Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Standing) Bill 2015. Australia has some of the most stringent and effective environmental laws in the world. The proposed amendments do not change these high environmental standards. However, a major threat to the administration of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 has emerged recently—the Americanisation of the Australian justice system through the use of litigation to disrupt and delay key projects and infrastructure and to deliberately increase investor risk. This is an unprecedented new development in Australia, drawing the worst features of the American litigation industry into Australia. This is not a community based grassroots campaign. This is a well funded and coordinated strategy to frustrate the environmental approval process, which is by any measure one of the most stringent in the world.

In 2011 a number of organisations produced a document expressly setting out a plan to 'disrupt and delay key projects and infrastructure'. It expressly set the goal of 'increasing investor risk in Australia'. The document's strategy was simple as outlined on page 3—to disrupt and delay key projects and infrastructure while gradually eroding public and political support for the industry. These express objectives include: (1) mount legal challenges to the approval of several key ports, mines and rail lines; (2) run legal challenges that delay, limit or stop all of the major infrastructure projects—mines, rail and ports—that have been identified as a high priority in this strategy.

Therefore, we are seeking to bring the EPBC Act standing provision in line with the broad standing provisions in other Commonwealth legislation. Changing the EPBC Act will not prevent those who may be affected by a project seeking judicial review. It will maintain and protect their rights. Farmers and landowners who are affected by a project have the right to standing and to protect their interests under section 5 of the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977.

The government will not allow jobs, investment and our economy to be threatened and held hostage by American style litigation. A question for Labor is whether they support these tactics or they support Australian jobs and workers. The government has decided to protect Australian jobs by removing from the EPBC Act 1999 the provision that allows radical green activists to engage in vigilante litigation to stop important economic projects. Section 487 of the act provides a red carpet to radical activists who have a political not a legal interest in development to use aggressive litigation tactics to disrupt and sabotage important projects. The government will repeal this provision to return the law to the usual position, where somebody with a legitimate interest in commencing legal action has standing to do so but somebody who merely wants to prosecute a political cause does not. Repealing section 487 means that the test for standing to bring judicial review proceedings will be section 5 of the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977.

The government is concerned about the emerging trend by green groups and other organisations using the court system to sabotage important economic projects, sacrificing the jobs of tens of thousands of Australians in the process. The activists themselves have declared that that is their objective—to use the courts, not for the proper purpose of resolving a dispute between citizens but for the political purpose of bringing developments to a standstill.

An assembly of green activist groups, in their documents stopping the Australian coal export boom, declared as a strategy to delay and disrupt, and to reduce the financial liability of key infrastructure projects, including ports, rail and mines through litigation. The member for Maribyrnong and the Labor Party must stand-up for the workers who they claim to represent and not side with the inner-city greens and the Australian Greens at the expense of the jobs of tens of thousands of Australians. The EPBC Act should not become a watchword for wrecking and stopping.

I would like to comment on some of the things that have been coming to light in some of my research over the years. I remember doing a speech in 2006 at a conference where I was speaking on nuclear energy, and I was quite interested in the speech by the then head of the environmental section of BP. She made the point that in 1972 she had to go to the University of New England because it was the only university in Australia that offered an environmental science degree. In 2006, by contrast, and this is nearly 10 years ago, there were 28 separate environmental science degrees in Western Australia alone. Extrapolate that out and you would have 300 environmental science degrees Australia-wide in 2006. No doubt it is more now. Clearly, there is a need for environmental science and environmental protection, but do we really need 300 to 500 times the number?

Is this legitimate or are we seeing rent-seeking behaviour, where people start creating all sorts of things that need to be investigated, hence loading us up with red tape and hence requiring an incredible amount of time to go through an environmental approval process where you may have not just one environmental approval process but, in some cases, hundreds for one project? Is this artificial creation of additional places a good policy to have for our universities, where you build it up and the people then have to create the work? Are we becoming, in some ways, overeducated? I think, for example of journalism.

When I was young, the traditional means to become a journalist was to become a cadet reporter at a newspaper. There, they would have the grizzled old editor rapping them over the knuckles when they did not use the correct grammar or terminology. It was predominantly a 'he' in those days and he would also castigate those cadet reporters if they put their personal points of view. Now, we have a proliferation of university trained journalists, who appear to think that it is more important to have their own opinion expressed all over the place with their by-lines than to report the facts. Is this actually to the benefit of our society? Are we the richer for having changed the training from, in effect, workplace based training to one where you actually have a degree where they have been taught fine theory? I would argue that the standard of journalism has gone down.

In future, I will be dealing in greater detail with the EPBCA legislation issues relating to nuclear power. I want to facilitate a broader and more mature conversation about nuclear power in parliament and across the community. I want this to be a starting point not an endpoint in the journey to making potentially nuclear a part of the energy mix in Australia. The debate must be based on facts not fear, fantasy, fallacy or fabrication. But the issue being debated here today is whether environmental busybodies should be allowed to delay, disrupt or destroy commercial investment. That is why I was speaking about the issue of environmental science and the proliferation there, because some of this is causing delays in our approvals process which is doing significant damage to our economy.

Whether the wreckers should be allowed to deprive communities right across Australia of the infrastructure and jobs that they are so badly want and so richly deserve, the Abbott government believes in due process. The Abbott government believes in natural justice, but it is never right, proper or fair that environmental warriors and bleeding hearts anywhere can disrupt progress everywhere. That is the crux of this issue. Our government is aware of the economic challenge ahead. This piece of legislation is just one part of the bigger plan to get Australia back on track.

On 7 September 2013, the Prime Minister said that Australia is 'open for business' and he meant it. Ever since then, the Abbott government has been getting on with the plan of getting Australia back on track economically, bit by bit. This one piece of pro-progress, pro-jobs and pro-growth legislation sits in the catalogue beside the two red tape repeal days, and the numerous other pieces of legislation that seek to put jobs first. The coalition government knows the natural environment is a wonderful resource and amenity, but a job is a necessity. Australian families want more and better jobs. They want more and cheaper access to oil, coal and gas. Labor and the Greens do not have a plan to create wealth. They have a plan to spend, spend, spend. But at some point someone has to earn it, and someone has to pay it back.

The coalition is building a strong and prosperous economy for a safe and secure Australia. Only the Abbott government has a responsible, long-term economic plan that will grow the economy and fix Labor's mess. Labor's legacy to Australians is gross debt projected to rise to $667 billion—$123 billion in cumulative deficits; more than 50,000 illegal arrivals by boat; and the world's biggest carbon tax. The difference is clear-cut. After delivering gross debt projected to rise to $667 billion and six record deficits with a legacy of $123 billion in cumulative deficits, Labor still has no plan to fix its own mess, let alone manage previous taxpayers' dollars in the future.

Almost two years into this term, Labor still hankers for a carbon tax. They still have no policies to stop the boats and they are still addicted to taxes and spending. The choice is clear. They are for a carbon tax; we are for lower tax. They are for taxes; we are for jobs. They do the unions' bidding; we stand for the workers of Australia. This EPBC amendment bill is proof that the Abbott government is as good as its word, and is honouring its commitment to the Australian people to get Australia back on track.

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