Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Reconsiderations) Bill 2025

Senator COLBECK (Tasmania) (10:51): It's with some bemusement that I make a contribution to this debate on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Reconsiderations) Bill 2025, given the debate that occurred in this chamber on a very similar piece of legislation that I introduced just a few weeks ago, where the Labor contribution was scornful, scathing and not supportive.

Yet this piece of legislation that we're seeing introduced today is effectively the same legislation except it's been made retrospective, which is something that I didn't want to do as someone who has thought about the way we should consider this and what we should do in this place. There was an action in this place; I understand that. I don't agree with the action that the Minister for the Environment and Water took.

She took the word of a number of discredited environmental groups through a letter rather than a formal submission and made a decision that she didn't need to make, creating uncertainty that didn't need to be created for communities. Labor opposed that piece of legislation which didn't have retrospectivity in it. The three-year timeframe after an approval is five years under Labor's legislation, so it's longer.

But what it doesn't do, and which my bill did, was provide the opportunity for a state minister to come to federal government and offer some consideration. That's disappeared. So, while I was trying to put in place something that was responsible, that considered the environment over a longer period of time and that wanted a good result which would provide some security to companies that had invested sometimes millions of dollars in the environmental approval, the government have wiped all of that away to solve a political problem that they created themselves.

I find it, let's say, bemusing that during the last debate the Labor contribution was so scornful of what we were trying to do, which was to try to provide a balance between industry and environment which is important in what we do. We've heard a lot of very provocative debate and conversation here this morning about the very unfortunate circumstance in southern Tasmania where one of the businesses down there has been hit with a bacterial attack which they've struggled to get on top of.

But the exaggeration about the impact of that, I have to say, is pretty breathtaking, and I've heard in recent contributions discussion about fish carcasses washing up on the beach all over Hobart and surrounding beaches that is simply not true. There are no fish carcasses washing up on the beach in Hobart. There have been a couple of circumstances where people, quite vigilantly, have found some pieces of salmon that have broken down, but there are not fish carcasses washing up all over the beaches around Hobart.

That's simply not true. But that's what we hear in this debate: misinformation, misleading information. In fact, some of the images that are being circulated as fact, as part of this debate now, are actually AI generated.

They're not true. Environmental groups are doing what they did in other recent cases where they have fabricated evidence: AI generated photographs to support their arguments. Yet this government continues to fund one of them, the Environmental Defenders Office, which had a multimillion-dollar fine imposed on them for their fabricated evidence to a court case.

And here we have in Tasmania, right now, one of the organisations, the Bob Brown Foundation, again fabricating evidence. So we hear the Greens putting information forward in this debate that is simply false, creating concern for my communities and communities around Australia. I won't accuse the Greens of lying, because that is unparliamentary, but I won't give them credit for knowing what they're talking about.

They're just spreading the bunkum that's been fed to them by these dishonest, discredited environmental groups that are funded by this government. We all express our concerns about the utilisation of AI, and here it is being used to create misrepresentations of the salmon industry in Tasmania. It's a disgrace.

Then, of course, we have to listen to the xenophobic rhetoric about the businesses that are operating. Each of the three businesses in Tasmania started off as a family business. They grew their business.

Yes, it grew over time, and they sold their business to larger companies, which provides additional capacity to invest and build an important industry for Tasmania, and it supports thousands of people working in the Tasmanian community. We want to see that continue sensibly, a sensible industry working with the environment. The suggestion that these companies are looking to, in some way, degrade the environment and do it deliberately, which is the inference being made, dishonestly, by some in this chamber but certainly in the environmental movement—clean water is important to fish farming.

Clean water means healthy fish. Senator Hanson-Young: They're not healthy; they're dying. Senator COLBECK: No.

Unfortunately, there has been a bacterial outbreak that they're trying to deal with. You completely misrepresent those circumstances in my state, based on fabricated evidence put together by environmental groups that have been discredited. It's dishonest information.

We, quite sensibly, have some amendments to this motion. We don't want to see the Environmental Defenders Office continue to be funded by this government. This discredited organisation has been found, through another case, to have provided misleading evidence, to have fabricated evidence, so that it could oppose a project.

That's exactly the sort of thing they're doing in my home state right now. It's dishonest. I find it galling that the newspapers and the ABC run the AI, artificial intelligence, generated pictures in their news bulletins as a depiction of what's really happening when it's not.

What happened to journalistic integrity? What happened to that? But with respect to an organisation like the ABC I don't expect anything different.

It's an organisation that turned up to a lady's house to film a home invasion. So I don't expect much more from the ABC. We are debating a piece of legislation that we didn't need to debate, because the circumstances that created it shouldn't have been created in the first place.

It was created by a minister who made a bad decision. The government tries to justify it by saying that they were required to by law, but they weren't required to by law. The minister had a choice to accept three letters—not three submissions; three letters—and reopen a more than 11-year-old decision or reject them, and she should have rejected them.

That's what she could have done and should have done, and the salmon workers in Macquarie Harbour would not have experienced the uncertainty that they've experienced for the last two Christmases. We shouldn't be standing here at five minutes to an election to try and sort out a mess because this government can't do it itself or its minister refuses to. I have to say that I genuinely wonder about the longevity of this fix.

Part of the deal that was done inside the Labor Party to get this legislation onto the floor of the parliament this week is to bring back the nature-positive laws that they supposedly put to bed and put away before the Western Australian election because the Western Australian Premier was so opposed to them. The Western Australian election is over and done with—'We don't have to worry about him anymore'—and they're going to bring back the nature-positive laws and a new bureaucracy here in Canberra.

That's going to be fantastic for us all, isn't it? There's an EPA in every state and territory, except for one territory, and they're going to have another one here in Canberra now as well—more bureaucrats; fantastic! That's just what we all need.

So what is the life of this fix that we're being asked to debate at five minutes before an election? Let's not forget, when we debated a similar bill just a few weeks ago in the last sitting fortnight, on every single occasion where the government had a choice, who they sided with. Let's not forget that every single industry that made a submission to the Senate inquiry into my private senator's bill—every single one, the users of the EPBC Act, those who spend millions of dollars to get an approval under the act—said that the private senator's bill would increase the security of their operations, which is what they wanted for their investment decisions and all of those other important elements of running a business.

Who did the government side with? The government sided with the EDO, the Bob Brown Foundation and the political propagandists of the Greens, the Australia Institute. That's who the government sided with.

So what's going to happen with a Labor-Greens government after this next election, if that's what happens, when 'nature positive' comes back and there's another bureaucracy in an EPA? What's going to happen then? Yet when you look at the circumstance of what's actually happening in Macquarie Harbour with the investment—admittedly, by the government, and I commend them for the investment that they've made, in that sense, but also by industry—there's one thing that's guaranteed the survival of the maugean skate, and that's the investment, particularly by industry.

I go back to the point that I made before: the industry wants and needs clean water because it means healthy fish. They don't want to see the circumstance that they've been struck with right now, because an event like this is absolutely terrible for everybody. We see it disgracefully misrepresented, and we see the attacks on the industry take some absolutely shameful forms.

We saw one of the activists who was here yesterday, Peter George, dropping an anti-salmon banner behind the Premier when he was commemorating the deaths of children at Hillcrest Primary School. This is a person who calls himself a leader of the community. What a disgraceful effort from that person.

He wants to be a member of the parliament. He has no respect for the kids and families of Hillcrest. He's more interested in getting his issue up and using that very sad day for political purposes.

This is what we're dealing with as a part of this debate. This is the sort of behaviour we're dealing with—fabricated evidence and misinformation, amplified by some in this chamber. Yet if you look at what's actually happening in Macquarie Harbour and read the science it shows (a) the conditions in the harbour are improving and (b) the captive breeding program has been highly successful, which is fantastic.

So the existence of the salmon industry is actually providing for the survival of the maugean skate, which we must remember has disappeared out of Bathurst Harbour where there's no mining, there's no fish farming. So what happened in Bathurst Harbour, just down the coast a little bit further? Why don't the skate exist in that waterway?

The existence in the salmon industry is one of the things that will guarantee the future of the maugean skate in Macquarie Harbour, because it's in industry's interest for it to be there. But of course there is no mention of the fact that there is a 120- or130-year mining history that impacts rivers flowing into Macquarie Harbour, or the fact that there are large empowerments further up that potentially impact on the oxygen inflows into the harbour.

Protesters aren't talking about those things. The industry is doing something practical to ensure that the skate exists because they want their industry to exist. They've been there for 30 years, responsibly farming.

They've had their moments, I'll admit. That has been turned around. We need to make sure that what we do ensures a sustainable future for a strong industry for Tasmania, one that I think is very important for our local communities.