Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is not a laughing matter at all, the member for Herbert. The member for Dawson's motion talks about green lawfare holding Queensland family's to ransom. What about the families of the 1,400 CSIRO employees who no longer have employment?

But, putting our trusted scientists aside, why is this government so afraid of conservation groups? The scaremongering campaign by the government, in particular the member for Dawson, is a disgusting attack on Australians who care about our environment. We all should care about our environment. Sadly, we too often only appreciate something when it is gone. The government is afraid of conservation groups because they are looking over the shoulder of the minister responsible for environmental approvals and calling him out when he has not done his job properly.

Last year the Liberal government was extremely embarrassed that a small conservation group in Mackay challenged the decision of the minister in court. The minister made a mistake. It is that simple. But at no time prior to going to court did Minister Hunt admit that he had made a mistake. He could easily have done that at any time—said, 'Oops, sorry, let's start again.' But he did not. The member for Flinders forced the Mackay conservation group to spend lots of money taking this matter all the way to the doors of the court and then, faced with the prospect of an embarrassing loss in court, Minister Hunt finally admitted that he had actually made the mistake. A consent order was made in this matter. The member for Dawson gets on his high horse, but this was a consent order, where all the parties, including the minister, agreed that an error had been made by the minister in the approval process. If the Mackay group had not brought the challenge in court, would the minister have admitted this mistake? Would Minister Hunt have done so? I do not think so.

The government wants to prevent these groups from challenging any of their decisions. You would think from the scaremongering of the government that every decision is being challenged, but nothing could be further from the truth. Since July 2000 there have been 5,500 projects that have gone through the EPBC approval process. Of those 5,500 only 30 challenges have been made on EPBC assessed projects. Of those 30, only six have actually been successful—six out of 5,500 projects. The EPBC has hardly opened the legal floodgates to so-called vigilante groups.

One of the objects of John Howard's EPBC Act is to provide for the protection of the environment, especially those aspects of the environment that are matters of national environmental significance. The current provisions allowed the Mackay Conservation Group to bring this challenge. This challenge was directly related to protecting the environment—in particular, protecting two threatened species. There is currently on foot another challenge to the Adani Carmichael coalmine—the same project that the Mackay group successfully challenged. This time the Australian Conservation Foundation is challenging Minister Hunt's decision, alleging that he failed to consider whether the impact of climate pollution resulting from burning the mine's coal would be inconsistent with Australia's international obligations to protect the World Heritage listed Barrier Reef. The ACF's CEO, Kelly O'Shanassy, says, 'If it goes ahead, the Carmichael coalmine would create billions of tonnes of pollution, making climate change worse and irreversibly damaging the Great Barrier Reef.'

Clearly this is a matter of national environmental significance. The government has shown no respect for the environment or climate change science. In fact, the actions of the Turnbull government last week showed that they do not value climate change science at all. We are extremely lucky we have dedicated environmentalists in Australia tirelessly and fearlessly advocating to protect our precious environmental— (Time expired)

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