Nature lovers are scratching their heads as the Albanese government continues to trip itself up on environmental law reform.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
The government's Nature Repair Market bill edged closer to palliative care after heavy criticism by experts at a Senate inquiry at the end of June. That same day, the government put the bill on hold.
Yet while the government continues to dabble in snake oil and magic beans, communities are demanding proper action to protect the nature that sustains us all, and an end to the integrity crisis that sees vested interests get their way while community voices are ignored.
![Minister for Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek. Picture by Keegan Carroll Minister for Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek. Picture by Keegan Carroll](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/bwXFZWxdusWHsaYjdHyRzz/9696801b-2d41-4a76-a9b4-dc3e07f21ee3.jpg/r0_411_5000_3233_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Nature itself is expressing the crisis through more frequent fires, floods and wildlife extinctions.
Close observers will know the government's now familiar refrains, all of which have a decidedly market-oriented bent.
Nature needs "investment". The repair bill proposed a "green Wall Street".
All the while, more species move closer to the brink, despite Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek's commitment to ending species extinction.
It's time to call a spade a spade. We are in a biodiversity crisis on par with the climate crisis. Species and habitats are declining at an alarming rate due to successive governments' choices to privilege a modern economy hungry for ever more agricultural land, dams, resources, energy and sprawling suburbia.
Australia leads the world in mammal extinctions and the developed world in deforestation. Yet somehow, our national government thinks nature's saviour is the thing causing the problem in the first place: the market, with its capital and supposed efficiencies, so the thinking goes, is nature's best hope.
Australians aren't as easily convinced.
READ MORE:
The Wilderness Society works with thousands of community members around Australia, all of whom expect, and deserve, to have a fair say and for the government and corporates to protect the nature they rely upon. Whether engineers, therapists, teachers or plumbers, our volunteers see through claims that the market will save Australia's unique and important flora and fauna.
Even the market-friendly Financial Times recently acknowledged that "Governments, not BlackRock, will have to lead" on the related crisis of climate change. When profit-seekers look at biodiverse landscapes, they are more likely to think of the profits linked to bulldozing the land or digging it up, rather than conserving nature. Yes, land holders can make money by preserving ecosystems and selling offsets. But in selling offsets, they risk indirectly enabling destruction somewhere else: that's what creates the demand for offsets in the first place.
It's time to call a spade a spade. We are in a biodiversity crisis on par with the climate crisis.
More broadly, the downsides of market dogma are ever-present. Australia's market-focused childcare program, for instance, continues to demand further public subsidy to deliver basic services, and parts of the National Disability Insurance Scheme are under review for potential profiteering. In reality, some things are so essential that the market is unlikely the answer. Certainly not the only answer.
Which is where public funding comes in. Protecting nature requires money, yet Australia's public funding for nature has stagnated. At the aforementioned Senate hearing, the Wilderness Society pointed out John Howard's government spent more on nature protection annually than the Albanese government. It is interesting Minister Plibersek recently commented that "no government has done more for the environment" than Albanese's. This remains to be seen.
There was more bewildering news the same week as the repair bill flopped in the Senate: after Treasurer Jim Chalmers' stringent nature spending in May's federal budget, the government announced a budget surplus of $19 billion. But don't hold your breath: that tax revenue is one market-based output that isn't being allocated to nature and biodiversity.
The news isn't all bad. The government has committed to auditing existing federal nature offsets. It also is looking to release draft reforms of Australia's federal environmental protection law later this year and establish an independent regulator.
But even these efforts could underwhelm without a change in the government's philosophy. Rather than markets, Australia's environment needs a public service that is empowered and resourced to protect it. Rather than trading off one species or landscape for another, nature needs a government that has up-to-date data and the courage to actually prevent biodiversity loss and species extinction.
Australians are watching as the environmental reforms progress. Instead of trade-offs and market solutions, the Albanese government must focus on doing the work to protect nature and enabling the community and First Nations peoples to have a fair say in decisions that affect them. That will take effort, and it will take money. Ultimately, our economy relies on it, so there is no alternative.
- Sam Szoke-Burke is biodiversity policy and campaign manager for The Wilderness Society