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

I cannot work it out. I think it is about 0.3 per cent. So we lost 99.97 per cent of the election commitment that he made, hand on heart; as a so-called supporter of clean energy he lost 9.97 per cent of his election commitment in the Expenditure Review Committee.

Again, just to round this out: the now government, when in opposition, assured the Australian community that the renewable energy agency was a bipartisan supported body. The important work that this agency does in supporting emerging renewable energy technology—solar thermal technology, wave technology and geothermal technology—the important work that ARENA has done, was supported by the coalition, as it was by the Labor Party. It was something where they put their hands on the hearts and said to the Australian people that it would not change if there were a change of government. This is yet another broken promise, because what did we find out? In MYEFO in December—the midyear economic and fiscal outlook—the Treasurer cut more than $400 million from ARENA's budget.

Again, we puzzled: how were they going to deliver their solar roofs commitment? The clear answer to that was that they were not going to deliver the solar roofs commitment. But then in the budget, not only did they take money from ARENA they announced that the promise they had made to the Australian people about ARENA was going to be broken, and they were simply going to abolish the body altogether.

Not happy just with changing all these policies and breaking all these promises this government has also started to shut down community voices. We have seen them shut down strong, independent voices in the climate policy area. They have abolished the Climate Commission, which I am happy to say is able to continue its important work supported by Australians putting in money to the new Climate Council. We have seen this government attempt to abolish the Climate Change Authority, thus far unsuccessfully, because this government would not want strong, independent and objective advice from a group of experts on climate policy when it can make its own up in its ministerial offices.

But perhaps most egregiously, they have shut down community voices. They have completely stripped funding from the Australian Network of Environmental Defenders Offices. This is an organisation that does not provide legal support to the very big environmental NGOs. They can afford their own lawyers. The EDOs are there to provide pro bono legal advice and legal representation to small community groups; to communities who have decided that they want to have a voice about a development in their area—near their houses, near their children's schools and near their workplaces. The EDOs have been there for 20 years, supported by the Keating government, supported for the whole duration of the Howard government and supported through the Rudd and Gillard governments. But this government cannot support them because they have a fundamental integral problem with there being strong independent voices out there in the debate other than their own.

Before I come to the specific impacts of this bill, I want to highlight—this is a prominent issue right now given that the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO is meeting over the course of this fortnight—how this government has sought to delist, to remove, 74,000 hectares from the Tasmanian World Heritage area. This places Australia in refined company indeed. In the more than 40-year history of the World Heritage system, there have been only two such applications—one by Oman and one by Tanzania. This is an extraordinary application for this government to make. Happily, it got short shrift from the World Heritage Committee secretariat, which has provided a draft report to the committee that rejects the government's application outright.

It is an application built on a falsity. It is an application built on some notion that these 74,000 hectares are degraded and not worthy of World Heritage listing. I have been there—I have been to the Upper Florentine areas in particular—and they are pristine. They are typical of the extraordinary wilderness you see in Tasmania, particularly on the western side of the state. They were the subject of strong, independent, expert advice to this government and to the World Heritage Committee. While Senator Colbeck might have some happy snaps which he claims show otherwise, I know which side of the debate our party will fall on. We will defend the listing of those 74,000 hectares.

Against that background, this bill is the crowning glory for a government intent on winding back Commonwealth environmental protection. It effectively just hands it all over. They are seeking to make the biggest structural change to environmental protection in Australia for 30 years. In the Franklin dam case the High Court, after the decision of the Hawke government to protect the Gordon and Franklin areas, affirmed the Commonwealth's role in protecting matters of national environmental significance. The court affirmed that the national government, the Commonwealth government of Australia, had a role in protecting certain aspects of Australia's natural environment and its biodiversity. From that decision and what followed under that government, Australia's environment became a national and international issue. Under the legal framework that followed the Franklin dam case, we saw the listing of that part of Tasmania. Subsequently, that listing of Tasmania's wilderness area was expanded. In addition, we saw World Heritage listing of Kakadu in the Northern Territory, the Daintree Wet Tropics in Far North Queensland and other areas as well.

Following that, it must be stated, the current legislation was put in place by a Liberal minister—a South Australian, Robert Hill, a longstanding senator for the coalition and a one-time leader of the coalition in the Senate. He was a coalition member of parliament who genuinely cared deeply about the environment. There are many things that you can argue about in the EPBC Act framework. There are many things that people who love Australia's natural environment would like to improve or change about this legislation. But it has a number of very good characteristics—and it was put in place by the Howard government. This bill, though, seeks to just throw over that legacy of the last 30 years. Whether it is the legacy of the Hawke and Keating governments, which achieved World Heritage listing for parts of Tasmania, for the Daintree, for Kakadu and for other areas, or whether it is the coalition's own legacy—the legacy of its own environment minister, Robert Hill, who put this framework in place—this government cares not a jot. This government cares not a jot and is willing to throw the whole thing overboard.

We thought that they were just going to hand over the Commonwealth's environmental protection powers under the act to the state and territory governments, but we find, having looked at the legislation, that they also intend to hand such powers over to local councils. I am a big supporter of the role of local government in Australia, as is everyone on this side of the House. But there are question marks over the capacity of some local councils—and, frankly, some state and territory governments—to handle the scale of application that comes before the Commonwealth under the EPBC Act.

The scope of this handover is extraordinary. What this government is doing is handing over responsibility for Australia's World Heritage areas—the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu, the Daintree, the Tasmanian wilderness area, Ningaloo and many others—to the state governments and to local councils. This could see local councils along the Queensland coast having legal responsibility for the protection of one of the seven natural wonders of the world. You could see World Heritage areas handed over. You could see nuclear matters handed over. You could see local councils having responsibility for considering applications for uranium mines or for other nuclear issues which are currently under the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth government. You could see the handover of the water trigger for coal-seam gas applications and large coalmine applications that might impact on Australia's water resources.

This government has not—not that I have seen at least—even tried to pretend that this bill will advance in any way the protection of Australia's natural environment. I have not heard one comment from the Minister for the Environment, the Prime Minister or anyone else saying that this is about improving the protection of Australia's natural environment. The only thing they say is that this is a response to lobbying from the business community. The business community is completely entitled to have a view about this, but there must within this debate—even on the side of the government—surely be some consideration of whether or not this is actually good for Australia's natural environment. Frankly, it is not.

The Labor Party is on the record, from when we were in government under Prime Minister Gillard, as having looked at these questions and been very concerned about the level of duplication in environmental approval processes at state and Commonwealth levels. That is quite clearly on the record. Our government had a very strong record under the Seamless National Economy reforms of removing duplication of regulation wherever possible—in the areas of health and safety, food regulation and so many others. I think it was 16 or 17 areas—the shadow Treasurer who is here will remember—but certainly 15 to 20 areas of very important regulation were streamlined under the Labor government, so our record is quite clear. But our view after working through a process—talking with state governments, the business community, the environmental NGOs and the Australian community more broadly—was that it was not appropriate to hand over approval powers to state and territory governments. Certainly that would have been our view if we were asked to hand them over to local councils.

We are still more than willing to look at ways in which state and territory governments, on the one hand, and the Commonwealth can look at removing duplication of assessment processes because, at the end of the day, it is the assessment process that takes the time and involves the expenditure of substantial sums of money by proponent companies seeking a development. It is the assessment, not the approval, that involves the time and money.

There are opportunities in a sensible discussion to look at ways in which you could have one environmental impact assessment process, one EIS, agreed with terms of reference that reflect the Commonwealth requirements and the state and territory requirements. There are circumstances in which you could agree to simply having one public consultation process instead of two. These are the things that take the time; these are the things that take the money from proponent companies. We are more than willing to continue to look at that. But at the end of the day we take as a matter of principle the view that matters of national environmental significance—which is the scope of matters covered by this legislation—must remain the province of a national government. That is not a party political perspective. Whether it is a national coalition or national Labor government and whether it is state Labor or state Liberal governments, our view is the same: the Commonwealth should have responsibility for matters of national environmental significance, for a whole range of reasons that I have tried to outline.

I will refer to one more illustration of the problem involved in this legislation, and that is the question of downstream impacts. Some applications will involve impacts that cross state boundaries. There can be downstream impacts particularly sometimes dealing with water resources. The Great Artesian Basin, for example, is not conveniently located in one jurisdiction and the Murray-Darling Basin is not conveniently located in one state or one territory. Under existing legislation the minister must have regard to downstream impacts—something which a state minister simply could not do. This is just one illustration of the impracticality, from an environmental protection and biodiversity conservation point of view, of this legislation.

I will finish by referring to the timing of the debate on this bill in this parliament. As I have indicated before, the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO is meeting this fortnight and dealing with two very important matters that concern Australia. The first is the status of the Great Barrier Reef as a World Heritage property. The other, which I referred to earlier, is whether or not the 74,000 hectares in the Tasmanian wilderness area should be kept on the register or delisted. Draft reports for both matters have been provided by the secretariat of the World Heritage Committee to committee members. We do not know what the final decision will be, obviously, as they are independent members of that committee, but the draft reports give some indication at least of the thinking of UNESCO.

In relation to the Great Barrier Reef, this is a very serious matter. I think we can all agree that the Great Barrier Reef not only is one of the seven natural wonders of the world but underpins literally billions of dollars of economic activity in the Queensland area and the work of 60,000 employees, largely in the tourism industry. This is an incredibly important matter for Australia from an environmental, social and economic perspective. The possibility that the reef would be put on the 'in danger' list would have very serious ramifications for Queensland's tourism industry, as much as it would reflect the very serious state of crisis that the reef finds itself in environmentally. The draft report provided by the secretariat to World Heritage Committee members refers expressly to this bill, to the idea that the Commonwealth's environmental protection powers would simply be handed over to the Queensland government. The secretariat's report provides that the draft recommendation to the committee considers:

… the transfer of decision-making powers from the Federal Level to the State Level … premature—

and should be postponed to allow further consideration. This is a draft report and the committee may well take a view that is different from that. But what is concerning is that I have not heard a jot about this from the environment minister. I have not heard a single response from the government about the interaction between this parliamentary debate and what is happening at an international level at the UNESCO meeting, particularly in light that very clear recommendation from the World Heritage Committee. For all those reasons I have outlined, the opposition will not be supporting this legislation.

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