Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Heritage, the Arts and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

The north-south pipeline is planned to take 75 gigalitres of water annually out of the Goulburn Valley across the Great Dividing Range to Melbourne. I want to know why the Victorian government has defied the ruling of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Mr Garrett, on this project. Despite the announcement that, under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, it is a controlled action, the Victorian Minister for Planning has announced that an environmental effects statement is not required and that instead he will simply produce a project impact assessment report. I want to know why the EES is not to happen. I want to know what the minister in this House, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Mr Garrett, is going to do about the Victorian planning minister’s refusal to supply an EES. I hope that he will take notice of the extreme circumstances that are now confronting people who are seeing this water being taken away. I also want him to make sure that he has read very carefully the flora and fauna impacts, which have already been documented quite comprehensively, given that this pipeline is to not only go through pristine forest but also take the environmental flow out of Eildon Dam—flow which is supposed to help prevent blue-green algal blooms.

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