Today in Parliament, Labor and the Coalition voted down Abigail's Greens motion calling on both the State and Federal Labor governments to recognise that nature positive cannot be achieved without immediately halting native forest logging and ceasing the subsidising and approval of activities by fossil fuel companies that are harming Australia's fragile ecosystems.
15 October 2024
Abigail's motion read:
(1) That this House notes that:
(a) the New South Wales and Federal Labor governments co-hosted the Global Nature Positive Summit from 8 to 10 October 2024, which invited participants to "build consensus on the economic settings needed to increase investment in nature" and where "corporate leaders will explore the pivotal role businesses play in achieving our natural and global biodiversity goals and highlight ways to embed nature into corporate strategy";
(b) Australia formally adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in 2022, committing to achieving "nature positivity" by halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030;
(c) two weeks prior to the summit the Federal Minister for the Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek, on behalf of the Australian Government, approved three new coalmine projects that had already received prior approval by the Government, and these coalmines cover an area almost the size of Sydney and, according to Australia Institute analysis, will result in 1.3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions and directly impact threatened species and ecosystems, including the glossy black cockatoo, grey box ironbark woodland, Hunter Valley delma and box gum woodland;
(d) since being elected in 2022, the Albanese Government has approved seven coal projects and approved drilling of more than 200 new gas wells;
(e) both the State and Federal governments have refused to end native forest logging despite making commitments to protect threatened species;
(f) biodiversity credits and offsets are nearly universally discredited by ecologists and experts due to their inability to halt biodiversity loss, lack of transparency and accountability, scheme conflicts of interests and other integrity and assurance shortcomings;
(g) Premier Chris Minns has admitted that the establishment of the Great Koala National Park has been delayed because of a refusal to halt logging before a system is in place to financially exploit the forests for carbon credits; and
(h) biodiversity and carbon credits do nothing to halt climate and habitat damage, but instead merely create a permission structure for corporations to damage and pollute.
(2) That this House affirms that nature is priceless and will never be protected for so long as governments continue to abdicate their responsibility for protecting the environment by relying on biodiversity and carbon offsets and credits and other market‑based schemes and by wrongly assuming that the business community will act altruistically and at odds with their profit motive.
(3) That this House calls on both the State and Federal Labor governments to recognise that to be nature positive they must first stop being nature negative, which involves immediately halting native forest logging and ceasing the subsidising and approval of activities by fossil fuel companies that are harming Australia's fragile ecosystems.
Abigail said:
It has been over two years since Labor formed government federally and more than 18 months since it formed government in New South Wales. During both Federal and State elections, Labor made commitments to act on climate change and to protect and reverse damage to the environment. There was genuine hope that Labor would deliver. After two years of disappointments and frustrations, the cat is now well and truly out of the bag. When it comes to climate and the environment, Labor is committed to business as usual. Last week the New South Wales and Federal Labor governments co-hosted the Global Nature Positive Summit. The goal of being nature positive by 2030 was set down in the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, a historic agreement that committed 196 countries to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030. Put simply, it means that we end the decade with more nature than we started with, not less.
The idea of a nature positive summit sounds good, but if one scratches below the surface, one will quickly see it is little more than a dangerous public relations exercise. In the past 50 years, wildlife populations have declined by 69 per cent. One million species face extinction. There are multiple causes for biodiversity decline. Chief among them are climate change, native logging and land clearing. Did those topics feature in the so-called "global" summit? Some participants were told that the Government is not up to the job of protecting the environment, so we are in need of the private sector to take the lead. The private sector does not do anything without a profit. That is just not how capitalism works.
The substance or colour, green or brown, of commodity production is ultimately immaterial to capital. A capitalist firm is neutral about the nature of its product. Its use value—that is, what it is actually used for—is of no interest to the capitalist so long as it makes a profit. Greenness is a use value and is, at best, a secondary consideration. That was the purpose of the summit: It was a forum for the Government to ask global finance and mega polluters what they can do to make it profitable to not destroy our earth. But it gets worse. Even on that flimsy and morally bankrupted metric, the approach towards biodiversity and ecological protection will fail premised as it is on a market-based scheme of offsets and credits. That is not action. That is not nature positive. That is, at best, nature neutral.
The reality is that study after study, report after report, has exposed serious integrity issues with carbon and biodiversity offsets both here in Australia and globally. The Government is full steam ahead developing a corporate facade for major environmental destruction by the same usual suspects. After approving three new coalmine extensions just weeks earlier, it is no wonder that Labor was in the market for some offsets for its nature‑destroying decisions. A nominal ticket saying that the Government has avoided deforestation somewhere else, of land that was never going to be cleared, does not make up for the fact that it just approved three coalmines that will produce more than one billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions over their lifetimes and whose footprints would entirely engulf the Sydney electorate of Tanya Plibersek, along with the Prime Minister's adjacent electorate of Grayndler.
Since becoming environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek has approved seven new coalmines or extensions, and 25 more coalmine proposals remain in the pipeline. I do not care how tricky the market mechanism is, there is no offsetting that destruction. If one is to truly grasp the absurdity of the situation, one needs look no further than the farcical situation surrounding the Great Koala National Park. The Government has supposedly said it is going to happen and that it is going to protect the park, yet logging continues. Chris Minns can tell you why. He said that the Government has not stopped logging because it has not yet established a scheme by which it will then get credit and be able to turn a profit for stopping the logging. The Government is creating an artificial demand for logging and subsidising environmental destruction with public dollars so that it can eventually stop logging and create carbon credits. That kind of möbius strip logic is the logic underpinning the entire scheme, and it is nothing short of absurd.
The credits and offsets will be highly profitable for those who trade in them because they are, in effect, a permission to destroy. Who would want to buy an offset or credit unless it was to get permission to destroy something or pollute? If one is reducing one's emissions, one does not need to offset them. That is the product that the Government is busy preparing: a permission structure for destruction. Nature is priceless, and we need to protect it. Nature positive is a genuinely admirable and desirable goal, and it is being perverted and distorted by the disgusting, sweaty money of corporate influence and profit motive that dictates the rhythms of our governments. Nature positive is the goal. The very least that Labor could do is stop being nature negative.
The contribution from Labor's Minister for Climate Change, Energy and the Environment was particularly disappointing. The Minister said:
I oppose the motion moved by Ms Abigail Boyd. While Ms Abigail Boyd is very good and high on the rhetoric, she is wrong about what the Government is trying to achieve and the challenges it faces as it tries to protect nature. The New South Wales Minns Government's approach is clear: It is taking serious action on climate change. It is protecting what is left. I note that the member did not mention the fact that the Government has added over 500,000 hectares to the national parks estate. To be clear, there is only around 900,000 hectares as is.
The point is that we need to protect nature because there is a crisis both in climate change and biodiversity. This Government is taking it extremely seriously. It is working with the Commonwealth to deliver its part of the Kunming‑Montreal framework, an important biodiversity framework that the Government is committed to. The Government has released the New South Wales plan for nature as part of its response to the review of the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016, acknowledging the challenges that have been a long time in the making and cannot be waved away overnight. The member would be aware that the biodiversity offsets bill is currently before the Parliament. The Government is working closely with the committee on that bill.
I take the opportunity to thank those who are working in a collegial manner on this, rather than simply throwing rocks from the sidelines. The plan for nature aims to put nature on the path to recovery. The Government has to restore what has been harmed and protect what is left. That is what it is trying to do. It is not cheap or easy, but the Government is fundamentally committed to it. The Government's goal is to leave nature better off than it found it. For whatever time Labor is in government, it will take seriously its ability to turn the dial on the destruction that has been caused. To suggest otherwise is, frankly, offensive.
The plan addresses our election commitments, which include fixing the offsets scheme, stopping excess land clearing and strengthening environmental protections. We have already done that through our upgrade to the Environment Protection Authority penalties, by legislating climate change targets and establishing the Net Zero Commission, which is going to report to Parliament very soon. We are working hard to decarbonise our electricity system in very challenging circumstances, but we are making huge amounts of progress. That is not easy. It is easy to be critical. Governments cannot do all of this alone. It is just a fantasy to suggest that we can stop clearing, do nothing and walk through this issue. That is not how it works. We still need to build things. We need to build renewable energy and housing, and we need to work for that. The Greens' solution is to do nothing and hope for the best.
In reply, Abigail said:
I thank all members for their contribution to the debate. I pick up on a couple of things. The first one is what happens every time The Greens call out Labor for not doing something it said it would do: We get told we are throwing rocks, that we are somehow being fanciful; the one that they know sticks is when they tell us we are being offensive. What is offensive is that Labor Party members, while in opposition, sat in the Chamber and opposed coal seam gas, fracking and the Santos project in Narrabri, only to get into government and support them. What is actually offensive is for Labor members to say that they abide by and agree with all the climate science and scientists, and then, when they are in government, to somehow claim that does not apply anymore and it is not as urgent as they thought it was when they were in opposition.
What is offensive is for Labor members to say that they agree with climate scientists that we need to have no new coal or gas, then say that The Greens are being offensive when we call out the Labor Government for approving new coal and gas, which is absolutely against the science that those members said they agreed with. It is offensive to say to the public at large that Labor is the party that is somehow going to protect the environment, when it cannot even do something as simple as establish the Great Koala National Park because it is apparently waiting for magical offsets to come along. It is offensive to keep telling The Greens that we are wrong for calling out the Labor Government on what is the most pressing threat of our time, when we are told that this decade is the last one in which we can possibly avert catastrophic climate change, and when we have to go home to our families and communities on the weekend after standing in this Bizarro World of a Chamber where people think they can just keep burning coal and logging native forests and that somehow it is all going to be okay, despite the scientific evidence and the overwhelming majority of the world looking at us.
I note the Treasurer said that he is so proud that "We have held the first global nature positive conference where we flipped the concept on its head and made it all about business rather than protecting nature". Our nation is a laughingstock. We are the third largest exporter of fossil fuels in the world. The Pacific nations are saying, "You're drowning us. Our entire countries are going underwater because of what Australia is doing." Then we have the Treasurer of New South Wales standing up and saying how proud he is that we got businesses together to tell us what we could pay them and how we could incentivise them to not destroy the Earth. It is a joke. It is offensive. I call on Labor to finally do the right thing.
The Upper House then divided to vote on Abigail's motion, which was voted down. Labor, the Coalition and the conservative crossbench (including the Legalise Cannabis Party and Independents) all voted against the motion. Only the Greens and the Animal Justice Party voted in support of the motion.
See the full tally of votes in the Hansard transcript, at this link.