24 October 2023. By AgForce CEO Michael Guerin.
You may remember my concerns raised recently in this very column about the Federal Government delaying its reform of environmental laws - despite the well-founded fears of business and green groups alike about the ramifications of that.
AgForce alongside the NFF met with Environment and Water Minister Tanya Plibersek and Agriculture Minister Murray Watt last week to offer our insights as an industry and our full engagement in the process to support to this once in a generation reform opportunity.
It was a welcome development after so many months of marginalisation from government negotiations on key issues such as these.
In the past week Tanya Plibersek announced to Federal Parliament an investment of $25m ‘to better protect nature’, and the formal start of consultations to ‘deliver strong new nature positive laws’.
The Minister advised that these investments will be delivered in partnership with ‘conservation organisations, community groups, Traditional Owners and State and Territory Governments’, and that the new laws will be developed with advice from 30 groups across ‘environment, business and industry’.
It’s vitally important that we are part of these consultations, and a great relief to be invited to the table.
Because whilst government targets such as ‘to protect 30 percent of Australia’s land by 2030’ could imply private landholders are bad custodians of food and fibre production who cannot work alongside improving environmental and biodiversity outcomes - we know that is not true. By being part of this consultation, we can offer valuable agricultural insights as well as forgotten opportunities to Australia as part of these reforms.
The timing of this reform opportunity is significant, with the same colour of Government at a state and federal level allowing us the rare chance to lean into this across federal proposals and state issues such as the Vegetation Management Act, Nature Conservation Act, Regional Planning Interests Act and Reef Regulations.
But here’s the clincher, if we build the reform process from the bottom up, starting at a property level, we have in Australia AgCarE.org.au, a verifiable property level assessment of Natural Capital that links directly to our Australian Agricultural Sustainability Framework that is being developed by National Farmers Federation (NFF) on behalf of industry.
This combination is unique in the world, representing years of work by industry and providing a platform that can fundamentally lift environmental standards - if it's supported by government policy.
I cannot understate the size of this opportunity – let’s not let it pass.