Nature Repair Bill: NFF’s Fiona Simson urges politicians to pass biodiversity market scheme

NFF’s Fiona Simson urges pollies to pass the Nature Repair Bill, as squabbling threatens to derail the biodiversity market reform.

Jason Gregory

2 min read

June 26, 2023 - 3:12PM

The Weekly Times

Farm leaders have called on federal parliamentarians to not railroad a world-first scheme intended to reward landholders with tradeable certificates for on-farm projects that repair, protect or restore native biodiversity.

Labor’s Nature Repair Market Bill passed the House of Representatives last week but threatens to be stalled or blocked in the Senate by the Coalition and a Greens party that called the draft legislation “irreparable” without pollution triggers and a native forest logging ban.

However, National Farmers’ Federation president Fiona Simson said the voluntary market would be a “a rare win-win-win” for the environment, business and landholders who would welcome a new income stream generated from private sector investment.

“Farmers have been calling for this sort of partnership-based approach to invest in the health of our landscapes for years. We’ve partnered with two successive governments over the past decade to make this a reality,” Ms Simson said.

National Farmers’ Federation president Fiona Simson on her family property at Premer on NSW’s Liverpool Plains. Picture: John Elliott

“To see it fall over at the final hurdle would be heartbreaking (but) we’re not seeing a genuine attempt by The Greens to improve the bill or ensure this new market succeeds. Their zany ideas about climate triggers or native forestry entirely miss the point.”

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?

The bill – an expanded and repackaged reincarnation of the Coalition’s biodiversity stewardship program it tabled in 2022 – appeared certain to pass before the Opposition unexpectedly reversed its initial support last week.

Nationals leader David Littleproud now believes the document has diverged too far and the “government had let its ideology take away the practical reality and the safeguards that are required for agriculture and farming families in regional communities”.

He argued the new bill would risk prime production land being targeted by industrial emitters for offset schemes following the passage of the government’s safeguard mechanism.

In response, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, who once labelled the repair market a “green Wall Street” said the Nationals were preventing “farmers from getting rewarded for looking after their land”.

However, the Coalition also continues to negotiate its issues behind the scenes, while Teal independents urged the Greens to work to improve the bill rather than “blocking things that are important because they don’t get everything they want”.

The bill only passed the House last week after the crossbench negotiated amendments, including that landholders can specify certificates created from their projects cannot be used for offsetting and also to make the scheme more accessible for small landholders.

Meanwhile, Farmers for Climate Action chief executive Fiona Davis said the organisation would only fully support the proposals if it was amended to not use biodiversity offsets to drive payments to farmers.

“Our farmers want to be paid to improve landscapes, but they also want to increase Australia’s biodiversity, not shrink it,” she said.

Like the Nationals, Ms Davis believes the offsets only give the green light for companies to buy “essential food producing farmland and clear it to produce offsets.

Agriculture leaders have previously expressed reservations with some aspects of the bill, such as projects receiving only a single certificate despite quantifiable impact.

But believe it to be a good basis for the architecture farmers have been calling for to help make a measurable difference to climate targets without taking disproportionate financial risks.

The science-based methodology would also help producers fight greenwashing when marketing their own green credentials.

The bill, originally designed to help meet the government’s commitment to a global biodiversity framework by protecting 30 per cent of the nation’s land and seas by 2030, now requires Greens support before a Senate vote in early August.

Meanwhile, agriculture’s carbon emissions have risen to a near 20-year high courtesy of a bumper winter harvest and a successful post-drought livestock restocking.