Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

were one of the first original families in Mandurah when it was just a little beachside hamlet. That is where they settled and that is where they spread out from. Florida Estate is another case in point. I have already mentioned the Dawesville Catholic Primary School and Mandurah Junction.

At the onset, I want to make it clear to this House and anyone listening that I am 100 per cent interested in the protection of black cockatoos, but I do not want to see an overly bureaucratic, business-hampering process based on 'maybe' and a minority opinion from activists from the department.

I will give you the example of Tuckey Cove. This was something that had been enacted while we were in opposition, and in government we have tried to bring some sense to it but it was too far down the track. The Tuckey family have owned land in Mandurah for generations and consider themselves responsible, environmentally aware corporate citizens.    They essentially develop land for residential habitation by way of subdivisions.    

The process of subdivision often requires the removal of native bushland. During the process in gaining the necessary environmental approvals for one of their developments, their town planners informed them that the development proposal had potential to impact upon the Forest Red-tailed Black Cockatoo, Baudin's and Carnaby's Black Cockatoos. Apparently, this was instigated by a local bird-watcher following observations at the one-plus hectare site—so we are talking about something just over one hectare. Following on from this, the area for subdivision was declared a 'controlled action' by the department and became subject to negotiation for offsets.

Offsets are where you have got to go and buy a massive amount of land somewhere else if you want to develop the land where you are. Offsets are meant to compensate for the residual impacts and after mitigation measures are taken. The developer then in good faith worked with the environment department to negotiate an outcome for the purchase of land containing suitable native habitat in other areas. The area of Gingin was suggested. For those in this House who do not know where Gingin is in Western Australia, it is about 200 to 300 kilometres from Mandurah, so the black cockatoos had better be good at flying to find their habitats a couple of hundred kilometres away.

Following an initial offer of $50,000 towards the offsets, it became apparent to the developers that more was expected.    The developers agreed and were subsequently given approval.

The land in question which 'may have' impacted on black cockatoo species was, in the end, able to be developed, providing native vegetation was maintained somewhere else. The developers said to me, 'The whole process was slow and involved far too many layers of government. We acknowledge the need for conservation and we are willingly involved in the required planting of the appropriate tree varieties. However, the next step is to front up with $100,000 to the Department of the Environment.' So it went from $50,000 to $100,000! And we are talking about a development, as I said, of just over one hectare. They said, 'Whilst we have budgeted this amount, it is simply extortion.'

From a developer's perspective, these types of costs—particularly in this case which is just for the one development—cannot always be absorbed by the developer and will eventually be passed on to the homebuyer in the cost of land.

In the short period of time that I have left I will deal with another case in point: NLG Sand Supplies in Dawesville, a bit further down the road in Mandurah. NLG Sand Supplies wanted to expand their sand pit. They had to do a habitat survey because it was another controlled action. It cost them tens of thousands of dollars for this environmental survey. If you really wanted to get into the right side of business over the last few years you became an environmental consultant and ran around finding out if there were any trees that were suitable for nesting for black cockatoos.

On this particular site, as the NLG people told me, there was no evidence of black cockatoos ever having nested there. But the department had said, 'Well, there is a potential that there could be a tree that eventually would grow big enough and have an interior hole that is big enough to be a nest. Not only that: you could actually plant trees that would be suitable later on to become a nesting site for black cockatoos.' It is just the most ludicrous thing to do to somebody who is trying to get on with their business of supplying yellow sand for the building industry in that particular area.

We are dealing with the Florida Estate at the moment, and it looks like it is getting there. This is where the developers had a commercial lot and Coles decided to buy the larger portion of that subdivision. But, of course, there were going to be smaller commercial lots around. They entered into the offsets and all the processes. They had one of the best environmental experts on the job—Bernadette Van der Wiele. She came back with all the approvals, but the stalemate then was who then was responsible for the ongoing maintenance under the orders given to this particular commercial lot. Is the developer, even after he has sold the land? Or is it Coles, as the major tenant? Or can you then assign the ongoing environmental obligations to the other tenants on the smaller lots? Thank goodness, the minister's office has been negotiating with the department on this and some common sense is heading towards a resolution. But there are a whole lot of environmental time bombs out there because the Commonwealth deemed, 3,000 kilometres away from this commercial development in Mandurah, that they would interfere with that business.

There is a whole range of people who are affected by this. Common sense needs to be brought into it. What I really need to say in summing up on this bill is that even though it is about cost recovery for the department, with assessments et cetera, if the one-stop-shop program works as it should do and is intended to, there will not be many people having to spend much money at all. It will have gone to the state department in conjunction with the federal department, where they are given a time frame and they will not be subject to these massive amounts of environmental studies and compliances. Hopefully, this bill will not require raising a lot of money because you will not have that massive amount of federal interference overlapping approval processes through federal, state and local governments and then people can get on with their businesses as they should. I thank the House.

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