Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment) Share this | Hansard source

Let me begin by responding to the member for Moreton. He set out the proposition that the Labor Party would never support one-stop shops. He said that the Labor Party could never have supported one-stop shops and would never agree with that concept—as did the shadow minister, the member for Port Adelaide. I am sorry to do this to the member for Moreton, but in April 2012 the Labor Party, when it was in government—the member might want to stay for this!—committed at COAG to:

… fast-track the development of bilateral arrangements for accreditation of State assessment and approval processes, with the frameworks to be agreed by December 2012 and agreements finalised by March 2013.

In other words, we have just had 15 minutes of ad hominem based on a complete untruth and falsity. That, sadly, sums up much of what we have heard from the other side. Those on the other side of the chamber have agreed to support this bill, but in the meanwhile they have argued against the very concept which was the centrepiece—the heart, the fundamental, the soul—of the April 2012 COAG agreement announced by then prime minister Gillard. It was not announced just once; it was announced on six occasions—three times in terms of major press releases or announcements and three times in terms of joint statements between the Prime Minister and the business community and the Prime Minister and the premiers. So this was a fundamental tenet—a fundamental belief—in a reform which they said was absolutely necessary, but which they not only reject but which they deny they ever supported in the past. It has a certain resonance.

Against that, let me turn to two matters with regards to this bill. One is the essential element. The second is the fundamental reform of which it is part. The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Cost Recovery) Bill 2014 is, in essence, a Labor Party bill. This was a measure announced in the 2013 budget, and it was a measure accepted in the budget-in-reply speech, which the then opposition leader, now Prime Minister acknowledged at that time. In other words, they proposed this cost recovery measure and we accepted it.

We accepted it for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it is right and appropriate that those who seek to engage in development processes from which they could potentially make a profit, contribute to the appropriate cost recovery. We agreed with the principle. It is also right and proper because this government is setting out to ensure that the $240 billion of debt which was racked up during the life of the previous government is dealt with. That is something that is fundamentally necessary. This is a modest measure but it is an appropriate measure.

I set out, at the second reading speech, the reasons for it and I do not want to rehearse all of those now. But I will make this point. One of my colleagues, the member for Wannon, raised in discussions the need to ensure that there are appropriate exemptions for individuals and small businesses or for activities that are being undertaken in the public good—such as by councils engaging in cleaning up roadsides, reducing fire hazards, reducing the risks of damage by bushfires, and other such activities. Consistent with those principles there will be a ministerial discretion to ensure that public good activities or minor activities by individuals can be exempted from cost recovery.

The second principle is one that I want to raise, particularly in the presence of the Minister for Communications—a former Minister for the Environment and Water Resources. He is one of Australia's two greatest ever environment ministers. I will let each environment minister believe that it may have been him. The member for Wentworth set out a series of reforms in relation to protections for the environment—most notably in terms of water. That was about simplification and the market. This reform is in the tradition established and developed not just within the coalition but, most particularly, by the now Minister for Communications then Minister for the Environment and Water. His great reform was the Murray-Darling Basin, but that was one of many initiatives.

So this one-stop-shop reform, which is the broader construct in which the current initiative is being set out, is very simple. We will be ensuring that right across the country instead of a 720-day average time for the process we are working towards a nine-month time frame of a one-stop shop for environmental assessments and approvals. It is not something which has just appeared out of nowhere. It has been a long-held view of both sides of parliament that this reform was necessary. At the commencement of this speech I noted that the central theme, the central announcement of the April 2012 Council of Australian Governments meeting, by the then Labor government in conjunction with a series of other Labor governments as well as Liberal state governments, was for this theory reform.

At the moment, South Australia and the ACT—Labor governments—are strongly supporting the one-stop-shop reform. There is not a government in Australia, federal or state, which opposes that. The only people opposed to this reform are the current members of the federal opposition. When they were on the other side of the chamber, less than two years ago, they were supporting it. It was to be achieved within a year. Unfortunately, it never happened and then they mysteriously forgot they supported it. We will deliver and are delivering the one-stop shops. We already have one-stop shops operating in Queensland and New South Wales. We have made enormous progress and have published the agreements with South Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory. We have today published the agreement with Western Australia. I am delighted to announce that to the House. We are, in short order, likely to be in a position with Tasmania and Victoria to have one-stop-shop agreements, and the approval agreements have already been published in draft form for New South Wales and Queensland.

We are perhaps six months ahead of where we intended, so we are about six months ahead of schedule. We will achieve those one-stop shops progressively around the country, and I thank the state governments and I also want to thank those in the Department of the Environment. In relation to this cost-recovery measure, I particularly want to thank the officials from the environment department, Kushla Munro and her team, and from my own office, Rachael Dehosson, Sarah Meredith and, at an earlier stage, both Wendy Black and Jared Newton, who contributed to the development of the one-stop shop policy. They have been involved jointly on a very important exercise. I commend this legislation to the house.

See this speech in context