Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Standing) Bill 2015. The Abbott government has an appalling record on the environment and this ill conceived bill clearly represents a further attack on the environment by a desperate Prime Minister and a government which is openly hostile to sensible environmental protections. This bill seeks to amend an act passed by the Howard coalition government that has created a scheme of environmental protections that have served Australia well over the last 15 years. Only a desperate Prime Minister who is leading a shambolic and chaotic government would seek to amend the system created by his political mentor and one that is working well. It is little wonder that the Abbott government has such a hostility to all things environmental as the Prime Minister is propped up by a weird gaggle of extreme climate change deniers who are an embarrassment to the few sensible Liberal politicians left on the environment.

Labor is right to oppose this bill and I am very pleased to provide this contribution explaining why this bill should not pass. This bill seeks to amend the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 by repealing section 487. Section 487 extends the meaning of a person aggrieved in the administrative decisions Judicial Review Act 1977. With these amendments, the government is seeking to remove the ability of third parties to take action under the EPBC Act that will only permit persons who meet the standing test in the ADGR act to apply for judicial review.

Before discussing why the bill should be opposed, it is important to examine the way in which the EPBC Act has been operating over the last 15 years. As I said previously, the act is working well and is serving its intended purpose. The act was introduced by Prime Minister John Howard in 2000 and has operated these past 15 years throughout the height of Australia's mining boom. Throughout the boom, there have been no issues with section 487.

Let us consider that since the act commenced operation in July 2000, around 5,500 projects have been through the EPBC process. Of these projects, there have only been three Federal Court challenges by third parties against 22 projects. Out of these 33, six were legally successful in the sense that the applicant received a judgement in their favour and only one project has been stopped. This figure is important: one project out of 5,500 over 15 years. That one fact completely demonstrates the hollowness of this bill that we are discussing now—one project out of 5,500 but suddenly we have got a massive problem that needs to be urgently addressed. This government is trying to justify this amendment by creating the impression of a crisis in project approvals. The figures I have mentioned clearly demonstrate that there is no crisis and the government is blatantly misleading the Australian people in pretending there is.

The EPBC Act is operating well and this bill must be opposed. The plain intention of this bill is to continue the attacks on the environment by the Abbott government. They claim the current system is costing jobs. We all know that the only jobs the Prime Minister and his colleagues are worried about are their own. Their claims about jobs regarding the EPBC Act is an unconscionable misrepresentation. As I said, the act has been operating for the last 15 years through the mining boom. It has been the key environmental protection law throughout this period and it has posed no problem to the economy. The changes the government are attempting to make are political fix for their own incompetence regarding the approval process for the Adani mine and this legislation is trying to cover up that incompetence.

In contrast, Labor has a proud record of environmental protection and we are always prepared to support sensible reforms in the national interest which would improve the environmental regulatory system, including the streamlining of assessment processes. What Labor will not support is this radical right-wing government's attempt to weaken fundamentally important environmental protections and limit the public's ability to seek judicial review of government's decisions.

The government has presented this bill as limiting the ability of extreme environmentalist groups to exercise rights under this act. Well, it is not solely environmental groups that are being targeted by this amendment; it is farmers. For example, the discussion around the Shenhua mine on the Liverpool Plains would be endangered by this amendment. Any farmer seeking to express concern about development of mines in either their local community or communities upstream from them would be constrained by the operation of this amendment. Communities themselves, without any deep environmental conviction, will be retarded from taking action if this bill is successful.

I would like to point out that, under the current system, there is no ability to challenge the merits of a project approval under the EPBC Act. Only the legal validity of a project can be challenged. This already represents a significant limitation as a feature of the current system. I do not propose to spend too much time talking about the Adani Carmichael mine, which is supposedly the trigger for this action, other than to make a very basic point. The government is in this position with the EPBC Act's movement around Adani as a direct result of its own failure to comply with its own law. The Federal Court even identified this in a statement it issued:

3. Under the terms of s 139(2) of the Act, it was mandatory for the Minister to have regard to the approved conservation advices.

4. In deciding whether or not to approve the proposed action, the Minister did not have regard to the approved conservation advices.

5. The Minister did not have regard to the approved conservation advices because they were not included in the material that was before him at the time he made his decision.

Talk about a pathetic excuse for a so-called Minister for the Environment—who, as we all know, wrote his thesis arguing that a market based mechanism was the most cost-efficient way to combat carbon pollution and then abolished the very market mechanism he advocated for. For the government to mask his incompetence by trying to push this bill through parliament demonstrates the callow nature of that individual and this government. The government are in this difficult situation of their own making and are trying to hide behind shameful rhetoric about so-called lawfare and jobs. They are blatantly trying to hide their own mistakes. Their minister, the so-called Minister for the Environment, stuffed it up. He stuffed it up; his office stuffed it up; his department stuffed it up. That was what the Federal Court confirmed. It was not environmental vandals; it was not radical green groups; it was Minister Hunt stuffing up the application of an act he has responsibility for administering.

I would now like to draw the attention of the House to some of the disgraceful contributions by members opposite on this issue. It is well known that the member for Dawson is a climate change denier. He has absolutely zero credibility on environmental issues. But, according to his blog, the government's course of action regarding this issue is a result of the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General heeding his advice. God help us if the legislative agenda of this government is being determined by advice from the member for Dawson. His blog is, to be honest, a very entertaining read. It bears little relationship to reality, but it is entertaining. In his 17 August contribution, he writes that he has spoken to the Attorney-General and:

I told him that it was unacceptable that groups that had nothing to do with this project were able to hold up and try to kill off jobs by waging warfare through the legal system.

The member for Dawson clearly has no understanding of the EPBC Act. As I outlined previously, there is no ability to challenge the merits of projects approved under the EPBC Act. Only the legal validity of a project can be challenged. In the case of Adani Carmichael, the minister failed to apply his own laws. The member for Dawson continually slanders citizens who have a regard for protection of our natural environment. I rarely agree with Alan Jones, but he is right when he says:

This legislative restriction is divisive, it isolates us. It means we are not allowed to care.

What is extreme and offensive is the member for Dawson's and this government's continual denial of good environmental protection, of climate change science and of good, sound policy advice on how to care for our environment.

The truth is that good governments know that there is no need to choose between coal and the protection of the environment. I am proud to represent a coalmining region. I am proud that there are four operational coalmines in my electorate. I am proud that Charlton houses the biggest power station in this country, proudly fired by black coal. I am proud that coal has built the Newcastle and Hunter Valley region. It is a legacy I honour. It is a legacy that can continue. But part of the continuing operation of these coalmines and project approval for new coalmines is a social contract, and that social contract has to be founded on a few key principles. The first is commitment to local jobs in the mines and in the supply chain. Too often during the last mining boom, we saw the supply chain for mines being outsourced to overseas.

The second principle is a commitment to reducing the environmental footprint of the coalmines. I recently visited the Centennial Mandalong coalmine, which is one of the biggest underground coalmines in Australia, and they were briefing me on the very extensive work they do to minimise subsidence in the area. Subsidence is a very big issue in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley region, and they have been developing techniques to reduce that impact, reduce the local footprint of the coalmine.

The third principle has to be community involvement, supporting local communities, whether it is through sponsorship of the local football team or something else. For example, in my area Centennial Coal is a proud supporter of the Macquarie Scorpions, a rugby league club I am patron of—and I wish to say good luck to them in the upcoming finals series. They lost last week in the first round, but hopefully they can pull a victory out on Saturday. But that level of community involvement from coalmines and their workers is essential to fulfilling the social contract which mining must be based on in this country.

The fourth principle is a commitment from coalmining companies to engage on climate change, to invest in R&D, to invest in technologies that mean that we can continue mining coal into the future. There are some interesting techniques being developed around carbon capture and storage. Some of them will work; some of them will not work; but it requires the coalmining companies to put their hands in their own pockets to invest in the R&D. As we face a carbon constrained future, there will not be an industry that survives without capping its carbon emissions, whether that is at the actual coalmine—for example, Mandalong colliery are spending lots of money developing ventilation and methane abatement technologies so that they reduce the level of methane escaping from the coalmine—or it is investing in carbon capture and storage, or carbon capture and re-use, two technological areas that have been explored at the University of Newcastle's National Institute for Energy and Resources. If we are to continue to export coal, these fundamental technologies must be developed and commercialised. The Japanese are spending a lot of money on CCS. They are still recovering from the horrible Fukushima nuclear disaster and they realise that they need to diversify their energy mix. If they are going to have coal in the future, it must be with minimal carbon emissions.

This bill is a part of the social compact that resource projects must have with Australia. That social compact has to be based on jobs, it has to be based on supporting local supply chains, it has to be based on supporting local communities through sponsoring sporting clubs and community organisations and it has to be based on sound environmental protections. This bill undermines that. It undermines that social compact by saying that groups like farmers, broader community groups and even, heaven forbid, environmental groups have no stake in the development of our resources industry and have no say in whether environmental protection and biodiversity must be respected. That is a hollow and false debate from a government that does not seek to lead this country; it seeks to divide this country. It seeks to pitch sections of the population against each other and surf on that divisiveness into power and to maintain power. That is an incredibly unfortunate frame of mine. It reflects some of the worst aspects of the Fraser years and, unfortunately, it is something that continues to this day. We can do better.

I am confident that the resources industry in this country, in particular coalmining, can coexist with other industries, can coexist with growing and prosperous communities and can coexist with society that has greater environmental protections. But if we are to do that, we must reject this bill. This bill is a hollow attack on environmental protection. It is an attack motivated by the most base of circumstances to distract the Australian people from this government's appalling record of managing this country, particularly on economic management. We have unemployment figures coming out—or they may have already come out—and we have already seen this government making excuses for any upward revision of the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate, as it stands, is at a 13-year high and they are using bills like this to distract people from the real drivers of that unemployment. The real driver of that unemployment is the economic mismanagement of the coalition government. I proudly stand opposed to this bill. I proudly stand-up for coalmining communities but on the basis of a social compact with the community in which they operate.

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