Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Climate Trigger) Bill 2022
Senator GROGAN (South Australia—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (09:18): I thank Senator Hanson-Young for her contribution on this bill. The Albanese government will not be supporting the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Climate Trigger) Bill 2022. Since this bill was introduced in 2022, quite a lot has changed.
You would not think so after listening to my colleagues in the Greens, but a lot of action has been undertaken. There has been a lot of change. But, if we understand how our environment works, how our economy works and how our society works, these things do not change overnight.
You don't just snap your fingers and solve climate change. We all know that we spent a very long, painful and agonising decade with the coalition in charge, undoing any work that the previous Labor government had put together to address climate change and, as Senator Hanson-Young rightly points out, tearing each other apart in their own party room and working desperately to take no action on climate change.
As some of them do openly admit, they actually don't believe that climate change is a thing. They don't believe it's real. They don't believe that the scientists are correct.
They don't see the growing anxiety and disaster that is looming across the world because of the issue of climate change. And not to leave our new colleagues on the crossbench over there out of the picture—they don't believe in climate change either. Welcome to you both.
We're in a situation where Australia needs to take strong action. We need to continue to take strong action. We need to address the situations that we are starting to see.
As we know, the algal bloom in South Australia has in part been connected to the warming ocean tides that we've seen in the last few months. As a government, you can't just go and turn the regulator down. You can't just go: 'Ooh, it's a bit hot.
Let's turn the ocean down.' You actually have to take real, sustainable, long-term action to reduce emissions, and that takes a lot of hard work. Transforming our economy takes a lot of hard work. Changing Australia to be a sustainable green industry takes time.
And that's not an excuse—that is a fact. To reorient our economy and our actions takes time. We have done a great deal in the first term of the Labor government.
We have made significant inroads. Is it enough? No, and not once have we said that it is.
Do we need to continue to strengthen our action? Do we need to continue to take action? Yes, we do.
But the problem we face—and we see it in this chamber all the time—is that we stand here on the government benches taking action, looking to the future of Australia, building Australia into a long-term sustainable economic future— Senator Hanson-Young: Approving coalmines, approving gas mines. Senator McKenzie: You want to deindustrialise our country, Sarah? Senator GROGAN: and, as we do that—while I stand here and Senator McKenzie and Senator Hanson-Young yell at each other across the chamber, one wanting everything and one wanting nothing, which is the cry we hear from both of you all the time.
You are the problem, people. You are the problem. So taking action requires our colleagues to get a grip.
Senator Hanson-Young said, 'It's not the economy, stupid; it's the environment, stupid.' Well, I would say that it's the economy and the environment, stupid. You cannot just pick one. You say: 'Right, everything for business and let's trash the environment.
Everything for the environment and let's trash the economy.' Come on! There is a pathway through the middle here. If you guys would get on board—just get on board!—we could make some fundamental changes.
We could move quicker, Senator Hanson-Young, if your party were not so obstructionist. So we have made significant inroads. We have a very strong policy agenda to reduce emissions by 43 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030 and net zero by 2050.
Yes, we know that there are those out there who would like those things to happen tomorrow, but that's not practical. That's not going to happen. The transition will happen, but it will happen in a managed fashion that keeps this country moving forward to be stronger, to be more sustainable, to protect our environment, to reduce our emissions and to do what we can right now and plan for the future of a zero-emissions future.
We have got some of the world's best resources: wind and solar. We've got some of the best technologies. We've made great inroads in renewables and battery storage, connecting it into the grid.
We can make our systems more reliable, both in the grid and in our household systems. We have hundreds of thousands of solar panels. We are leading the charge in putting solar panels on houses.
And we are now, as of the more recent Labor policy and action on battery storage, providing opportunities for people to put batteries on their houses. This will make a difference not only to our emissions profile but also, significantly, to the cost of energy for households. We've got a Climate Change Act that has very clear emissions reduction targets in it.
It is a strong, articulated pathway—not just an idea, not just a target, but a plan and a pathway to actually achieve it. Our Capacity Investment Scheme, which is ensuring we have enough affordable and reliable electricity, will be brought into the grid to meet that demand from now through to 2030. This scheme has exceeded all of our expectations.
We received bids that were 4½ times what the actual tender was for. That sort of interest being shown is excellent to see. It shows that we have the capacity to ramp up.
It shows we have the capacity to increase and improve what we're doing in these areas. We know that our emissions for the year to December 2024 were 27 per cent below our 2005 levels. That's not nothing, I say to my colleagues on the Greens benches over there.
That is not nothing; that's a 27 per cent reduction. That is a good step. Senator Allman-Payne: We need more than that.
Senator GROGAN: Yes, of course we know we need more, but that can't be the only thing you ever say. Seriously, you are the problem if all you're ever going to say is that it's not enough. Nothing's ever good enough.
We're actually taking action. We are making a fundamental difference here to the future of Australia. Senator McKenzie: The farmers are.
Senator GROGAN: And what exactly does Senator McKenzie think the farmers are going to do when the land is unfarmable due to climate change? What is she going do then? Senator McKenzie interjecting— The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Grogan, could you please resume your seat.
I remind the chamber that interjections are disorderly. Senator Grogan, please direct your comments through the chair. That may assist in others not interjecting.
Senator Grogan, you have the call. Senator GROGAN: Thank you, Deputy President. I will refrain from responding to my colleagues around the chamber.
In addition to the great strides on emissions we are making as a Labor government—great achievements in only three short years—there is the issue of the environmental impacts that Senator Hanson-Young was referring to earlier. But we are doing more to protect the environment than has been done in an excruciatingly, painfully long time. We are protecting more nature than was being protected before.
We have plans to improve that further. One of the things that many of us have been talking about—I know for myself since 2013—is the EPBC, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which is cited by so many scientists and eminent people, including in a fantastic presentation from the amazing Ken Henry at the Press Club last week. Our environment laws don't suit anyone.
They do not protect the environment. They do not assist us in any of our developments. Often in this chamber you would think that the EPBC Act only dealt with mining approvals, whereas that is very much a minor part of its work.
A significant amount of the work that the EPBC does is in housing developments. And, just in case anyone missed it, we've got a bit of a housing crisis going on. We need these laws to work, and what we went through in the decade under the coalition government was nothing short of horrendous.
We came into government and were thwarted on every side in trying to do our piece of reform. But the numbers have changed a bit up here, and they've changed a bit in the other house, so the minister is adamant and determined that we are going to get a new set of environment laws within the first 18 months of this government. If we're lucky it might be sooner, but there are a lot of views and it is a very complex piece of legislation.
We need to make these changes. We must have stronger environmental protection, we must have a more efficient and robust project assessment system, and we must have greater accountability and transparency in all of our decision-making. The EPBC agenda is going to be rattled out in this place.
There will be standing up and yelling at each other, I'm sure, about too much or not enough. How about everyone taking a breath and thinking about the future, and not just about the bit of the future you care about—whether it be only the environment over here or only business over there? How about we recognise the fact that every single one of us in this chamber was elected by the people of this country.
So both views need to be taken into consideration, and there needs to be balance in how we make our way through this whole agenda and finally get an outcome—an outcome that is going to protect our environment, work towards our targets on climate change and reduce our emissions even further, noting that we have reduced them quite significantly already. Let us get an outcome that will see a long-term future for this country with a robust environment—a zero-emissions future—and an economy that can grow on a sustainable zero-emissions basis.
The future is there; we can see it. We know the pathway forward. We know that there is a perfect opportunity for us to build a manufacturing industry into the future that is not emissions-intensive and actually gives us things like green steel—manufacturing that is built for a future that deals openly with climate change, recognises the science, recognises what's happening to our country and actually takes meaningful action that protects our society.
And protecting our society means taking those things into consideration together. So, no, we will not be supporting the bill. We will be working as hard as we can to try to find that pathway through for a reformed EPBC Act, and we will continue to meaningfully reduce our emissions and transition our environment, transition our energy system and build an Australia we can all be proud of that will be sustainable into the future.