The Australian government is making moves in the Senate to get a report into its Nature Repair Market legislation finalised on Monday, some five months ahead of its official deadline.
The joint Senate and Communications Legislation Committee has been scrutinising the legislation designed to establish a framework for a voluntary biodiversity market in the country.
Its reporting deadline has been pushed back multiple times as stakeholders have raised serious concerns with the bill’s design and was not due to make its final recommendations until April next year.
Committee Chair Labor Senator Karen Grogan said more time was needed “to consider evidence and conclude deliberations”.
However, according to the Senate notice paper updated on Friday, Labor will move a motion in the Senate to bring the deadline forward to Monday, Dec. 4.
If the motion is passed in the Senate, the committee will be required to publish the report, which will then allow the government to attempt to pass the legislation itself through the Senate.
Both the Greens and the Coalition are opposed to passing the bill, arguing that the government should finalise its broader reforms to the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act first.
However, the government appears to be looking to pass the legislation sooner than expected.
Liberal party Senator and committee member Jonathon Duniam told Carbon Pulse in a statement that the government had given the committee “almost no chance” to provide disagreements or objections to the legislation by bringing the report’s deadline forward.
“There has bee near-universal stakeholder condemnation of the content and management of this legislation,” he said.
“Stakeholders have also been very consistent in their view that this legislation should not be debated in the Senate until the passage of the wider overhaul of environmental laws that was promised by [Minister] Plibersek 18 months ago.”
He said his party would not be supporting the passage of the bills.
Carbon Pulse reached out to Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s office for comment, but did not receive an immediate response.
By Mark Tilly – mark@carbon-pulse.com
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