Deputy Speaker, at the end of last century, 1999 to be exact, the nation was experiencing the long-term millennial drought or the big dry, which was starting to worsen. That was the same year that Prime Minister Howard and Environment Minister Senator Hill introduced the coalition's signature climate change policy, the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Program. It was also that year in March that Cyclone Vance, once one of the most powerful cyclones to hit the mainland of Australia, crossed the coast, causing significant damage in WA.

For me, I started work at the Australian Conservation Foundation as their very first climate change campaigner. And I found myself thrown into the deep end of negotiations around laws to reform water rights in the Murray-Darling Basin and environmental reforms that we now know today as the EPBC Act — all 19 syllables of it.

Twenty-five years young, the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, when originally birthed, was intended to provide a national framework for protecting the environment and conserving biodiversity, especially matters of national environmental significance like our reefs, our precious forests, and our Ramsar wetlands. It aimed to clarify the roles of the federal government and improve cooperation between states and territories.

So how effective have these laws been in protecting the places that we love? Let’s go to my happy place — science — and then straight to a less happy place — the facts.

Australia’s biodiversity has declined significantly over the last 25 years. Between 2000, when the EPBC Act was enacted, and today, threatened species populations have dropped by an average of 2 to 3% per annum. Key threats include habitat loss, invasive species, and climate change. While some conservation efforts have shown success in slowing decline, these have been insufficient to reverse the overall downward trend.

Overall, threatened species populations have declined — birds by 61% on average, with terrestrial birds seeing the steepest drop at 62%; amphibians by 97% in relative abundance; and plants by 68%. The number of species listed as threatened has increased significantly, with 130 species added in 2023 alone, bringing the total to 2,098. Seven hundred and forty-one species have been added to the threatened list since 2000 — a 53% increase. And in my beautiful electorate of Bradfield, threatened species have almost doubled from 40 to 79 in the short period between my two runs for public office, from 2022 to 2025.

What have been the main drivers? It’s habitat loss, invasive species, and climate change.

Deputy Speaker, let me go to the first of these — habitat loss. In the 25 years since 2000, Australia has lost 9.22 million hectares of tree cover, about 22%. While not all of that is old-growth forest, roughly 37% of the loss is considered permanent deforestation resulting from land-use changes like agriculture and infrastructure. The remainder comes from disturbances like logging and wildfires that may not be permanent but degrade forests.

One would think that any amendments to the laws here in 2025 would seek to address this calamity — like, for example, removing the exemption for large-scale logging in New South Wales, which is still possible under Regional Forestry Agreements.

Now to the second main driver of species loss: climate change. And let me stress, climate change — or more precisely, the inadequate management of rising average global temperatures and the impacts that this brings to habitats and species survival — has been one of the main drivers of Australia’s threatened species list blowing out.

The average global temperature between 2000 and 2025 has shown a significant upward trend, with the 20-year period of 2001 to 2020 warming by approximately 1°C relative to 1850–1900 averages. The last decade, 2014 to 2023, is the warmest on record at about 1.2°C above pre-industrial levels. Recent data indicates that the most recent 12-month period, July 2024 to June 2025, was 1.55°C warmer than 1850–1900 averages.

We are breaking records here, Deputy Speaker, and not in good ways. It’s almost as if our environment — the places we love — has gotten worse since we introduced the laws enacted to protect them. And it’s little wonder that there are so many people interested in the success of these laws, including, I bet, future generations and the natural world on which we all depend.

Yet as they were drafted, passed, and gazetted, the EPBC Act in 1999 gave the Minister for the Environment the powers to intervene in decisions of national significance for our environment. And yet, this happened only once over that entire period — all the while, literally hundreds of new coal, gas, and fracking projects were approved, causing rather than ceasing habitat degradation, destruction, and climate change impacts.

The government is at pains to tell us that this reform is once in a generation, and that means we truly need to get our skates on. It’s very difficult for me not to be drawn into a joke about the Macquarie Skate right here — but I shall not, because it’s a bit too serious to joke about.

We’ve already heard that the law is not working for nature. It’s not working for renewable energy, for housing, or for anyone. But I can tell you who it is most likely working for — and that’s the fossil fuel industry. Literally hundreds of new approvals over those 25 years.

But I am, by nature, a very positive individual, and the glass for me is usually half full. So let me turn to the elements of the government’s amendments that deserve a gold star. These are: a shift in focus from a law based around process to one that makes outcomes clearer. And that’s why the codification of national environmental standards in these laws is so useful. All stakeholders will know and understand what good and bad look like.

This also gives the consent authorities — be they future state and territory governments, the national EPA, or the Minister — a consistent yardstick against which to measure the merits or shortcomings of a given project.

The second is stronger penalties for proponents who intentionally and persistently damage areas of high biodiversity and conservation value. The truth is that we can’t put a value on platypus or Baudin’s black cockatoo habitat, but we can use pricing signals to deter harmful behaviour. Stronger penalties will go some way to helping with that.

But we are going to need a well-capacitated independent regulator to prosecute — and that’s where the third gold, or rather silver, star comes in: the re-establishment of the national EPA. In principle, this is a laudable amendment. We need to depoliticise decisions that have been made in the last 25 years under this law. The Minister — a political position, more easily influenced by special interests — needs to be removed from as many of these decisions as possible. A competent, tightly codified, and well-resourced independent national EPA is most likely to be able to deliver for nature and industry.

You may have noticed that there was a silver star here, and perhaps I’ve been a little too generous — because this takes me to the frowny-face stamp, which is around the wide discretion provided for the Minister to make decisions not in favour of nature but possibly against it. I’m referring to the national interest exemption, where the Minister may consider Australia’s national interest — be it defence, security, or emergency needs — when ignoring the protections of nature.

So far, the proposed law fails to define what projects could qualify for this exemption. The Acting CEO of the Australian Conservation Foundation says that he was deeply concerned with the proposed exemptions, arguing their application was wide open to interpretation and could easily be misused. Too often, the national interest is falsely conflated with the coal and gas industries and their commercial interests.

And if it’s not the intention of this government’s Environment Minister to misuse it, what about a future government’s Environment Minister? To be clear, we’ve had laws that for 25 years have given the Minister the powers to intervene to protect nature — and this has only been flexed once, arguably more about politics than about nature.

So, if the government is seeking to broaden the discretion provided to the Minister to weigh in on decisions, then hold tight for even more decisions that favour industry over nature. And as I’ve said before, if these laws don’t protect nature, then which laws will?

The way these amendments are drafted, there remain major loopholes. Restrictions on improving unacceptable impacts via ministerial discretion are just one of them.

What about the specifics? The proposed new laws do nothing to end land clearing or old-growth logging. The RFA and continuous use exemptions — the failure to address large-scale deforestation — remain. This is despite knowing that habitat loss is one of the three main reasons for species extinction.

Despite the government’s rhetoric on understanding the science of nature, there is very little regard, if any, for climate in these nature laws. There’s no requirement that major polluting projects be assessed for their climate impacts, contrary to international law and the recent ICJ opinion. Nor is there a requirement for natural systems or ecosystem services to be assessed for their contribution to helping address climate impacts — be they mitigation, adaptation, or recovery.

This is despite climate being one of the top three reasons that Australia — and the globe — faces a species extinction crisis. The government is quick to criticise the coalition for not understanding the severity of the climate crisis, but the lack of climate consideration in these proposed nature laws makes me want them to take a look in the mirror.

How is it possible that in 2025, strong nature laws are drafted without any consideration for the human-induced climate crisis in which we and future generations must live?

Finally — and I’m running out of time here, Deputy Speaker — that’s why I’m going to end with this: not because I’m running out of amendments to critique, but because I want to talk about the process of drafting and creating the national environmental standards. We won’t see them before the bill is passed. And the Samuel Review into the EPBC Act could not have been clearer — the NES is the fulcrum, the foundation of reform.

So, to quote the Minister, this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do what we can for nature — because when we do, we help not just other species and future generations, we help ourselves here in this lifetime.

I support the intention of strengthening our nature laws. The government’s made a good start. But given the size of the crisis at hand and the responsibilities given to me by the people of Bradfield, I won’t be supporting the amendments to our nature laws as proposed.

My hope is that when these laws go to the Senate — our House of Review — they will return here to this chamber with additional safeguards attached, particularly for forestry protection, ministerial discretion, and climate. And when I see movement on these issues, I look forward to supporting the bills as amended.

Because, Deputy Speaker, our communities, our nation, and our planet are depending on it.