Don Watson, who was Paul Keating's speechwriter among other things, writes evocatively in his bookThe Bush about his family's history as colonisers in the Strzelecki Ranges in Gippsland, Victoria. His ancestors, just a few generations ago, were part of the rapid and comprehensive transformation of the landscape through intensive logging and burning the original tall eucalypt forests. His mother would recount to him how she grew up hearing the elaborate calls of lyrebirds, a species that has existed in this country for 15 million years, until the gullies where they lived were cleared. He lists the many animals—goannas, wallabies, koalas, quolls—that vanished with the remnants of the forest. He writes, "As children, we heard them all spoken of, but saw very few."
On the northern beaches we have similar stories. When driving through Avalon we see road signs telling us to look out for koalas that are no longer there. Many long‑time residents can remember having koalas in their gardens, but by 1989 there were only six left. The last one ever seen there was in 2006. Habitat fragmentation from development, as well as dogs and cars, are forcing them to local extinction. There are stories like that from across our entire continent. That is how extinction happens. Baselines shift as memories of ecological abundance fade. New generations do not know what has been lost. Our collective perception of loss is distorted and we continue to destroy habitat and push species further towards extension. And yet when we want to inspire our children, impress visiting dignitaries or market Australia to the world, we turn to our continent's unique and wonderful animals, ecosystems and landscapes, as we should.
The Biodiversity Offsets Scheme is very technical but fundamentally must be about genuinely stemming the trajectory of the decline of our shared natural heritage, which is economically and intrinsically valuable. Over the past 200 years New South Wales has lost almost half of its bushland through land clearing and only 9 per cent of what is left is in good condition. The public conservation estate only covers 9 per cent of New South Wales and does not constitute the comprehensive, adequate and representative protection needed to ensure the long-term survival of species and ecosystems. That means efforts to protect vegetation outside the conversation estate are crucial.
A significant body of academic literature and policy guidance exists that establishes principles for best practice biodiversity offsetting. They include ensuring offsets are only used as a last resort; not permitted for use in areas with high conservation value, which must be no‑go zones; ensuring that offsets are like for like; genuinely additional; required to achieve no net loss to biodiversity; and direct land-based offsets, not payment or indirect conservation measures. The bill brings the New South Wales Biodiversity Offsets Scheme closer to those principles. The bill strengthens the avoid and minimise requirements under the scheme, raises the ambition for biodiversity protection to net positive rather than no net loss, reduces unnecessary burdens on local development and increases transparency oversight and integrity.
The bill is significant because it is the first piece of legislative reform to implement Labor's election commitments to strengthen the nature laws in New South Wales. The commitments were, firstly, to fix the Biodiversity Offsets Scheme; and, secondly, to stop excess land clearing. Earlier in the year several independent crossbench colleagues—the member for Sydney, in particular, and the member for Wollondilly—and I wrote to the Premier and Ministers Sharpe and Moriarty to remind them of their commitments and the community and our expectation that they would be delivered. In that letter, we included quotes fromHansard of several current Cabinet Ministers passionately lamenting in this Chamber the passage of the 2016 Coalition reforms that gutted the Carr era native vegetation laws. I encourage those same members to bring that conviction to continuing to implement native vegetation reform in government. There is so much more to do. I look forward to the Government implementing its reforms outlined in its NSW plan for nature, including reforms to native vegetation on rural land under the Local Land Services Act.
I am very supportive of the amendments to the bill passed in the Legislative Council. They strengthen the bill in important ways. I thank the Government for working across the Parliament, including with the Legislative Assembly independent members, to make the bill better. Significantly the amendments require end‑to‑end reporting of offsets, removing proponent-led variations in offset requirements, changing wording from "no net loss" to "net gain" in the biodiversity assessment method, and implementing a non-regression clause for the net positive strategy. Over recent years the Biodiversity Offsets Scheme has, quite rightly, been heavily criticised but it does have an important function in internalising environmental externalities into land‑use decisions. The scheme is very complicated but, in many ways, amazingly sophisticated. It is a big machine with many dials. Throwing out the machine is not a feasible option but it did need to come to the workshop and have its settings updated. That is what the bill does. I thank the Minister for the Environment, the Hon. Penny Sharpe, and her awesome staff, particularly Emily Dyball, for bringing this important bill to the parliamentary workshop for a major service. Good luck on the road.
22 November 2024, 13:13.