Mr TED O'BRIEN (Fairfax) (12:20): I thank the minister for her statement on Australia's international environmental leadership. It's interesting to learn what the government believes it is contributing to and gaining from international engagement in the environment portfolio. It's also a welcome—albeit all too rare—development to see an Albanese government minister at least trying to fulfil her promises. However, that's about where the positive feedback, sadly, ends. From the outset, it's worth noting that Labor originally promised that this would be an annual statement on Australia's environmental leadership, yet this one comes after 18 months in office rather than 12. So, if that's the pace at which they work, if that sort of timing sequence continues, what we've just heard isn't the first ministerial statement on international environmental leadership but, in fact, the last—the only one that will be given before the next election. I would add that it's quite regrettable that, on the last occasion that the minister made a ministerial statement to the House—a different one on a different topic—a number of revelations later came to light about the inaccuracies in that speech. Almost everything she said that day about Labor's work and plans on Indigenous cultural heritage protection has since proven to be completely untrue. Embarrassingly for the government, the organisation representing the PKKP traditional owners of Juukan Gorge also expressed anger at being referenced in that speech and not having been consulted about it. Today's statement on Australia's international environmental leadership is, believe it or not, even more misleading. It's also underpinned by a noticeable change in tone. At the press conference—or was it the National Press Club?—in, I think, July last year, the minister proclaimed that, when it came to environment policy, 'We can't waste another minute.' Now, nearly 18 months later, in the content of this speech, we see that she displays no urgency whatsoever. Not only was the speech meant to be done sometime in the first 12 months, and it's now actually 18 months in, but also, even as to the tone and the content, it was all talking about what potentially could happen, sometime, in the far-off, wonderful future. Urgency has totally disappeared. And some of the claims made by the minister can't be left unaddressed. By way of example, she wants us to believe that her nature repair market is 'bringing new funding to the work of protection and restoration'. Meanwhile, back in the real world, Labor doesn't even have a nature repair market, let alone one that's delivering new funding. That's because it haplessly botched the drafting of the relevant bills, and the legislation was therefore almost universally rejected by stakeholders and other MPs. I also note that the minister bemoans the loss of Amazon rainforest to bushfires, yet she's a senior member of a government that was responsible for the axing of the nation's natural disaster volunteer portal. How do you square that circle? That's not to mention that her party is also now in a headlong rush to curtail the work of Australia's forest industries, spearheaded by the Victorian and Western Australian state Labor government bans on native forestry. This is an approach that will inevitably cause more trees to be ripped out of areas like the Amazon basin and many other parts of the globe where they do not observe anything like the same environmental controls over forestry activity that we have here in Australia. In her statement, the minister also talked about retractions in Antarctic sea ice, and yet she failed to mention that she has been presiding over a month-old funding crisis that has compromised critically important Antarctic science and resourcing. Nor did she acknowledge that she is failing to heed the calls of model experts, who are beseeching her to restore these programs at such a critical time. She talked about 'doubling the rate of renewable projects being approved', and yet she felt to note that the rate of EPBC Act approvals and the timeliness of them has actually dramatically declined during her time in charge. Tellingly, there was no talk from her on what she would do to reverse this government's dreadful track record in putting endangered species, prime agricultural land and marine environments in harm's way due to many of these renewable projects. This is a situation worsened by a broken community engagement process which ignores calls from environmentalists and farmers alike about such matters. It is also worth noting that, despite her boasting and the radical zealotry of her colleague the Minister for Climate Change and Energy about Labor's 82 per cent renewable target by 2030, in truth, the rollout of renewables on their watch has slowed, not quickened. It's running at half the pace they promised, and this won't change any time soon given investment in renewables has stalled. It's at a low ebb. That's right. Final investment decisions on new renewable generation projects have dropped by around 40 per cent since Labor came to office. The minister, in her statement, celebrated Labor's commitment to new emission reduction targets. What she failed to mention was not only are they falling short of achieving those targets but—wait for it, and this is an important one—emissions have actually been going up in Australia, not down, since Labor came to office. Think about that. Under the coalition, they continued to come down. Now they're going up. The minister failed to mention that in her statement. Incredibly, there was another line in the minister's statement where she claimed that the government was 'also delivering on our pledge to stop new extinctions in Australia'. She might want to talk to Conservation Volunteers Australia about that one given they have uncovered that Australia has listed more threatened species in the last two years than in the previous 10. The minister assured the parliament that she is interested in cutting plastic waste and pollution too. That passes as very strange given that she has devised no solutions to the recycle crisis or many other problems and that she unilaterally terminated the #SeaToSource program. This had long been the federal government's flagship marine plastic reduction program, jointly involving the CSIRO and CVA. In fact, the minister's actions represented the first instance of CVA being defunded by the Commonwealth in close to 40 years. A swathe of other environmental programs all over the country have been cut and terminated by this environment minister too. Perhaps, maybe, worst of all, the minister brazenly asserted just a few minutes ago that she was allegedly responsible for 'stronger national environmental laws'. That comment takes a lot of courage, admittedly, and maybe some crossing of the fingers. Despite her promises made on multiple occasions that she would deliver such laws by the end of this year, they're nowhere to be seen—and we now know, from recent admissions by senior officials of her department, that they're miles away yet. There is no new EPA in existence, and it is therefore, by definition, not undertaking anything in the way of enforcement, as she suggests. On the 30 by 30 pledge: one thing the minister continually fails to acknowledge is that Australia has already met the 30 per cent marine protection target. It was well and truly exceeded, at a level of 43 per cent, and that was before she even became the minister. I also note her attempt today to again paint herself as a major player at COP15 last year. But what she actually did there, or what commitments and agreements she made, we simply can't find on the public record. In reading much of the media about the conference, Australia wasn't even mentioned—if so, barely. I certainly didn't read it. I have seen two so-called answers to coalition questions on notice that asked the department to specify the actions and financial commitments to which the minister had obligated Australia at that conference. Those would have been matters worth detailing to the House today, yet there is no clarity in them. Likewise, there are myriad questions, requests for media interviews and stakeholder correspondence that hasn't been answered by the government in relation to the agreements with UNESCO made in secret by this minister and the Prime Minister in Paris in July 2022. This agreement represented a complete cave-in by the two of them to a list of 10 demands by UNESCO that are now causing havoc to hundreds of workers and their families across Queensland and beyond. Worse still, they took that action without any consultation with the Australians who would be most affected by it. Accordingly, the lives and livelihoods of many fishers, farmers and other workers in primary industries are now under siege; they're in despair. Even after so many months, they still have no information about what compensation, if any, they will receive. They're crying out literally and metaphorically for help from Ministers Plibersek and Watt, yet they're being ignored. How could any discussion on the international consequences of this government's approach to environmental policy be complete without mentioning their catastrophic decision to provide $8.3 million of taxpayer funding to the Environmental Defenders Office—basically the allocation of taxpayer money for legal activists which are inflicting enormous damage on foreign investment here in Australia, drastically increasing Australia's reputation for sovereign risk internationally. That's some sort of environmental leadership! International collaboration and the cultivation and maintenance of effective foreign relations are very important. International agreements are also valuable, when they're negotiated and executed effectively. However, in each such negotiation, there's always a fundamental question that needs to be asked: what does this agreement or negotiation genuinely deliver for Australia's national interests? From the environment minister's speech today, there can be no confidence that the Albanese government seriously asks itself this question. Of course the bottom line is that there can be as many grand set piece speeches, media releases and announcements as you like, but it's what a minister and a government deliver or fail to deliver that really matters. Indeed, in complete contrast to the present administration—and for all of the minister's extraordinary attempts over the past 18 months to blame the coalition for her own failures—it was the Liberal-National coalition which delivered real outcomes in this portfolio. The many outcomes delivered included unprecedented reductions in Australia's greenhouse emissions; record investment in renewables and low-emissions technologies; a $1 billion transformation of the waste and recycling sector; more than $3 billion of new expenditure on the Great Barrier Reef—compared to the less than $200 million under the Albanese government, I'll note; $6 billion of investment on threatened species protection; the delivery of two threatened species strategies; the rollout of our environment restoration fund; and more than $2.8 billion to enhance Australia's Antarctic operations and science capabilities. Where Labor talks, the coalition delivers. We are determined that the same level of hard work and the same demonstrable record of successful delivery will be on display again when we return to office, especially with Senator Jonathon Duniam at the helm of this vitally important portfolio. For now, though, the void of leadership and the sad inaction on the part of the Albanese Labor government continue. All of us have been left to watch in bemusement as Labor talks the big game but fails to put into practice almost anything of genuine meaning and substance, and it brings me no joy to say that, if any confirmation— (Time expired)