Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Herbert for getting up on his scrapers and doing his bit while we got our acts together. I am not sure I agree with everything he said, but that is beside the point. I am pleased that he was able to do the right thing.

This Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Bilateral Agreement Implementation) Bill 2014 will, among other things, allow states and territories to be accredited for approval decisions on large coalmining and coal seam gas developments that are likely to have a significant impact on water resources; ensure that all states and territories are able to be declared, under the EPBC Act for the purpose of requesting advice from the independent expert scientific committee; clarify that proponents do not need to make referrals to the Commonwealth for actions that are covered by an approved bilateral agreement and, significantly—these are described by some as minor miscellaneous amendments—allow approved bilateral agreements to include approvals made by any person or organisation authorised by the state or territory, such as local governments, rather than only entities that meet the EPBC Act definition of the 'state' or an 'agency of the state'. The bill further clarifies that approval of bilateral agreements could apply to projects that had been approved before the minister accredits the state or territory process as long as the action was approved in accordance with the relevant accredited process; they clarify that the minister can take into account all matters that the minister considers relevant when deciding whether to accredit a management arrangement or authorisation process; and ensure that bilateral agreements can make reference to the most current version of the instruments and policy documents.

I will come back to those in a moment but in summary I would like to say that, while on the face of it allowing state and territory governments to be a one-stop shop and do the business sounds attractive, in its substance, when you examine it, it has real difficulties. I say this as someone who has had the luxury, in a way, of observing the interaction between the Commonwealth and the Northern Territory government over a generation. Seeing how the former Northern Territory CPL governments have interacted with the Commonwealth over environmental issues, specifically in the first instance of the declaration of Uluru National Park. I remember very vividly the campaign that was waged by the then chief minister of the Northern Territory opposing the declaration of the national park, which subsequently became a World Heritage area. What drove him was not what was best for the community or best for the nation, but his own political self-interest. What worries me about these proposals is that the political self-interest of individuals may override the best interests of the nation. I said earlier that one of the more minor miscellaneous amendments was clarifying that the minister can take into account all matters that the minister considers relevant when deciding whether to accredit a management arrangement or authorisation process.

There have been a couple of issues recently in the Northern Territory which raise serious concerns about the capacity of ministers to do the right thing by the community. I want to refer to a proposal around the Sherwin Creek iron ore project, where the Northern Territory minister, through either ministerial approval or delegation to the Department of Mines, authorised the bulk sampling of 200,000 tonnes of ore that was exported to China and 200,000 tonnes of ore stockpiled on Stylo Station, owned by the former CLP candidate in the last federal election, Mrs Tina McFarlane. This was done without informing the NT Environment Protection Agency and, when the EPA examined the Sherwin iron ore project, it said that this was inappropriate and in contravention of the principles of ecologically sustainable development. Further, it said that such a decision could create precedence for the quality of environmental management on mine sites when government continues to be challenged by legacy mines that require costly remediation. I am talking about the Mount Todd mine, just north of Katherine, and Redbank. It further said that the Roper Highway must be upgraded to an appropriate standard, preferably a dual-laned, fully-sealed road to at least secondary highway standard before approval by the Department of Transport to proceed beyond one million tonnes per annum ore transport and that the proponent must contribute proportionally to this upgrade.

I ask you to consider what I have just said. The current Northern Territory minister—of a government we are proposing through this legislation to give an authority over environmental matters and to act on behalf of the Commonwealth—gave an approval to a mining company to extract 400,000 tonnes of ore without any environmental or transport approval. Let me talk about that transport approval for a moment: the Roper Highway is a single-lane public road, which now has multiple ore road trains travelling along it. There was a report on ABC television last week explaining how dreadfully dangerous it is. The mining company has not put one red cent into expanding or developing this road—nor has the Northern Territory government. They are putting people's lives in danger. On the one hand, we have a potential environmental disaster of allowing a mine like this to proceed without any environmental safeguards in place and, on the other hand, we have the real possibility of fatalities on that road—an important public road—because of the commercial interests of a mining company that has not invested $1 in helping mediate the risk of transporting their ore along this public road. The Northern Territory government irresponsibly has done absolutely nothing to ensure this public road is properly dealt with.

We know that when the EPBC Act was first passed in 1999, it was legislation to avoid the mistakes of past governments over the previous century. Here we have a current mistake. Just look at the history of the Northern Territory since the first overlanders—and may I say many of the carpet baggers that followed in the footsteps of John McDouall Stuart and others—to see the environmental and cultural damage that has occurred in the name of investment and jobs without appropriate consideration of environmental standards or environmental management.

What is required is to have processes in place for evaluating the environmental impacts of development proposals, consistent with the principles of ecologically sustainable development. This legislation refers specifically to the idea of coalmining and to the use of water. I understand also that the Northern Territory government is currently receiving submissions into fracking across several regions of the Territory. I believe that the period for making submissions has been extended, given the large number of anti-fracking submissions that have been received. Only last weekend, I was at the Burunga Festival—a great festival—south of Katherine and the topics of fracking in the Katherine region and the processes for the Northern Territory government to approve drilling were raised by a number of community groups; by individuals—both from the pastoral industry, who have a very efficient beef cattle export industry, and also from the community; and by people who you would associate with the environmental movement. There was a broad cross-section of support. In Alice Springs, there is a similar community group beginning to activate to oppose fracking in the southern part of the Territory. The Arid Lands Environment Centre, a community based environmental group, is taking the lead on the issue. Never mind the fact that, as a result of both the Northern Territory government's budget and the Commonwealth government's budget, they will lose $100,000 of funding.

People are asking very basic questions of not only the Northern Territory government but also the Commonwealth government, in terms of this fracking process. How many millions of litres of water per frack? How many fracks per well? How many wells are proposed across the regions of the Territory? I have heard that it could be up to 60,000 wells. Where will the water come from? What chemicals will be blasted into the hole with the water to frack a well? What are the health risks? We obviously need to consider the toxic effects. What are the impacts on flora and fauna? Will there be waste water ponds at the wells? What evaporation process will take place? What residue gases will end up in the atmosphere? What is the process for sealing the wells? And when will all of this be done? These are just questions that the community want answered. Yet, to date, they are not getting answers.

I mentioned attitudes of government and, potentially, considerations of ministers; we know that there has been a lot of speculation around issues to do with water in the Top End. During the lead-up to the last election, one large farm in the Northern Territory—again, owned by a CLP candidate; the then CLP candidate—was given a licence for 5,000 megalitres of water and, when asked in a recent interview on the ABC what this water would be used for—what she intended to grow, and how she intended to use it—her response was that she did not know. Now this is a supposedly responsible Northern Territory government—making water allocations based on what? Yet we are asked in this place to cede to the Northern Territory government the authority to make decisions on behalf of the Commonwealth—when we know full well that the current Northern Territory government is acting irresponsibly, and in their own political interest, and appearing—at least from my perspective—to be rorting the system to help their mates. Most recently, a CLP fundraiser—someone who has never grown a thing in his life—except perhaps his hair!—received 21,000 megalitres in the Daly region: eight times more than our serious farmers are using now. This is a person who has never grown anything, a CLP donor, who has subsequently resigned from the CLP because he is a magistrate. What does that tell you about the way in which the CLP is operating in the Northern Territory in terms of the allocation of water?

We in this place have a right to be concerned. If the current government wants to provide the capacity for state and territory governments to act on its behalf, we need to have the confidence that they will act responsibly. I have absolutely no doubt that the responsible departmental officials in the Northern Territory will operate as they should—very professionally—and provide appropriate advice. But it is clear that, in the context of the Northern Territory, advice does not matter, and science matters even less.

A number of people have been arguing that the Northern Territory government should have a dam on the Daly River. We know that when the Northern Territory Chief Minister was asked about such a dam, he did not have a response which was anywhere near appropriate. We need to understand that if we are to look after, in this case, the fragile environments of Northern Australia, we need to be very careful about the responsibilities we give to state and territory governments to act on our behalf. The current Northern Territory government and previous CLP governments have shown that they have acted irresponsibly—not in the best interests of the environment but in their own political interests; and not in the best interests of either the Northern Territory community and its people or the Australian nation. So I question very seriously the proposals that are now before us in this bill—particularly that element that, ostensibly, allows the Northern Territory minister to take political considerations into account in any decisions which are made.

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