Farm leaders welcome nature repair scheme passage

Farm leaders have welcomed the passing of Labor’s Nature Repair Market Bill, but are wary of “a rushed political deal”.

Farm leaders have welcomed a deal struck between Labor and the Greens to establish a nature repair scheme that would reward landholders for on-farm projects that repair, protect or restore native biodiversity.

Labor’s long-anticipated Nature Repair Market Bill passed through the Senate last night after the Albanese government agreed to demands to stop credits in a yet-to-be-created marketplace from being traded as offsets for destruction of habitat elsewhere, or “greenwashing”.

It also agreed to support fast-tracked legislation to extend the water trigger in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to include gas fracking, which would increase scrutiny of projects such as the Beetaloo Basin gas operation.

However, National Farmers’ Federation chief executive Tony Mahar said while legislation allowing farmers to unlock capital for land stewardship work was welcomed, “a rushed political deal” with the Greens delivered a weaker scheme than it had hoped.

National Farmers' Federation CEO Tony Mahar. Picture: AAP Image/Lukas Coch

“It could and should have been much better,” he said.

“Farmers would have liked to see protections included for prime agricultural land, and limits on participation by public land assets – the restoration of which should continue to be publicly funded.”

He said the establishment of a functioning marketplace was now a priority.

The NFF has partnered with two successive governments to work on the scheme, the Labor version being an expanded and repackaged reincarnation of the Coalition’s biodiversity stewardship program tabled in 2022.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, who once labelled the repair market a “green Wall Street”, said the scheme would support landholders to do things such as replanting koala habitat, excluding livestock to repair natural marshland or eradicating feral species.

“This is an exciting chance to see extra investment in protecting our environment. Expanding the water trigger is a sensible change,” she said.

Environment and Water Minister Tanya Plibersek during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Meanwhile, Farmers for Climate Action chief executive Natalie Collard said the organisation’s members had been “very clear” that offsets were unacceptable.

“The integrity of credits is a cornerstone of any scheme to verify and certify biodiversity improvements,” she said.

“The best way to protect nature is to protect it, not bulldoze it and then try to grow something similar somewhere else.”

The repair market legislation has given the green light for the creation of a new system to register and certify biodiversity conservation and restoration projects on land or sea in Australia.

Farmers for Climate Action chief executive Natalie Collard.

Projects must use government-approved methods and outcomes would need to be verified.

The Australia Conservation Foundation welcomed the changes but said more must be done to strengthen Australia’s “weak” national environment law to “stem the extinction crisis.”

The scheme is the second major environmental legislation the government has negotiated with the Greens in recent days after the passing of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan amendments.