Deborah O'Neill

The question is that the bill be read a second time.

Deborah O'Neill

As a result of deferred votes, I'm going to put the question on second reading amendments. The question is that the second reading amendment moved by Senator Rice be agreed to. Is a division required?

Louise Pratt

I just want to draw to Senator Babet's attention that if he calls for them he has to vote with that side as well.

Deborah O'Neill

The question is that the second reading amendment moved by Senator Rice be agreed to.

Malcolm Roberts

As a servant to the many and varied people making up the amazing Queensland community and Australian nation, I speak to the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (2022 Measures No. 1) Bill 2022. It's significant in my speech's opening that I refer to myself as a servant to the Queensland and Australian people. Whoever wrote this bill is not a servant of the people—in fact, the proposer of this bill sees the people as their servants, slaves, serfs. It destroys fundamental human rights, smashes fundamentals of law, removes the tried and true system for authorising new drugs and places the Australian public at the mercy and under the control of unelected bureaucrats. The same bureaucrats proved themselves unfit to exercise their current already disproportionately large power during COVID, all with no accountability.

First, let me explain this bill's provisions: firstly, introducing a framework for the mandatory reporting of adverse events. One Nation supports this measure. Secondly, it introduces a new marketing approval pathway for biologicals for export only. One Nation supports this. Thirdly, it enables the Secretary of the Department of Health and Aged Care to approve the importation or supply of overseas prescription medicines that are substitutes for existing medicines with no checks and balances on that process. One Nation opposes this measure. Fourthly, it eliminates the human rights of people to contest decisions on the provision of documents the secretary requires. One Nation totally opposes the removal of common law rights to due process. Next, it enables the secretary to require any person to provide information or documents relevant to a possible contravention of the act. This bill does not do so fairly, and therefore we do not support this provision. Next, it permits therapeutic goods advertising. In the absence of justification for making this charge, One Nation opposes this provision. Finally, it clarifies the secretary is not obliged to observe natural justice. One Nation will defend the rights of everyday Australians to enjoy basic human rights provided across 1,500 years of common law, and so we oppose this provision.

This is a significant bill with new powers and provisions that did not go to committee inquiry. It sums up the arrogance of this Soviet-level government that such a wide-ranging bill removing basic human rights, smashing legal principles, containing significant penalties and coercion and with a huge impact on the approval of new drugs will be forced through parliament without being subject to committee inquiry, especially after the separate Scrutiny of Bills Committee in its seven-page report thrashed the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (2022 Measures No. 1) Bill 2022. Here are the main elements of that criticism. Firstly, the reversal of the evidential burden of proof:

Item 2 of Schedule 5 seeks to insert proposed section 45AC into the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 (the Act) to create an offence for failing to comply with a notice from the Secretary requiring the production of information or documents.

Proposed subsection 45AC(3) provides the defence of reasonable excuse, yet the defendant must prove their defence. In simple terms, this bill treats anyone coming to the attention of the secretary of the health department as guilty unless proven innocent. The presumption of innocence dates from Roman Emperor Justinian in the sixth century and, for 15 centuries, has remained a fundamental principle of Western law. If the bill allowed the normal checks and balances that criminal and civil courts provide, the defence of reasonable excuse would not be necessary. It would be available automatically. This bill is extinguishing our defendants' existing legal rights, all this smashing of legal rights and principles from a Labor government.

Secondly, strict liability offences:

Item 2 of Schedule 5 proposes to introduce subsections 45AC(2) and 45AD(2) which contain strict liability offences for failure to comply with a notice—

to produce documents. The recipient of a notice does not have to be a large corporation that can afford the compliance cost. It can be any medical professional or administrator. If the recipient fails to produce a notice, as the secretary demands, then a strict liability offence is committed. If the defendant was in hospital the whole time, for instance, it doesn't matter—here's the fine, $27,000, pay up, no appeals! Does that sound fair? No.

Thirdly, procedural fairness. Item 1 of schedule 10 to the bill seeks to insert subsection 61(13) into the act so that the secretary is not required to observe any requirements of natural justice in relation to releasing information under the act. What does the secretary think they are?

Fourthly, the incorporation of external material. These are all criticisms from the Scrutiny of Bills Committee. Instruments made under items 12, 15, 16, 20 and 30 of schedule 12 to the bill allow for the later inclusion of any written matter from any suitable source. The material itself is not included, so anyone subject to government action under the bill will have no idea of the full legal position they're operating in. How can Australians follow the law if we're not able to determine what the law is? We cannot. The last time this was used was to remove the reference in the Banking Code of Practice to the international standard for handling customer disputes, which was only available to paying customers from an American company that maintained the code. That document established banking customers had rights they were unaware of. Linking to the document, instead of explicitly setting out the rights, let the banks run riot from 2003 through to the banking royal commission final report in 2019.

The ALP have learned nothing from history, or they have deliberately ignored history. These four criticisms alone from the Senate Scrutiny of Bills Committee are all valid. The Soviet-style government should have addressed all before the bill came to the Senate. I urge all senators to vote this bill down and resist the attack on common law rights and restore principles of law that everyday Australians have held since Western settlement of our beautiful country.

Slipped into the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (2022 Measures No. 1) Bill 2022 are provisions that circumvent the approval process for new drugs. The policy direction implicit in schedule 9 should have been set out in a separate bill sent to the committee, widely consulted and properly debated. So extreme is this provision. In schedule 9, after subsection 19A(2)(2B):

The Secretary may, by notice in writing, grant an approval to a person for the importation into Australia, or the supply in Australia, of specified therapeutic goods (the subject goods) if the Secretary is satisfied:

(a) that there are no registered goods that could act as a substitute for the subject goods; and …

…   …   …

(c) that all of the following apply:

(i) the subject goods are not registered or approved for general marketing in any of the foreign countries specified by the Secretary in a determination under subsection (3);

(ii) the subject goods are registered or approved for general marketing in at least one foreign country that is not specified by the Secretary …

What? Those statements appear to cancel each other out. And thirdly:

(iii) the manufacturing and quality control procedures used in the manufacture of the subject goods are acceptable; and

So not even a good manufacturing process is specified. The minimum required for a supermarket packet of vitamins in Australia, just acceptable. What on earth does acceptable mean? This gives bureaucrats unlimited power with no accountability. It goes on:

(d) that the subject goods are of a kind included in Schedule 10 to the Therapeutic Goods Regulations 1990—

which, for clarity, includes vaccines, and—

(e) that the approval is necessary in the interests of public health.

That's in the bureaucrat's opinion. So let's take a closer look at this deceit.

The wording of this section is turned around. A drug can be approved if there is no drug already available that can substitute for the new drug. Isn't that any new drug? Because by definition there will be no existing drug to substitute for it. Isn't this just a backdoor to allow the secretary to approve new drugs at their discretion without a specified approval process? This is being sold as a measure to combat drug scarcity, yet it's not how the section was actually written. This section does not contain any of the following. There's no explicit binding limitation that this provision can only be used in the case of a drug scarcity. There's no definition around when the provisions are exercised other than a general statement about the interests of public health, which could be anything that the bureaucrat decides on a whim. There's no sunset clause. With a wave of the secretary's magic sceptre, even under the excuse of shortage, drugs and vaccines are approved permanently. There's no requirement for safety testing. There's no suitable requirement for manufacturing quality and consistency.

If powerful multinational pharmaceutical companies have the ability to get a new-generation drug approved with a shiny new patent to replace a drug that's out of patent and all they have to do is stop making the old drug to create a deliberate shortage, what do you think the drug company will do? Of course this will be rorted. We've no protections in place to stop that happening. Four hundred new mRNA drugs are in development. Two mRNA manufacturing facilities are already under construction in Australia alone. What did the drug companies know last year when they started construction of these plants? This bill is what they knew. This was coming for them.

Schedule 9 will save drug companies billions in regulatory costs. During COVID the TGA approved 23 new drugs under an emergency use authorisation. There was no long-term safety testing, minimal testing of any kind, no testing on progeny and no close monitoring of the Database of Adverse Event Notifications other than to minimise the extent of the harm family doctors reported all over Australia or, rather, doctors were reporting until AHPRA bullied medical professionals into silence. With the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (2022 Measures No. 1) Bill 2022 the Albanese Labor government is setting Australia up to be a paradise for big multinational pharmaceutical companies and to be a killing field.

Separately on today's _Notice Paper_is the Work Health and Safety Amendment Bill 2022, which, if passed, will require every business in the country to introduce vaccine mandates for their staff, for their people. Employers who do not will face savage penalties. The Albanese Labor government is not a government of the people. It's a government of the global elites, for the global elites. And with big pharma's $500,000 in election campaign donations to Labor, it's a government under globalist elites—the globalist predators: BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street. Welcome to the facade that they have in front of them, apparently with the consent and aid of the Greens and with the Liberals-Nationals who scored big pharma election donations of $500,000, another half a million bucks. I'm old enough to remember when the Greens campaigned against foreign multinational pharmaceutical companies. Now the Greens actively expand big pharma's influence. They expand their market share, profit and control over people. Talk about 'please explain'.

We cannot say with complete certainty whether the 20,000 excess deaths up to October 2022—that's in just 10 months—were the cause of COVID vaccines or some other factor. Most likely it's a combination of many factors with medical experts saying quite clearly that excess deaths are directly and indirectly attributable to COVID injections causing heart attacks, blood clots, cancers, Alzheimer's and many other adverse effects. What is inexcusable is not knowing the causes and not caring—inhuman. How can 20,000 extra Australians die in a 10-month period and there not be a hue and cry to get to the bottom of it? It's immoral; it's inhuman. Yet now Labor wants to give these callous, shifty bureaucrats greater power to work for their big pharma mates. Surely we have to understand why so many people are dying before we make any significant change to the authorisation of new pharmaceutical drugs.

If, as seems highly likely, the extreme level of harm being experienced is confirmed and death is confirmed as being due to the mRNA technology or the spike proteins in these hideous things, and we as a Senate approve a dismantling of the drug approval process, then the very people we are here to represent will rightly damn you all for all time. I am appalled and disgusted that the Albanese Labor government would even think about introducing this monstrous, inhuman bill.

Long debate text truncated.

Jess Walsh

I understand that we need to vote on Senator McKim's urgency motion and that that needs to occur for reasons that precede my presence in the chair. I will now put the question that the motion moved by Senator McKim be agreed to.

Wendy Askew

At the request of Senator Hume, I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

(i) order for production of documents no. 126 agreed by the Senate on 7 February 2023, requiring the Minister representing the Treasurer to table all reports by Moody's Corporation, Fitch Ratings, Inc., and S&P Global on the Commonwealth's credit rating since 22 May 2022 and associated documents, has not been complied with,

(ii) on 9 February 2023 the Minister representing the Treasurer, in her response to the order, tabled a letter from the Treasurer to her that stated 'Treasury officials are actively progressing the request, but additional time is required to consider the request', and

(iii) an additional month of time has elapsed and no documents have been provided; and

(b) requires the Minister representing the Treasurer to comply with the order by no later than midday on Thursday, 9 March 2023.

Sue Lines

The question is that general business notice of motion No. 172, standing in the name of Senator Hume, be agreed to.

Jonathon Duniam

At the request of Senator Birmingham, I move general business notices of motion No. 169 and No. 170:

GENERAL BUSINESS NOTICE OF MOTION NO. 169

That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Treasurer, by no later than 5 pm on Thursday, 16 March 2023, any advice or modelling provided by Treasury showing that 80,000 or 0.5% of Australians will be affected by the Government's proposed superannuation changes, referred to in the Prime Minister's press conference on 28 February 2023.

GENERAL BUSINESS NOTICE OF MOTION NO. 170

That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Treasurer, by no later than 5 pm on Thursday, 16 March 2023, any advice or modelling provided by Treasury showing that 1 in 10 Australians will be affected by the Government's proposed superannuation changes over 30 years, referred to by the Minister for Finance and the Treasurer during question time on 6 March 2023.

Sue Lines

The question is that general business notices Nos 169 and 170, standing in the name of Senator Birmingham and moved by Senator Duniam, be agreed to.

Wendy Askew

I, and also on behalf of Senators Brockman and Cadell, move:

That there be laid on the table by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, by no later than 5 pm on Monday, 27 March 2023, the following documents in relation to the January 2023 visit by the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (Mr Andrew Metcalfe AO) to the Middle East:

(a) briefing notes, file notes, emails and written correspondence provided by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade as advice to Secretary Metcalfe and/or the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry;

(b) briefing notes, file notes, emails and written correspondence provided by HE Melissa Kelly (Ambassador to Kuwait) as advice to Secretary Metcalfe and/or accompanying staff; and

(c) briefing notes, file notes, emails and written correspondence provided by HE Mark Donovan (Ambassador to Saudi Arabia) as advice to Secretary Metcalfe and/or accompanying staff.

Sue Lines

The question is that general business notice of motion No. 166 standing in the names of Brockman and Cadell be agreed to.

Nick McKim

At the request of Senator Whish-Wilson, I move:

(1) That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Minister for Resources, by no later than 5 pm on 6 April 2023, the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) final inspection report for the petroleum environmental inspection sof the Schlumberger Otway Basin 2DMC Marine Seismic Survey, and associated documents, including:

(a) details of the proposed scope for this inspection and areas of focus;

(b) details of other issues that arose during the course of the inspection;

(c) the overview of the observations and findings from the inspection;

(d) the conclusions and recommendations of that report;

(e) the Schlumberger response to these recommendations; and

(f) the documentation collected by NOPSEMA in the course of the inspection.

(2) That the Senate:

(a) notes the freedom of information disclosure F184 by NOPSEMA on 22 February 2023; and

(b) refers the Minister representing the Minister for Resources to Senate resolution no. 51 relating to the application of Freedom of Information Act 1982 provisions to the Senate's inquiry powers.

Sue Lines

The question is that general business notice of motion No. 164 standing in the name of Senator Whish-Wilson be agreed to.

Nick McKim

On 19 July 2013 Australia's government—a Labor government—reintroduced a policy of offshore detention, making it clear that someone who arrived in Australia by boat to claim asylum would never settle here and instead would be forcibly transferred to an offshore prison. That policy has resulted in murders, rapes, child sex abuse, state sanctioned child abuse, institutional brutality, deliberate dehumanisation of innocent people and the destruction of countless lives.

The policy was arbitrary, it was illegal under international law and it was contrary to Australia's international obligations. It established Australia's offshore gulags. They were designed to harm people so grievously that those people would be forced back to the country that they fled from in the first place to face the persecution and the risks that they had fled from in the first place. It undoubtably qualified under international law as a system of torture. This is because it consisted of the deliberate infliction of severe harm on people for the purpose of coercing them and others into particular actions.

I hope those responsible for this system's design and implementation one day face the consequences of their actions. Charge them with torture, convict them of torture and lock them up for a while and give them a taste of their own medicine. That's what should happen to those people.

That Australia's offshore detention policy framework has been seized upon and promoted by fascists, Nazis and far-right political parties in Europe, even to the extent of using the very same words and the very same font as Australian government communications, tells us everything we need to know about its philosophical underpinnings and the kind of people it was designed to appeal to. Right now, as we debate this bill, the UK government is seeking to implement its own version of Australia's shameful policy. This is one of the most shameful exports this country has ever produced, and it has seen us go from an international human rights champion to an international human rights pariah.

Offshore detention has been a humanitarian calamity and has been one of the darkest and bloodiest chapters in our country's story. It is time we wrote the ending to that chapter, and this bill will help us do that. After 10 long years of offshore detention, it is beyond abhorrent that about 150 people remain in exile in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. Every one of those people is suffering. Some of them are suffering grievously.

It is no exaggeration to say that the passage of this bill will save lives. It will save the lives of some innocent people who have been used as human billboards, who, like thousands of others, have been tortured in order to send a message to other people that they should not attempt to come to Australia by boat to claim asylum. This is the Senate's opportunity to make right a small part of the injustice, the lies and the degradations of the last decade.

This legislation does not require the government to settle people permanently in Australia, although that is the Greens' position, but it does require the government to offer to bring them to Australia to support them until a durable third country solution is secured. It is entirely consistent with Labor's policy platform, and on that basis there is no barrier to the Australian Labor Party voting for this legislation other than their own political courage. The fact that the Australian Labor Party sent every one of the 150 people who are still exiled in Papua New Guinea and Nauru to Manus Island and Nauru in the first place means every Labor senator today has a moral responsibility to vote to end their exile.

When Labor was in opposition, Labor senators and MPs were happy to support the Greens' medevac amendment. This bill gives Labor the chance to finish the job. It represents a compassionate and practical solution to the ongoing calamity of offshore detention. It provides a necessary step towards a durable solution for people who have been without one for nearly a decade now. It will offer people a chance at safety in Australia with the support and medical attention they need while awaiting resettlement in a safe third country. This is a critical step in ensuring that people who sought asylum in Australia and were treated so abhorrently finally get an opportunity at the dignity and respect they deserve, and a much-needed chance to rebuild their lives in safety and freedom.

The explanatory memorandum goes through the provisions of this bill. In short, it will compel the government to make an immediate offer of evacuation to all refugees and people who sought asylum in Australia who are still offshore in Papua New Guinea or Nauru—that is, about 150 people. It will compel the government to place all refugees and people seeking asylum who accept the offer into the Australian community and not into held detention, and it will compel the government to make available any medical assessments and treatments that people evacuated to Australia need.

There are many other provisions in this bill, and I urge senators to educate themselves about them by reading the bill and the explanatory memorandum. At the end of the day, there is one thing this bill will indisputably do—that is, save lives. It will actually save the lives of people who have now suffered for 10 long years. It will do that in a way that is completely consistent with the policy platform that the Australian Labor Party took to the most recent election. I could quote you chapter and verse, but time will prevent me from going right through all of Labor's policy positions that this bill is in line with, but Labor commit to giving permanent protection to those found to be owed Australia's protection. I make the point here that almost all of the people that this bill covers have been found to be owed protection. They have been found to be owed protection, and under Labor's policy they should be given permanent protection.

Labor promises that people in detention will be treated fairly and reasonably within the law and promises that people in detention will be provided an appropriate standard of care, including the provision of health, mental health and education services, to a standard consistent with that afforded to the Australian community. That is not being delivered to the people in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. I want to make it clear here: the people in Papua New Guinea whom the previous government, the LNP government, washed its hands of in a disgraceful abrogation of its duty of care still should be, and are, under Australia's duty of care. It is beyond shameful that a Labor government has refused to address the decision made by Mr Morrison and Mr Dutton and, instead, is carrying on like some kind of pale version of the LNP. It is beyond disgraceful. The people in Papua New Guinea have to be considered under Australia's care because we owe them a duty of care having exiled them—under a Labor government, I might add—so long ago.

It's critical in this debate that we hear some of the voices of the actual people, who are suffering and who have suffered under this disgraceful policy framework. I want to place some of those on the record now in a de-identified way. Firstly, here are some words from Shariff, who is a refugee in Nauru who is awaiting urgent evacuation to Australia. I might add, doctors in Nauru and an Australian specialist have recommended Shariff be transferred to Australia for treatment. That still hasn't happened, disgracefully, and it has been a decade since Shariff has seen his family, including his two children. Shariff says:

It is important to get evacuated because we do not get any treatment here in Nauru.

…   …   …

At the moment I cannot imagine being able to think about resettlement, I can only imagine after I have treatment.

Here is Rajah, a Tamil refugee held in Nauru who is in excruciating pain, which is increasing each day. Rajah says:

Take one minute for us and think about our feelings and our families. We are separated from our children, siblings and parents. It is not easy. If we have done anything wrong, tell us.

Nur Mohammed is a refugee recently transferred to Australia from Nauru for medical treatment. He says:

Australian immigration forced me to Nauru, and I did not want to go, but for 10 years I followed the rules.

…   …   …

I want to see justice for my friends in Nauru and PNG. Open your hearts and minds and do something.

Those are some of the many case studies that the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee heard about during the inquiry, the report of which was tabled in the Senate yesterday.

I want to diverge slightly and refer to one further submission to that inquiry. This was the only submission the inquiry received, I might add, that called for this bill to be rejected by the Senate. That, completely unsurprisingly, was from the Department of Home Affairs. It is beyond belief that those rampant hypocrites in the Department of Home Affairs would dare try to use the Convention on the Rights of the Child as an argument against this bill. I mean, please! These people have been torturing children on Nauru for a decade. They oversaw a system of deliberate, state-sanctioned child abuse on Nauru, and then they have the barefaced gall to argue against this bill in their submission using the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Give us a break! I mean, seriously! These people who deliberately tortured children have no right to be quoting the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Get back in the bin, you absolute monsters! You absolute monsters, get back in the bin. You're a disgrace!

The 150 people left stranded in Nauru and in Papua New Guinea are the small remnants of the thousands who were exiled in the first place. They are innocent people who face murder, who face rape, who face child sex abuse, who face medical neglect, who face deliberate dehumanisation and who've witnessed the destruction of so many lives. They are innocent people who reached out a hand to our country and asked for our help, and they were treated disgracefully and abominably. They were used like the corpses that used to be impaled on the walls of medieval cities to send a message to other desperate people that they should not try to enter. Those who remain stranded today have been suffering for 10 years, and they are still suffering today.

We've got an opportunity today to take a small step towards ending some of that suffering. Many have chronic and critical health conditions that need urgent treatment that is not able to be provided in Papua New Guinea or Nauru. There is simply no point in extending their suffering. It achieves precisely nothing. It is simply brutality for the sake of brutality. Surely, colleagues, we are a better country than that. Well, we're about to find out.

Nita Green

I'm pleased to be speaking on the Migration Amendment (Evacuation to Safety) Bill 2023 today, the private senator's bill on amending the Migration Act. I rise and speak on this bill as Chair of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee. I've had the opportunity to discuss the bill with the senator who has moved this bill's second reading and to receive a wide range of evidence from stakeholders and the department. Over the course of the inquiry, we received over 150 submissions about the bill and the issues it seeks to address. On the record, I want to thank the organisations and individuals who took the time to make a submission to the legislation inquiry. I understand that views on this issue are deeply held and strongly felt across the community and across the parliament.

At the last election, the now Prime Minister spoke of the need to be strong on borders without being weak on humanity. Being strong on borders without being weak on humanity—it's an important balance, and it's one that we are getting right in government. It's one that only a Labor government can get right, which is why we have already followed through on our election promise to provide a permanent visa pathway for existing temporary protection visa holders and safe haven enterprise visa holders. And—perhaps inconveniently to the mover of this bill—since the election the number of displaced people on Nauru has more than halved.

Nick McKim

Why would that be an inconvenience?

Nita Green

Through you, Acting Deputy President, I'll take that interjection. What I'm going to do today is stand here and calmly state the facts, the policy and the actions that our government is taking. What I'm not going to do is to grandstand, speak over other senators and allow other senators to draw this debate into an exercise in making viral social media videos using emotive language.

Matt O'Sullivan

Senator McKim, on a point of order?

Nick McKim

Yes: improper reflection on another senator. Firstly, Senator Green has said that somehow people being removed from Nauru is inconvenient for me. That is a personal reflection which is not true, and I ask her to withdraw that. Secondly, she has stated very clearly that my outrage is confected and for the purpose of delivering social media content. It's not confected; it is genuine and appropriate. I ask her to withdraw that as well.

Nita Green

On the point of order, respectfully, senators across the chamber sat through the language that was used by the senator who moved this bill. There were no points of order called. I appreciate this is an emotive debate, but there is no point of order.

Matt O'Sullivan

Thank you; I'll rule on that. I don't believe there was a point of order, but it may assist the Chamber if there was anything that you could withdraw. But it's up to you.

Long debate text truncated.

Sue Lines

We'll now move to urgency motions. I'm going to deal with the urgency motion put forward by Senator David Pocock, who has submitted a proposal under standing order 75:

Pursuant to Standing Order 75, I propose to move "That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

That the Safeguard Mechanism reform must be effective in bringing Australia into line with holding global warming to 1.5°C. The design must be based on an emissions reduction hierarchy that delivers genuine emissions reductions while also ensuring a future for essential industries."

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required b y the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today's debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly, and I call Senator Pocock.

David Pocock

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

That the Safeguard Mechanism reform must be effective in bringing Australia into line with holding global warming to 1.5°C. The design must be based on an emissions reduction hierarchy that delivers genuine emissions reductions while also ensuring a future for essential industries.

Australians elected the 47th Parliament with a mandate for real and ambitious climate action. The government may have their mandate of 43 per cent, but there are many MPs and senators with a mandate for action more in line with the science. Scientists have spent decades telling us that we need to act now to hold global warming to 1.5 degrees if we are to avoid the worst impacts of climate change—effects that we are already seeing and that communities across the country are experiencing. The costs are mounting. We're seeing natural disaster after natural disaster, but we're not seeing the kind of action from politicians that we need.

The safeguard mechanism presents an opportunity for us to show the children who come through here and watch Senate proceedings, children across the country and children who have taken the government to court to say: 'You have a duty of care to look after us.' And we've seen the Australian government challenge that, and say, 'We don't have a duty of care to young people and to future generations.' We have an opportunity, with the safeguard mechanism, to begin to bring our climate action in line with the science. The safeguard mechanism has to work. It has to actually reduce emissions, and this means ensuring that emissions reductions are real and not just on paper.

Under the proposed reform, Australia will join Kazakhstan as one of only two countries in the world that allow unfettered access to offsets, and it's obviously no good. There is a huge amount of evidence and agreement on the need for an emissions reduction hierarchy. Companies must first avoid and then reduce their own emissions. Offsets can only be used as a last resort. To quote the former Chief Scientist Professor Ian Chubb:

Offsets can't be a device which big emitters use not to change their behaviour, not to do something about reducing emissions.

I have no doubt that coalition senators will stand up and speak about how the safeguard mechanism will put industries at risk and push up prices. What they're missing is the opportunity for industry in a low-carbon economy. What they are missing is the moral obligation to act on the biggest challenge humans have ever faced.

We're blessed with an incredible wealth of resources in this country. We hear a lot about resources, and resources will be a big part of our future, but not fossil fuel resources. We need to focus on the resources of the future and stop allowing politicians to conflate the two and present people who want a livable future and a transition away from fossil fuels as people who are against resources. Our major trading partners are decarbonising and starting to give preferential treatment to low-carbon imports. That is a massive opportunity for Australia, with our incredible mineral wealth.

From the government, we will likely hear that finally something is being done and put in place for real climate policy. But we don't have time for incremental changes. We can't just say we're heading in the right direction. The fires and floods of the last few years should be a wake-up call for all of us. We owe it to those communities. We owe it to Australians. We owe it to Australians who haven't been born yet to deal with this now, and we have an opportunity with this legislation. We will likely hear that a hierarchy of mitigation is assumed in the legislation, but there is nothing explicit to ensure that we are avoiding emissions, reducing emissions and then, as a last resort, using the land sector to offset.

So I commend this to the Senate. This is a really important policy, but we have to get it right and we have to ensure that it reduces emissions in this country.

Jonathon Duniam

I thank Senator Pocock for the opportunity to speak on his urgency motion relating to the safeguard mechanism reform, which of course is a live issue in this parliament and something that there's been much deliberation upon. I note that, in the matter of urgency that Senator Pocock put before the chamber, he references global warming and keeping it to 1.5 degrees and goes on to talk about the design needing to be based on an emissions reduction hierarchy—which we've just heard him speak about—that delivers genuine emissions reductions while also ensuring a future for essential industries. I think it's important to focus on a couple of points in that as I provide a response from the coalition on this issue.

The issue of climate change is, as this motion points out, a global one. It's one where there is a global responsibility. So it is right for us to do what we can here in this country. I think it is imperative that a country that can should show responsibility and do what it can to minimise its impact on the environment, including when it comes to carbon emissions. But the problem with the matter we're dealing with, when it comes to the safeguard mechanism that is the subject of consideration here, is that there is a difference of opinion in this place about exactly how best, under what is being proposed, we can achieve what we seek to achieve: minimising human impact on the environment and, in this case, minimising carbon emissions, without having an undue and damaging impact on the economy. It's something I've talked about a couple of times here.

For what it's worth, the coalition's view is that the proposal that is referenced in broad terms in the motion is one whose environmental impact we haven't seen properly assessed. We actually don't know what impact it will have on emissions reduction. There are some projections. We've just dealt with a motion around some of the modelling that the government refuses to reveal to us. We don't know what the impact will be—what reliance on carbon credits. Similarly, we don't know what impact such a proposition will have on the economy. It is something we've flagged as needing more serious consideration and more thought put into it.

The second part of Senator Pocock's matter of urgency, particularly at the tail end—'delivering genuine emissions reductions while also ensuring a future for essential industries'—is I think absolutely important. Part of the concern the coalition has around what is currently before us is the idea that we will see industries that cannot meet emission reductions mandated under this legislation and under matching regulation and that cannot access carbon credits, either through the safeguard mechanism credits or through ACCUs, faced with this increased cost of doing business in this country. The end result, despite promises that there will be a scheme to protect these trade exposed industries, like cement manufacturing and aluminium production, will be protected through a formula. We're not convinced that that is the case. The proposal doesn't ensure a future for essential industries, and that is as important as making sure we get right what we need to when it comes to reducing emissions. If you don't get both of those things right, then we're failing on both counts, and no-one is better off.

Indeed, when you don't protect these trade exposed industries and try to bring them on the journey with you—try to work with them to invest in innovation and technology, to work with academic and educational institutions to provide better technology to minimise the impact on the environment—then those businesses, because of this penalty of $275 per tonne of carbon above the baseline, will either reduce production here, in the best case, or simply shut up shop and go offshore. Then those emissions, which we could otherwise be working with them on to minimise, will be generated offshore, somewhere else.

To go back to that original point: it's a global responsibility; it's a global problem. We can't simply offshore our problems and make someone else try to deal with them, because we will still have the issues Senator Pocock talked about before. That's why it is right to expect the information needed to understand the government's proposal and to ensure that we're getting it right in what we're putting in place to reduce emissions but also to minimise the impact on the environment for our future generations.

Jenny McAllister

Thank you, Senator Pocock, for bringing forward this afternoon's urgency debate. Action on safeguards is urgent. That is something we can both agree on. It is exactly why the government has legislation before the parliament right now that alters the safeguard mechanism so that facilities covered by the mechanism must reduce their direct emissions in the future. We can also agree, I think, that reforms to the safeguard mechanism must ensure that Australia's biggest emitters do their fair share when it comes to emissions reduction. On that basis, we're happy to support the motion and have this conversation here in the Senate. But we think it is important to be clear about the safeguard mechanism reforms that we propose and what we are doing, because we don't agree with the whole of the senator's contention in the motion.

Our government is unapologetically focused on transforming Australia's domestic economy to a low-carbon economy. It is the most important thing we can do to support the ambitious international action that is necessary to contain global warming to 1½ degrees. It's why one of our first acts in government was to legislate an ambitious but achievable emissions reduction target of 43 per cent by 2030—a floor, not a ceiling—and our safeguard reforms have been carefully designed to support that and to support Australia's biggest emitters to remain competitive in a decarbonising global economy whilst reducing their emissions. A fit-for-purpose safeguard mechanism does provide the policy certainty for businesses to invest in decarbonisation and seize the opportunities from global energy transformation.

The mechanism we propose will progressively lower baselines, consistent with our legislated target. We estimate it will deliver 205 million tonnes of abatement by 2030. With respect to Senator Pocock, this is not trivial and this is not, as characterised, incremental. These reforms are significant, and they are designed so that all facilities, whether they are existing or new, reduce their emissions. The proposal creates strong incentives for facilities to reduce those emissions onsite and for the industrial sector to decarbonise. Of course, for facilities who may reduce emissions below their baseline, they will have the opportunity to create and sell safeguard mechanism credits. It is part of arrangements for flexibility that secure both our economic capacity and our emissions reduction. We want to ensure not only that these facilities meet their obligations but also that they can grow.

We know that many safeguard facilities are in hard-to-abate sectors, like cement and steel, where technologies have not yet been demonstrated or aren't yet commercially available. The access to flexible options is incredibly important for these sectors. ACCUs are part of this. The land sector is part of this. An ACCU represents a tonne of emissions avoided or sequestered. We are strengthening confidence in that scheme to ensure the continued integrity of that abatement. We've done that through the Chubb recommendations, which found that the scheme is sound. Of course, Professor Chubb made recommendations for reform, and we're committed to implementing those. But let's be real about this. These ACCUs contribute to our legislated targets, and they are not a free pass. Facilities that choose to use ACCUs will have to buy them on the open market, and many businesses will choose to permanently reduce emissions in their own facilities onsite.

Of course, as indicated just now and in recent weeks, those opposite have made themselves irrelevant to this process by opposing a policy that they themselves proposed to implement when they were last in government. The former government had grand plans for safeguard crediting. In fact, it was their policy right up to election day, included in their election document 'Our Plan for Resources'. Yet here we are, with coalition senators repeating the same old lines. After a decade of delay, denial and dysfunction, all that there is on offer is half-baked scare campaigns that are made up from the same old talking points.

But, for the first time in a decade, we have a parliament comprising members and senators who are willing to deliver what the Australian people have been crying out for for a decade: action on climate. They called for action loudly at the election, and now they have a government that is willing to deliver. But we cannot do this on our own. We require a majority in this place, and, when the legislation comes before senators, it will be a choice of real significance. We can seize or squander the only chance before us to get emissions down from our largest industrial emitters. I thank senators for their constructive engagement with Minister Bowen and with the government, and I look forward to the debate proper when it commences in this place.

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