I'm very pleased to be standing here to support the Nature Repair Market Bill 2023 because it offers something new, and I think we so desperately need that. The World Heritage listed Greater Blue Mountains area, which covers an enormous part of my electorate of Macquarie, is a unique place. It's more than a million hectares of sandstone plateau, escarpments, gorges and waterfalls. It's covered in temperate eucalypt forest in most parts, with more than 90 species, which represents 13 per cent of the global total. There are 152 plant families in total, with 484 genera and around 1,500 species. These are wonderful numbers and a significant proportion of the Australian continent's biodiversity. It includes primitive species from the Gondwana age, like the Wollemi pine. The diverse plant habitat supports more than 400 vertebrate animals, with 52 mammals, 63 reptiles, more than 30 frogs and about one-third of Australia's bird species. We have platypuses, echidnas and, of course, koalas. There are at least 120 butterfly and 4,000 moth species—and the list goes on. Much of the natural bushland is high wilderness quality, and until the Gospers Mountain bushfire it remained close to pristine in an extensive, largely undisturbed matrix which is still free of things like earthworks, structures and other human interventions. But it is fragile to fire and vulnerable to climate change, so we have a responsibility to improve our protection of this internationally recognised land.
This matters because, while that land does have protections, this bill before us provides an opportunity to further protect the integrity of this World Heritage listed area where it's bordered by private and public lands. We're establishing a nature repair market to make it easier for businesses, organisations, governments and individuals to invest in projects to protect and repair nature, and the lands of the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury that are not national park strike me as an ideal place for this work. We know there's already an appetite. A few weeks ago, I attended a forum with close to 50 landowners, wildlife carers, the Bilpin and Colo valley Landcare groups and other community members who gathered in the Hawkesbury to learn about the Great Eastern Ranges initiative, which is partnering with the Hawkesbury-Nepean Landcare Network and WIRES to support wildlife by restoring and creating glideways, flyways and stepping stones. This involves projects to improve, expand and protect habitats and track recovery, restoring private lands and installing nest boxes for a host of animals, including greater gliders, spotted-tail quolls, powerful owls and koalas.
The Sydney Basin Koala Network estimates that 80 per cent of koala habitat in the Hawkesbury was destroyed in the Black Summer bushfires, so safe habitat on the peri-urban interface has become critical to their survival. Science for Wildlife research shows that the koala population had been vastly underestimated in the region until recently, and they're tracking the recovery of this highly genetically diverse bunch of koalas. Many of us realise the importance of the Hawkesbury and the Blue Mountains for koala survival, and the meeting at Kurrajong Heights showed there is a desire by private landowners to improve the integrity of the bush they have on their land, and this Nature Repair Bill provides an even more ambitious pathway.
The 2021 State of the environment report tells a story of environmental degradation, loss and inaction across the country. We're supporting landowners, including farmers and First Nations communities, to do things like replant a vital stretch of koala habitat, repair damaged riverbeds or remove invasive species, and we're making it easier for businesses and philanthropists to invest in these efforts.
So how does it work? Under the nature repair market landholders, like farmers, and conservation groups can undertake projects to enhance or protect existing habitat, as well as projects to establish or restore habitat. All landholders, including Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders, can participate in the market. Projects can be on land, lakes and rivers or in marine and coastal environments. The market will operate in parallel with he carbon market, facilitated by having the same regulator. Projects will be issued with a certificate that can be sold on to another party. Certificates will provide a range of standardised information like area size, threatened species protected and a project description that will enable the market to compare and value projects. As the regulator, the Clean Energy Regulator will have monitoring and enforcement powers to ensure that projects are conducted in accordance with the rules. This includes monitoring, reporting and notification on the delivery of project activities and progress on the environmental outcome. The regulator will make sure that projects are being implemented according to the rules and that certificates accurately describe what's happening on the ground. So, essentially, the nature repair market will operate in parallel with the carbon market. Certificates and credits won't be duplicating each other. Aligning the two markets will encourage carbon farming projects that also deliver benefits for biodiversity, which is a good outcome for the environment and for interested and passionate Australian landholders.
There are certainly administrative efficiencies in having the one regulator, and more importantly, it provides clear and accurate oversight of claims made in both markets. People might recall that we recently did a review of carbon crediting, led by Professor Ian Chubb. The lessons learnt from the review about the carbon market have been applied to this bill and will continue to be applied as it moves forward. Before the trading scheme operates, an independent committee will provide advice to the minister about the methods that set the rules for projects. Certificates, their status and their ownership will be tracked via a public register. This is not about having secrets; this is about it being public. This will help certificate owners show their shareholders, customers and employees how they're supporting nature repair.
There are a really wide range of things that might be possible under nature repair projects. For instance, in a rural environment, removing drainage ditches and excluding livestock and feral herbivores to restore a natural marsh which will create critical habitat for native frog, fish, turtle and wetland bird species might be one project. Indigenous Rangers might undertake feral animal exclusion, buffel grass removal, feral cat control and cultural burning in the Central Desert, for instance, and the certificate generated for the project could support Indigenous Rangers working in on country activities for many, many years. It might be restoring a seagrass meadow permanently lost from historic poor catchment water quality to provide habitat for sea turtles, dugongs, marine fish and seahorses. Monitoring could be provided by local commercial and recreational fishers who foresee increased local fish stocks. There is a wide variety that we can apply and people can do.
The plan for the scheme is that it's up and running in 12 months from the passage of the legislation. It does need that time to allow for the establishment of the independent advisory committee, the development of the legislative rules and the development of the project methods, including the time for public consultation. The Clean Energy Regulator also needs to develop the processes and systems that are needed to manage the scheme.
The one question I know people have already asked me about this is: just how are the certificates tradable? Is it actually a market? The nature repair market will enable landholders who protect, manage or restore local habitat to receive tradable biodiversity certificates which can then be sold to businesses or philanthropic organisations wanting to invest. A certificate holder can onsell a certificate to another holder through a contract, but we're not expecting that to be a regular occurrence. There will be guidelines published, and we'll work with the ACCC to make sure that any claims made about investments in nature are credible. We don't want any double counting or any other forms of greenwashing that could undermine investment in nature.
I look at my own electorate and I think people will want to be a part of this, but there is more evidence around the broader reasons for delivering this approach. A recent PwC report found:
A biodiversity market could unlock $137 billion in financial flows to advance Australian biodiversity outcomes by 2050.
Australian Ethical Investment, Australian Sustainable Finance Institute and the Australian Banking Association have expressed their support. Demand for the market is expected to come from a number of sources, including carbon market participants seeking to add biodiversity values to their projects; philanthropic investors responding to the biodiversity crisis; and businesses wanting to demonstrate their environmental credentials to their staff, consumers and shareholders.
This is a different approach to biodiversity offsets. I'm really conscious that Western Sydney has lost all but six per cent of the Cumberland Plain Woodland, and you'd be hard-pushed to find an offset program there that's considered truly effective. The Nature Positive Plan commits to offsets being the last resort. The approach in this bill creates a new market to spur positive investment in positive results for nature. It will help protect ecosystems, it will help repair ecosystems and it will help reverse species decline and extinction. It will generate investment and job opportunities in a nature economy and create new income streams for landowners.
It also has the potential to change the dynamics of private land in regions like the Hawkesbury, where keeping and creating the corridors and stepping stones for native wildlife that takes them from one safe bush area to another through a very inhabited land is becoming more and more difficult. It isn't helped by the Hawkesbury council adopting the New South Wales Rural Boundary Clearing Code, which has given a green light to anyone with a large property who wants to clear 25 metres of land along their boundary under the pretext of improving fire management. The Liberal state government thought it would be a good idea to give councils in my electorate the chance to opt in to this code, and I note that Hawkesbury was the only council to do so, with the Liberals on council ramming through the adoption of the code last year.
Now, I am all for science based fire management. For a start, there is a question as to whether clearing 25 metres around the boundary of a large property does provide any extra protection from intense bushfires. As we experienced in the Gospers Mountain fire, there were ember attacks kilometres from the front of the fire. And the only obligation on landowners is a self-assessment on a range of complex factors, including 11 vegetation categories, legally protected areas, protection of Aboriginal culturally modified trees and other cultural heritage, riparian buffer zones, soil erosion and landslip risks, right through to harm to native and introduced animals. That's all it is—self-assessment. There is no science used and there are no real checks and balances on the landowners. Already there are reports that it's leading to land clearing that actually has nothing to do with fire management and, significantly, the destruction of corridors and habitat used by native animals, including koalas. Such is the concern about the effect that the Total Environment Centre and Sydney Basin Koala Network recently declared, and I quote:
The Council's action facilitated clearing on rural land when the law requires such land to be protected if it has koala habitat.
They went on to say:
The desire to not know about koala presence will also feed into other damaging clearing proposals and as a precursor to urban development.
They also warned:
Hawkesbury Council will become known as the Koala Killer Council.
We, who are the custodians of fragile, unique habitats, have an obligation to do what we can to protect them. So let's hope that this legislation has a smooth passage and that the Albanese government can show a better way, not facilitating the destruction of habitat the way that Hawkesbury Council has but preserving it, improving it, and helping native animals to arrive.
