Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

In the minister's second reading speech, he described this program as both an environment program and a training program, and I want to deal with the minister's first characterisation of the program first of all. In six short months this government has shown itself to have very scant regard for its responsibilities to protect and to nurture Australia's environment. Indeed, on 4 February 2014 the Independent in the United Kingdom—a pretty centre-of-the-road newspaper, certainly not one of the UK's left-wing newspapers—featured an article entitled Is Tony Abbott's Australian administration the most hostile to his nation's environment in history?The article ran through a litany of decisions made during this government's first six months that seek to either entirely dismantle or start to peg back a range of environmental protections. The Independent posed the question that is on the lips of so many Australians as a result of some of the many decisions made by this government. Six months into the job, this minister's record is almost exclusively one of removing or downgrading environmental protections—some of which, admittedly, were introduced by the previous government, but many of which have been in place in this country for decades and decades.

I will just go through a number of those decisions to illustrate my point. Firstly, very early on the government decided to remove the endangered community listing for the Murray below the Darling River—undoing some work that had been undertaken over several years, including consultations with a range of stakeholders in the area—as a concession to a very serious scare campaign that had been launched. The government also decided to undo the management plans for the world's largest marine reserve system—again, off the back of a mendacious scare campaign that sought to frighten recreational fishers in Queensland, for example, about the impact of reserves that are literally hundreds and hundreds of kilometres offshore.

The government has decided to turn back literally decades of bipartisan support for the Commonwealth's role in protecting matters of national environmental significance, a role that goes back to the Franklin Dam case in the early 1980s—three full decades. This is based on a misconception that the approval decision by the Commonwealth minister—a power that has been in place for many, many years—is a drag on time, resources and energy by proponent companies that are usually seeking to put a development in place. There is a misconception that it is the approval decision—the process of a Commonwealth minister making a decision to approve a development that impacts on matters of national environmental significance—that is actually the drain on a proponent's time, energy and resources. But anyone who has had anything to do with this process knows that it is the assessment process—not the approval decision per se by the Commonwealth minister—that takes the time, energy and resources from proponents.

The Labor party has made it clear for a significant period of time that we see great merit in streamlining and removing duplication from assessment processes that are undertaken in these cases by the Commonwealth at one level and by relevant state governments at the other. Examples include moving from a position of proponents having to undertake two environmental impact studies to having a single EIS or moving from a position of having to undertake two public consultation processes to having a single public consultation process on agreed terms of reference. These are the things that would significantly reduce the time, energy and resources involved in getting some of these developments up in an environmentally sustainable way.

It is not a position that we support, though, to hand over environmental approval powers that have been in the Commonwealth's hands for matters of national environmental significance to a range of state premiers. That is not a party political point. That is a point I make also in relation to state Labor governments taking on these powers.

Even before the approval powers have been handed over, which we understand is intended to take place in the second half of the 2014 calendar year, this government is already backing away from their responsibilities under federal environmental protection laws. I would particularly point to the exemption granted to the Barnett government by the Minister for the Environment for the shark cull in Western Australia. It was an extraordinary application of the national interest exception provision in the EPBC Act, which is targeted at security and defence matters—not matters of political convenience for a particular state government.

This shark cull has been an absolute debacle, as so many experts said it would be when it was first proposed, in a very politically cynical way, by the Premier of Western Australia. From a whole range of different political perspectives this has been an utter debacle. The target shark, the Great White Shark, has escaped utterly unscathed. More than 100 sharks have been hooked, some of which have been killed and the rest have been maimed—not one of them was a Great White Shark, which was supposed to be the target of this cull. Seventy-five of them were under three metres, which was the target size for the shark cull.

All of these things would have become clear under a proper assessment process. However, even before the approval powers had been handed over by this new government to premiers like Colin Barnett, or Campbell Newman, who is up there in charge of the Great Barrier Reef, this government was already walking away from its statutory obligations to subject ideas like this to proper EPBC assessments and approvals.

This is no more striking example of the responsibility of a national government in this country, Liberal or Labor, than the World Heritage system. Australia is moving into refined company—company that, as far as I can tell, at the moment includes only Oman and Tanzania. They are the only two other countries thus far, in the very long history of the World Heritage system, who have actually applied to de-list World Heritage areas: the 74,000 hectares that were listed last year by the World Heritage committee of UNESCO. They are unpicking the Tasmanian Forestry Agreement, which had been worked on for so long by environment groups, by the forestry industry, representing employers and businesses in the Tasmanian forestry industry, and, also, by the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, the CFMEU, representing forestry workers.

This really is an extraordinary development by this government, which is turning its back on so many decades of bipartisan support and respect for the World Heritage system, apparently based on some photographs taken one weekend by Senator Colbeck. To walk away from this is the most striking example of this government's utter disregard for its responsibilities under federal environmental laws.

We also see no apparent action, none that we have been able to gauge, around the long-running campaign of environmental groups and most traditional owner groups in Cape York about preparing a possible case for the World Heritage listing of that area, as well.

This government is not only uninterested in discharging its own obligations to protect Australia's pristine and vulnerable environment, but it also wants to tie the hands of local communities to take action themselves to protect their local environment. I refer particularly to the extraordinary decision by the government in its early days, through the Attorney-General's portfolio, I think, to strip the Environmental Defenders Offices of any Commonwealth funding whatsoever. To highlight the extraordinary nature of this decision, this is a funding arrangement that endured right through the term of the Howard government. There was a recognition by the Howard government, who in many cases was no friend of civil society, that local community groups who wanted to take action to protect their own environment, or to at least argue the case for protecting their local environment—win, draw or lose—would be able to go to an environmental defenders office and have their day in court. Such is the mean nature of this government in relation to environmental protection that they have taken this decision—no matter that the Howard government respected these funding arrangements right through their 11 ½ years in office. Along with their decision to remove funding from a range of other legal service obligations, including aboriginal legal services, they have decided to entirely defund the Environmental Defenders Office.

Their most telling and most glaring action, without any scintilla of a doubt, is their decision to reverse action on climate change. I have had a number of opportunities to talk about the government's series of bills to reverse action on climate change, and I do not propose to labour the point here. But what we have seen since the last debate on the various climate change bills is the government starting to walk away from commitments that were very clearly and definitively made by them in opposition. This includes commitments given only one or two weeks before the election that they would maintain the bipartisan position on the Renewable Energy Target that has now been in place for four elections. It was a position that was stated as clearly and definitively as could possibly be the case by the Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment, Simon Birmingham, at a Clean Energy conference. Yet we still see the government unable to resist walking away from something that makes so much economic and environmental sense.

This minister had a long-standing ambition to hold the environment portfolio. I think that is a genuine and heartfelt ambition he holds, but he is trapped in a government that has no commitment to protecting Australia's environment and no commitment to respect the science and the evidence that goes behind so many of those decisions.

The second reading speech the minister gave listed a number of projects that are intended to be covered by this program, presumably after a proper tender process. Announcements on most of the projects were made by the then opposition while campaigning in marginal seats during the election campaign. Some I am familiar with—for example, the Cumberland Conservation Corridor in Western Sydney, which I am sure the member for Parramatta also is familiar with it. It is a corridor whose development was supported by our government over the last six years. Given the track record of this government that I have just tried to summarise in a short time, the opposition have very serious questions of this government's capacity to run a program that delivers any meaningful environmental benefit to local communities.

There are also very serious questions about the entitlements and the protections that this program will give to its young participants. Some of this simply remains unclear. Some of this is not a position where the opposition say that the government have already decided to remove a protection. But after questions directed to the minister and questions directed in Senate estimates, the opposition simply remain unclear about this. The opposition have been able to look through a draft statement of requirements that has been circulated, but there is still no final document. Although the government said that a tender would be released and advertised before the end of March, it is 24 March and that tender still has not been released. So the opposition have not been able to see the final position that will be expected of tender applicants in relation to some of these points.

The opposition are not opposed to the use of the training wage system as a basis for remunerating participants in this program, but we do have some other serious workplace concerns. Our first serious concern is about the lack of a formal training obligation being made on participant organisations. To instance our equivalent to this program, the Green Jobs Corp required organisations to provide participants with at least 130 hours of accredited training—around five hours per week of accredited training to participants over their six months. The draft statement of requirements for this program indicates that that training is merely optional. The opposition take the view that accredited training should be a core element of this program and it must be accredited training. That should be reflected in the tender. We hope that that will be fixed up between the draft statement of requirements and the final tender documents, but we reserve our position on that.

The program should also identify real pathways to work. Where are the jobs going to be? When the government have answered that question, they should be able to work backwards to match the training and the experience that will be provided through this tender process. Again, although this is a program where the government hope for 15,000 participants, a very large number of participants over the next few years, the government still have not provided clear evidence of the pathways to work that young people will get from this.

The opposition are also concerned that young participants in a Commonwealth program will not receive a range of Commonwealth workplace protections. The bill, for example, excludes participants from the Comcare legislation and deems them not to be the responsibility of the Commonwealth in relation to health and safety. It also deems them in a more general way not to be employees under the Fair Work Act. These participants, as I am sure all members appreciate, are aged 17 to 24 years and have been out of the workplace and unemployed for a significant period of time. For many of them, if not most of them, they will be new to a workplace. It is important that they be protected at work. It is important that all workers be protected at work. It is particularly important that vulnerable young workers be protected at work. A range of questions remain for the opposition to receive answers to. If these participants are excluded from Commonwealth responsibility for health and safety, what is the legal protection for health and safety while at work under this program? Where does the legal responsibility lie and under what legislation? What are the compensation and rehabilitation arrangements if participants are injured at work? They will often be working in fairly hazardous environments. What are the other protections that these participants will receive, as all workers are entitled to receive at work—for example, in relation to potential instances of bullying or harassment? As we know through our own experience, this is a particular challenge for young workers.

Finally, there is no provision, as far as we have been able to discern from the statement of requirements, that prevent this program from displacing existing employees, hardworking employees of local councils and a range of private organisations that do this Landcare and environmental work every day, week in and week out. We are very keen to see the final detail, whether it is through the final tender documentation or elsewhere, as to how this government propose to protect the jobs of those hardworking employees who are already employed to do this. In closing, the opposition do not oppose in principle a program such as this. We will not be opposing this bill when it comes to a vote in this House. But I have tried to outline a number of the questions that need further examination and answers to those questions over coming weeks will shape the view that the opposition take to the bill in the Senate.

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