Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the Leader of the Greens for that question. It goes to two issues. The first is the government's response to the Samuel review, which was looking at the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Like many things those opposite did, they received the Samuel review about two years ago and never really responded to it. So, of course, we will respond to the Samuel review. The Samuel review found two things. The first is that environmental laws have presided over a worsening of our environment. We saw that with the State of the environment report that those opposite also kept secret, and it found that approvals processes were slow and cumbersome. We want to do two things. We want to give better environmental protections and faster, clearer decision-making, and our response will go to that.

On the issue of coal and gas projects, what we have consistently said on this side is that they will be assessed on a case-by-case basis. They'll have to meet our environmental laws. They'll have to stack up environmentally and economically. That position hasn't changed.

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