the review that Professor Samuel did, he recommended that that carve-out be removed, although it was recommended for the second tranche of reforms.

Removing that carve-out is a significant step towards protecting our forests and, in particular, protecting those parts of our forests that are home to threatened species like that beautiful little bird, the swift parrot, in Tasmania and have been logged towards extinction by the Tasmanian forestry industry for many decades now. I hope that that beautiful little bird—one of the fastest parrots in the world, one of the only migratory parrots in the world—is given a fighting chance of survival by the reforms that we are passing today. It's regrettable that the government wouldn't come at a transition period of shorter than 18 months, and, frankly, I don't understand why they couldn't because there was no administrative reason that the government could not have come at a shorter transition. I can only assume that it was a political decision rather than a policy decision which led the government to dig in so obstinately on an 18-month transition.

We've been waiting for more than two decades for this, in the environment movement and in the forest movement, and I believe that it's a significant win for our forests. I also believe it will hasten the long-overdue end to the native forest logging industry in Australia. Native forest logging is an industry whose time has come, and, in fact, it is well past time that we stopped destroying our native forests in this country. Since colonisation, this land has been subjected to a 'slash and burn' regime that has devastated its ecosystems, including its forest ecosystems. It's time for that devastation to end.

We are living through the breakdown of our planet's climate system. We are living through a biodiversity catastrophe. When you have climate breakdown—and it is at crisis levels—and when you have a collapse of biodiversity—and Australia is at the forefront of that on a planetary scale—there is simply no excuse for a public policy setting that continues to ensure that our native forests are clear felled, mostly for export woodchips, and then the remnants are napalmed and burnt, releasing massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. It's time for that archaic, barbaric slaughter of nature to end.

I want to say one thing to people that work in the native forest logging industry—and, by the way, the forestry industry more broadly loves to spout numbers about how many people work in the forestry industry. But those of us that have been watching this debate—I've been in politics now, in Tasmania, for 25 years or so, and I've been watching this debate very closely. Everybody knows the overwhelming majority of forestry jobs are actually in the plantation sector, not in the native forest logging sector. Here's a little statistic for those who are interested. There are more newsagents in Tasmania than there are people that work in the native forest logging industry. But I want to say this to people that work in the industry: it is absolutely not your fault that things need to change. When circumstances change, when climate change gets worse and when the biodiversity crisis gets worse then public policy has to change, and we absolutely have to look after impacted workers as we undergo the necessary transition out of logging native forests.

I want to say to the government, in relation to the fund that they've established: that fund should be a transition fund; it must be used to help transition people out of native forest logging into not only the plantation sector but also rewilding and environmental management. There are jobs-rich opportunities for people and communities in regional Tasmania, regional New South Wales and other parts of the country in industry sectors that are going to boom in coming generations. What this fund should not be used for is to pay out forest businesses that have, in many cases, already received multiple payouts to leave the industry, have then phoenixed themselves back into the industry and then received more payments to get back out of the industry again. I refer the minister to multiple Australian National Audit Office reports that have confirmed the massive rorts that have gone on in forest exit packages over decades in this country. I genuinely hope that the government ensures that those kinds of rorts—that kind of phoenixing back into the industry—do not occur in relation to this latest fund.

Work with communities. Work with affected workers and impacted workers. Help and support them to genuinely transition into sustainable jobs that are fit for purpose, that will be rewarding for the individuals and communities involved and that will actually contribute to repairing some of the terrible damage that the native forest logging industry has wrought on our ecosystems for far too long.

I want to offer some reflections about negotiations with the Labor Party. This is based on my experience through the safeguard mechanism negotiations and the negotiations around the bills that are currently before the Senate. Make no mistake: the Labor Party has a track record of destroying nature, of destroying our climate and of not giving a fig about protecting ecosystems. This is the minister who came in just after the last election—

Senator, McKim, your time has expired.

Is that right?

The TEMPORARY CHAIR: I'm watching the clock. I'm sorry, Senator McKim, your time's expired. I did not hear any questions from the time I took over the chair, so I'll put the—Senator Ghosh.

Minister, I'd like to ask about development zones and conservation zones and to have an explanation, at a conceptual level, of how they would operate and why they're important for achieving the goals in the act relating to both faster approvals and a clearer understanding of what parts of Australia's environment will be unlikely to be approved for developmental projects.

Sorry, Senator Ghosh, I'm pretty sure I caught your question. I was just clarifying what the hard marker is for this debate. I understand it's 6.30, for those who've had enough!

We can extend again!

I love talking about EPBC reform. I don't know what I'm going to do when I can't talk about EPBC reform! My office has got a few ideas! Senator Ghosh, I think your question went to the go zones, or the development zones, within regional plans and how that will assist business certainty and project approvals and the environment. I think that was the nature of your question.

I also asked about conservation zones, in that question.

That, Senator Ghosh, is because in my experience you're a very balanced human being who likes balanced reforms that deliver for both business and the environment. Just to expand a little bit on the answer I gave to your previous question, talking about regional plans, more broadly the regional planning is a really good example of that kind of balanced approach that we've sought to take in these reforms more generally and which Professor Samuel sought in his reform package as a whole.

The regional plans, as I was saying before, allow the federal government to work with the state government, local governments, industry, conservation groups and scientists to identify, within a particular region, the areas that should be, if you like, earmarked for development—they're go zones or development zones; call them what you will—and the areas that should be earmarked for protection because of the high environmental values that apply. That will both enable better protection for the environment, by identifying areas in a particular region where development shouldn't occur, and help business, because we not only would be identifying development zones, or go zones, within a particular region but would provide a much faster approval process for projects that occur there.

I can think of a situation in the future, once we have these regional plans up and running, where, for example, a particular proponent for a particular project has multiple choices about where in a particular region they site a project. Obviously, there are some types of development that can only go in a certain place. If we're talking about a mine, it can only happen where the mineral resource is. If we're talking about a wind farm, it's got to be windy. But there are some projects where there's a level of flexibility around where development occurs. Housing would be a good example. A developer might like to build a housing development in a certain location, but, if there are very high environmental values, they might reconsider and decide to proceed with the housing development in an area that's been earmarked as one of those development zones, or go zones. If they're prepared to do it there and avoid the environmental impacts, they will get the benefit of a much faster approval than they will get if they try to site it somewhere that has serious environmental complications. So that would be an example of where you would get that dual benefit: it is better for business, you might get housing online more quickly, and you might avoid doing something terrible for the environment as well.

I think you're aware, Senator Ghosh—but I'll say it in case you're not—that we are already undertaking a number of pilots of these regional plans in different parts of the country. I'm certainly aware of a couple in my home state of Queensland. There is one in South-East Queensland that's focusing on housing development, working with the Queensland government and other parties on that. Similarly, there's a regional plan pilot occurring in North Queensland, focusing on wind farm development and where to properly site those kinds of developments. There's also a pilot occurring in north-west Queensland, which is focusing on mining activities. Similarly, there are other pilots occurring in other parts of the country.

I think that over time this will become a really exciting way for us to facilitate the kind of business development that is needed but do it in an environmentally sensitive way and protect the most environmentally sensitive areas within those particular regions.

One of the interesting aspects of the committee process was the difference between industry and environmental organisations in their attitudes to bilateral agreements and the process of state accreditation. Are you able to shed some light both on the importance of bilateral agreements and the state accreditation process and on the safeguards against environmental damage through that process.

Thanks, Senator Ghosh. Again, one of the other important reforms in the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 is to revamp the approach towards what are known as bilateral agreements, agreements between the federal government and a state or territory government. Currently, under the existing law, we do have the capacity to enter into an agreement with a state or territory which allows them to assess—sorry, I was just confirming.

Under the current legislation, there is capacity to enter agreements with states and territories whereby they would either assess a project for its environmental impacts or potentially approve projects. But, in practice, those agreements haven't worked very well. The system is, frankly, just too complicated to allow those agreements to work effectively. What that has meant is that there's only one state in Australia, New South Wales, where we have an effective bilateral agreement with the state government that sees them assess projects not only against their own laws and requirements at state level but against our requirements as well. We want to be able to do that with more states.

The benefit of that goes to the point that we've talked about a lot in this reform process: removing the duplication in the system and speeding up decision-making about projects not by sacrificing environmental standards but by improving our processes. In essence, how this would work is that, if we can enter into those kinds of agreements with state and territory governments where they not only assess and approve a project against their own laws and requirements but also do so against ours, that can massively reduce the amount of time it takes to assess and approve the project overall, because, rather than having a state assessment and a state approval and then doing a federal assessment and a federal approval, they can both happen at the same time and be done by a state government.

Your question is a really important one, and I know that there are people in the community who are concerned that, if a state government were to go rogue and not have the kinds of standards that we expect, there would be a risk that that state might approve projects that otherwise might have been rejected or heavily conditioned at the federal level. Some of the safeguards that are built into that process so as to avoid that kind of thing happening are, firstly, that the states would be required to assess and approve the project against our national environmental standards. So, if you did have a state or territory with lower environmental standards than ours, getting an approval from the state against their standards wouldn't be enough; they would also have to meet our standards.

The second safeguard in the legislation to prevent states doing the wrong thing—to put it simply—is that any bilateral agreement between a state government and a federal government around assessments or approvals of projects would need to be approved by the federal minister based on advice from the federal EPA that the state's processes meet our standards. So, before the agreement is approved, there's effectively a check that the state processes meet our standards. In addition, the federal EPA will be able to audit the state processes every five years to ensure they are up to scratch. We're also proposing the legislation be amended so that the EPA can provide advice to a minister about whether the state processes meet federal requirements if there's a substantial change to state laws or policies within that five-year period. Say there was a change of government in a particular state and the new government had radically lower environmental standards or got rid of public consultation processes or something like that. There's the capacity for a federal EPA to give the federal minister the power to say, 'We have a problem here and the accreditation of that needs to be reviewed.'

Finally, the other safeguard that's built into the system through the amendments to the bill are that, now, every bilateral agreement between a federal government and a state or territory that allows the state to do approvals of a project will have to include, effectively, a call-in power. That is where the federal government still has the ability to say, 'Even though we've got an agreement with you that you will assess and approve projects, if there's a particular project that comes along that's so important environmentally, nationally'—whatever it might be—'the federal government still has the ability to call that project in and say, "It's going to be approved by the federal government instead."'

As I'm talking, I'm thinking about additional safeguards. We've also said, through the amendments, that the approval of water trigger projects—so projects that trigger the water trigger in the act and, in essence, have an impact on the water table, particularly unconventional gas or coal projects—has to be done federally. The argument for that, and why that makes sense, is, if you think about those projects that have an impact on the water table, that's going to be an impact that crosses state boundaries; the water table doesn't stop at a state boundary. Our view is there's a pretty compelling argument that the federal government should retain the power to approve those projects, given the environmental impacts might go beyond the state that's doing the original assessment.

There are a number of different safeguards in there, built into the system. But it is an important change to allow more of these bilateral agreements to occur, because, again, it's a key way we can speed up the assessment and approval of projects and remove the duplication in the system.

Thanks for that explanation, Minister. The original bills tabled by Minister Watt did not deserve to pass through this parliament. They were an abject failure to respond with the speed, the urgency and the strength that the current climate and biodiversity collapses demand of us. We are living in a planetary emergency. It is likely that billions of people will die in this century—and if they don't die, it is almost certain that billions of people will be displaced from their homes, facing drought, facing famine and facing wars over basic necessities of life like water. Yet the Labor Party, a party with a demonstrated hostility towards protecting the environment and a demonstrated aversion to strong climate action, brought a piece of legislation to this parliament which would have fast-tracked coal and gas projects and which did nothing to address the impacts of native forest logging and land clearing on our forest and non-forest ecological communities.

These bills, even with the significant amendments secured by the Greens, still do not meet even the bare minimum necessary to respond to the biodiversity collapse and breakdown of our planet's climate that we are living through right now. But I genuinely believe the agreement we struck with the government is the best we could have done. Remember, this is a government that was prepared to derail any prospect of climate action in the previous term unless it could continue to approve new coal and gas projects in the middle of a climate crisis. This is a government that has cheered on the environmental destruction wrought by the native forest logging industry and by the land clearers, for many decades, in this country. It's a government that has a demonstrated track record of being hostile to nature and of not giving a flying fig about environmental protection. I think we've done the best we could.

I want to say something very clearly to people in the environment movement and in particular to climate activists and forest activists who, right now, in places like Tasmania, are out in the bush, on the blockades, on the front lines, defending forests and defending nature. The Greens understand that the job is not yet done. We understand that this package of reforms, while significantly improved by the negotiations conducted by the Greens, still does not do the job of adequately protecting nature in this country. It does not. It falls far, far short. I say to the activists that we will see you on the streets, and we will be with you on the streets. We will see you out in the forest, and we will be with you on the barricades out in the forest, because the planetary emergency, the climate crisis, the biodiversity emergency, that we are living through demands action of us all. It demands commitment, it demands courage, and it demands the bravery to stand up to the psychopaths and the sociopaths that run fossil fuel corporations in this country. They are prepared to place their own greedy, avaricious wants over and above the welfare of billions of people on this planet. Of course, the people who are going to face the impacts of the collapse of our climate systems are overwhelmingly poor people, and they are overwhelmingly in the Global South—black- and brown-skinned people. They are going to pay the price for the avarice and the greed of the people who are running our fossil fuel corporations and the people who come into places like this and do their bidding in this place.

It'll be very good for your Facebook.

I'll take that interjection. I will take it. If Senator Duniam thinks this is about social media, he needs to think again. This is quite literally a matter of life and death for huge numbers of people. This is a matter of whether we face a sustainable future for our children and our grandchildren and their children and their grandchildren or whether we don't. For Senator Duniam to try to diminish this by suggesting it's all about some social media platform, frankly, says more about him than it does about me.

He has successfully distracted me, so, in the short time that I have left before we hit the hard marker and commence the votes that will get this legislation through, I want to reflect on the land-clearing provisions in particular. Since the colonisation of this country, land clearing has wrought havoc on our native ecosystems, in particular, the Mulga scrub. The other forest or non-forest vegetation types that existed here under the stewardship of the original inhabitants of this country existed here for many, many tens of thousands of years. When Europeans arrived, that was the death knell for many species. It was the death knell for many ecological communities. Land clearing, under the continuous-use exemption, has devastated so many ecosystems, particularly in regional Australia, in states like Queensland, in states like Western Australia and in states like New South Wales, although not limited to those states, I might add. Ending the continuous-use exemption for land clearing is an extremely significant environmental reform and one that was hard won by the Greens negotiators on this legislation—Senator Hanson-Young and Senator Waters, in particular. They won that and won that by going in and fighting hard for environmental outcomes.

This legislation falls far short of what is actually needed to properly protect Australia's beautiful, globally significant environmental values. I tell you what—it's a big, big step forward from the steaming pile of tosh that Minister Watt first tabled in this parliament a few weeks ago, and it's a significant step forward because of Greens in parliament. I say to people, if you want environmental outcomes, if you want our forests protected and if you want our environment defended and protected and fought for, you need more Greens in this place—in the Senate and in the House of Representatives. It is only through having the Greens in this place that you get the improvement to environmental laws that we're about to vote on today.

The Senate transcript was published up to 1 8 :30. The remainder of the transcript will be published progressively as it is completed.