The Albanese government’s proposed nature repair market – which Tanya Plibersek once said could create a “green Wall Street” – is in trouble after the Coalition backflipped to oppose it and the Greens labelled the draft legislation “irreparable”.
The fate of the bill won’t be decided until after a Senate inquiry reports on 1 August, but the Coalition’s changed position sets up another Labor-Greens stoush over environmental legislation.
There is underlying antipathy from the minor party about the scheme, which is meant to encourage businesses to invest in projects to protect nature and biodiversity.
The proposed legislation establishes a scheme to incentivise investment in nature restoration by creating tradable certificates for projects that protect and restore biodiversity. In March, the Coalition party room resolved to support the bill in principle because it had proposed the same scheme in government.
In late May the Nationals leader, David Littleproud, told the Guardian’s Australian Politics podcast that the bill was “basically verbatim our legislation”, saying he was “proud of the fact that it’s stood the test of time – of a changing government”.
“That’s one thing that I’m profoundly proud of, to have a world-first that actually is going to improve our biodiversity on our farms around this country and beyond.”
But on 13 June, Littleproud told the lower house that Labor’s bill had “diverged far too far” from the one the Morrison government introduced in February 2022, claiming it was no longer about “rewarding farmers for the stewardship of their land”.
Littleproud noted that pilots were already in place, meaning that “certificates would have been able to be traded once this legislation went through”.
But he claimed Labor “let their ideology” get in the way, by deciding to strip the role of overseeing the scheme from the agriculture department and give it to the environment department.
The shadow environment minister, Jonathon Duniam, said the Coalition was responding to “more and more stakeholder dissatisfaction with the legislation”.
“In government, our bill for a biodiversity market was deliberately confined to agricultural land. By contrast, Labor’s bills cover all land tenure and water.”
The government negotiated amendments with the lower house crossbench but on Tuesday the Greens party room concluded they did not substantially improve the bill.
The Greens now hold the crucial Senate votes – because the Coalition won’t back the draft laws – and are pressuring Labor to ban native forest logging.
Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, the Greens’ environment spokesperson, told Guardian Australia that “without a climate trigger to stop pollution and a ban on native forest logging, the government’s environment plan is not really an environment plan at all”.
“We are always willing to speak with the minister about how to best stop the destruction of our environment but as it stands the nature repair market seems irreparable,” she said.
Plibersek, the environment minister, said: “Our nature repair market bill is good for farmers, traditional owners and other landholders and it’s good for nature.”
“The Nationals claim to support people who live on the land. By changing their mind and withdrawing support, they’re preventing farmers from getting rewarded for looking after their land,” Plibersek said.
Plibersek noted the bill was supported by the National Farmers’ Federation, the Northern Land Council, Farmers for Climate Action and Landcare.
“This bill is broadly supported by people living on the land,” she said.
“People who want to get paid to restore their local environments and protect threatened species in their community. The Greens say they want investment in nature repair, why would they block billions of dollars of investment in nature?”
The bill is not widely supported by environment groups, due to concerns that the scheme as proposed could be used to offset habitat destruction caused by other developments.
Tim Beshara, manager of policy and strategy of the Wilderness Society, said the scheme would “only deliver increased environmental repair through capturing the existing biodiversity offset schemes and hoping that the destruction delivering those offsets will increase”.
“A growing ‘market’ right now would look like growing the volume of destruction to pay for it,” he said.
