Responding to Environment Minister Plibersek’s announcement of an environmental offsets audit, Greens spokesperson for the Environment Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said:
“The Government’s Nature Repair Market must be scrapped in light of the Environment Minister’s offset audit and integrity concerns.
“Environmental offsets have been a sham for years. They are wholly designed to allow big developers and miners to destroy the environment and harm wildlife under the false pretense that saving a small piece of nature somewhere else can excuse the damage.
“Offsets have never been about protecting the environment, they are only ever about greenwashing pollution and harm.
“If the Minister is seriously concerned about the integrity of offsets then the Nature Repair Market Bill currently before the parliament should be binned.
“As it stands, Minister Plibersek’s Nature Repair Market Bill will supercharge the use of these dodgy credits and offsets, meaning more destruction, more logging and more pollution. A ‘Green Wall Street’ is not what nature needs, it needs proper laws that can stop pollution and stop the bulldozers.
“The Greens have previously called for a suspension and investigation of environmental offsets around the country. Any audit must be independent and transparent if it is to have integrity.
“If the Minister is serious about protecting nature, she must stop seeking bandaid solutions to broken schemes and instead work urgently on fixing our environment laws so that they actually stop the destruction and pollution at the source.”