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Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s controversial biodiversity scheme, the Nature Repair Market Bill, has been delayed, just one month after it was introduced after widespread criticism from conservation groups, the Greens and the opposition.
Introducing her Nature Repair Market reforms into parliament at the end of May, Plibersek said the bill could turn Australia into a green Wall Street, with a market-based scheme to drive billions of dollars of private investment into habitat protection, in an attempt to reverse Australia’s world-record wildlife losses.
Environment and Water Minister Tanya Plibersek. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen.
Under the scheme, landowners would be paid by a third party for protecting and restoring nature on their property. Plibersek said the reform was needed to pump the required financial investments from businesses, philanthropists and others into repairing nature and helping native wildlife.
However, the bill does not rule out allowing the credits to be used as environmental offsets, which are purchased by companies to compensate for damage caused by a project in another location and some conservation groups have warned this would lead to continued habitat losses as developers determine the price and trade of nature.
The bill stalled in parliament after the opposition last week flipped its position and said it would side with the Greens in opposing it.
An inquiry into the bill has also stalled, after the chair of the Senate Environment and Communications committee, Labor senator Karen Grogan, extended the reporting deadline.
“The decision to extend the reporting date of this committee and therefore extend that date at which the legislation can be brought back into the Senate, the minister is very keen to extend that date,” Grogan said.
Plibersek said given the interest in her bill, extending the inquiry and bringing it back before the end of the year was “simply good government”.
“We are committed to working collaboratively with others to get better outcomes for nature – so we are giving the Senate committee the extra time they have requested before we bring it back to the parliament to pass later this year,” she said.
The inquiry heard warnings about risks in the scheme from witnesses including Queensland government representatives, NSW’s Biodiversity Conservation Trust, the Threatened Species Scientific Committee, Wilderness Society, Australia Institute and Dr Megan Evans from the UNSW Canberra.
Opposition environment spokesman Senator Jonno Duniam said the “indefinite deferral” of the Nature Repair Market bill was humiliating for Plibersek.
“She tried to push through bills that are complex and poorly thought through and, as our questioning uncovered throughout Friday’s Senate hearing, her approach is attracting near-unanimous criticism,” Duniam said.
Greens spokesperson for the environment Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said, “Green Wall Street just crashed”.
“A range of experts as well as state and territory officials have shown Minister Plibersek’s nature offset market is undercooked and as it stands would be worse than nothing. It won’t stop logging or pollution but instead greenwash their expansion.”
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