THE HON TANYA PLIBERSEK MP
MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER

SPEECH TO ALP NATIONAL CONFERENCE

BRISBANE

Delegates, unionists, environmentalists:

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Last year, at the election, Labor promised to put the environment front and centre –

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Back where it belongs.

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And here, written in this platform, set out in this chapter, Labor is delivering on that promise.

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No first-year government has done more for the environment than we have.

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And no government has ever invested more money in nature conservation than we are:

• Doubling the funding to our National Parks.
• Doubling the number of renewable energy projects being approved.
• Tripling the size of the Macquarie Island Marine Park – likely the biggest addition to ocean conservation anywhere in the world this year.
• Doubling the number of Indigenous Rangers.
• Adding ten new Indigenous Protected Areas to our national estate.
• Bringing clean water to remote First Nations communities, and rebuilding the town of Mutitjulu, after years of disgraceful neglect.
• Protecting thirty per cent of our land and sea.
• Doubling Australia’s recycling capacity; restoring our urban rivers; fighting for zero new extinctions; and investing $1.2 billion to protect and restore the Great Barrier Reef here in Queensland.  

And looking ahead, we have some massive reforms to come:

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• Rewriting our broken environmental laws, to make them nature positive.
• Establishing a national EPA and Environment Information Australia.
• And delivering the Murray Darling Basin Plan – this country’s biggest investment in environmental conservation, protecting over one million square kilometres of Australia’s heartland.

Delegates, that was the first instalment –

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And with this platform, we begin the next great Labor push.

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So thank you to all the true believers who helped write this chapter.

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All the branch members, all the trade unions, all the activists in LEAN.

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When we deliver our first term law reform agenda, I commit to taking stock, to see what needs to be done next.

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When I do that, I will look carefully at LEAN’s proposal for a National Environment.

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Commission, as well as other ideas that might arise.

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I proudly second this chapter.