Today in Parliament, Abigail spoke in strong opposition on the Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Planning System Reforms) Bill 2025, condemning it as an authoritarian, developer-friendly measure that bulldozes community, undermines democracy, bypasses genuine consultation and crushes progressive hopes, while highlighting the Government’s close ties to developers and lack of transparency.
Abigail said:
I fully endorse the comments of each of my Greens colleagues who have spoken on the Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Planning System Reforms) Bill 2025. I reflect on the enormity of what is happening with this bill and on how much The Greens hate it—not just The Greens members in this place but The Greens MPs in the lower House and also our councillors. Remind me, Dr Cohn, how many councillors are there?
Dr Amanda Cohn: ... 74.
Ms ABIGAIL BOYD: Many of those 74 are mayors and deputy mayors. Our Greens councillors hate this bill. I had a lovely conversation with a colleague this morning. We were reflecting on what it is that Labor is doing at both the State and Federal levels and how many ways it can disappoint us. When this term of Parliament started and Labor came to government, we were hesitant. We were waiting to see how it would go once it had warmed its feet under the desk and we gave it a bit of time. In the first little while, it was all about review. Every problem had a review and an inquiry, and we were waiting for it to actually do something. It has started doing things this year, and I think universally it has been bad. I have found it hard to think of a good thing that Labor has done this year.
The Hon. Penny Sharpe: The Great Koala National Park.
Ms ABIGAIL BOYD: I would love to honour that interjection, but I will not because it was so long overdue and it has not been done yet. There are so many things I could talk about related to that, but I will not. I will talk about the authoritarian streak in this Government. We saw it right at the beginning when Chris Minns doubled down on the anti-protest laws, telling people what they could and could not protest about. We saw that this Government's approach to democracy was to try to squash it and to stop all forms of opposition to everything the Government was doing, not just in this place—where what we describe as the Mean Girls streak comes out in the Government when we do not like the horrible things it does—but with everything. Every single time there is opposition to something this Government is doing, its response is not to engage with the community or to hear out the objections but instead to try to quash dissent. It is authoritarian in its basis. It is a real authoritarian streak. We see Chris Minns making captain's calls, basically saying, "No. If the community does not like what we are doing, it's too bad. We will find a way to bulldoze through your opposition."
That is what we have in this bill. It would not be so bad except for—and I go back to two‑and‑a‑half years ago—the cautious optimism that many of us on the left had. Many progressive people that I spoke to thought that it was going to be all right, that New South Wales had finally got a government that was notionally progressive and was going to do progressive things. But what the Labor Party has done—and I think it is its greatest crime—has been to take the hopes of the progressive movement and crush them. People like me, people like the members of The Greens and all progressive people in this State have had their hopes crushed because this Labor Government is so similar to the previous Government that it is very hard to have any hope anymore. That is a crime that goes way beyond what is in this bill.
So what is this bill doing? It is bulldozing democracy. It is putting in a new process to try to bulldoze the opposition of people, communities and local councils to new mining projects or any of the numerous projects that someone might want to object to. It does not communicate with the community. It does not try to bring the community with them. It just wants to tell everybody what to do. It is its way or the highway. But if a developer or fossil fuel company executive wants to build a massive, energy-hungry, water-sucking data centre in this State, there is an open door for them. Whether it is via Morris Iemma or directly, they can get some sort of meeting with the Premier, with the Treasurer or with whomever they like.
The Hon. Penny Sharpe: Point of order: I have been listening really carefully to the member. She is now making imputations against members of this House and of the other place. She is not allowed to do that during this debate.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I uphold the point of order. The member will come back to the leave of the long title of the bill.
Ms ABIGAIL BOYD: I was—and I acknowledge the point of order—but they are facts that have been reported in the news. I was not drawing any imputations. I am talking about the open door that the Labor Government has for developers, data centre proponents and all the rest of them. That is a fact. If Labor members do not like that, then they should not do it. We keep asking whose side Chris Minns is on. It is very clear that he is not on the side of the people that are in opposition to this bill because he is trying to bulldoze them. He is trying very hard to do whatever the big end of town wants him to do. That has now been put into the bill that is before us.
The Greens oppose the bill. I have absolutely no doubt that if the Coalition had brought this bill in the last term of Parliament when it was in government, The Greens would be siding with Labor to tell the Coalition how corrupt it was and how close it was to the developers and all the others. We would be sitting happily together in opposition to this bill. But instead, we now have the Labor‑lition—is that what we should we call the unholy alliance between Labor and the Coalition?
The Hon. Penny Sharpe: So yours is "the Mark Lathams"?
Ms ABIGAIL BOYD: I do not know what the Hon. Mark Latham's name is for you both.
The Hon. Penny Sharpe: I am sure the two of you can find one.
Ms ABIGAIL BOYD: I will just acknowledge the Hon. Penny Sharpe's interjection, because I find it incredibly offensive.
The Hon. Penny Sharpe: Well I find what you're saying in relation to corruption offensive as well.
Ms ABIGAIL BOYD: Well, don't do it. Don't allow developers through your doors.
... I will bring it back to bulldozing democracy, which is what we are seeing the Government do, even in the context of debating the bill now. The Government does not want us to talk about what the bill actually does. It does not want us to talk about the way that the bill opens the doors even more to developers and big companies. Instead, it wants us to wave the bill through. If the Government was so confident about the validity and the contents of the bill, then it would have consulted on it rather than sewing it up with the Coalition behind closed doors and then launching it upon this Parliament with no time for a review. If the Government was so confident about the policy underpinnings of this bill, it would have allowed an inquiry so that councillors and everyone else could have come forward and actually shared their views and helped to make it a better bill. But this Government is so scared of any sunlight, any accountability, that it will oppose reviews and it will oppose inquiries into what it is doing.
I think we can be forgiven for assuming some sort of nefarious intent, when that is the Government's attitude to the democratic process. It is trying to bulldoze and ram things through in the quickest possible time that it can. It is in keeping with bulldozing through community sentiment, which is what we have with this bill. If the Government was so confident about the underpinnings and the policy of the bill, it would not be talking about it being a housing bill when it is not. It would be saying that this is about bulldozing environmental opposition to mining projects. It would be saying this is about allowing developers a free ride to just build whatever they want, even though we know that it is not going to actually result in any improvement in housing affordability in this State. The Government would be honest about the contents of the bill if it was so confident with the policy underpinnings.
Again and again we see misinformation and spin from this Government as it tries to push through things that the public would not accept otherwise. This bill brings us back to where we started—with a government that is so hostile to transparency and accountability, that is so determined to bulldoze all opposition that they have crushed the hopes of the progressive people in this State. This bill is a shame on this Labor Government. This bill is a disgrace. The Greens stand up against it. We know that Labor in opposition would have been against it, and I hope that every member of the Labor Party is taking a long, hard look at themselves. Maybe then they will stop letting those developers through their doors.
Read the debate in Hansard here.
23 October 2025