Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move amendments (1) and (2), as circulated in my name, together:

(1) Clause 2, page 3 (at the end of the table), add:

(2) Schedule 1, page 17 (after line 7), at the end of the Schedule, add:

Part 3 — Accountability and transparency

Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Act 1981

52 Section 25 (at the end of the heading)

Add "and tabled in Parliament".

53 Section 25

Omit "The Minister shall cause to be published in the Gazette particulars of the following:", substitute "(1) The Minister must cause to be published in the Gazette, and tabled in each House of the Parliament, particulars of each of the following things:".

54 Paragraph 25(a)

After "applications for permits", insert "received by the Minister".

55 At the end of section 25

Add:

(2) The Minister must do so within 15 sitting days of the House of Representatives after the day the Minister receives or does one of those things.

56 Application provision

The amendments made by this Part apply in relation to things received or done by the Minister on or after the commencement of this item.

I rise today to move amendments to the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment (Using New Technologies to Fight Climate Change) Bill 2023 for the purpose of holding the government to account for the real climate action they have promised by ensuring any legislation in this area is enabled in a way which ensures complete transparency and accountability. This is a piece of legislation that professes to enable environmental protection, yet I fear the truth is that in its current form it will actually provide an opportunity to mask ongoing pollution by hiding it under our seabed.

Just on a year ago, the North Sydney federal electorate sent me to Canberra with a very clear priority: to argue incessantly for faster, tangible and more ambitious action on climate. We're no longer facing a climate emergency; the climate emergency is here. The long-awaited environmental reforms are not. We talk about reaching our 2030 and 2050 climate targets and we talk about a road towards net zero, meeting our international obligations and embarking on major environmental law reform. But talk is cheap. As the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, said, leaders must lead. As leaders, then, and on behalf of the communities that have sent us here, we need to prioritise real action. In this context I rise today to move these consideration in detail amendments to bring transparency and accountability to this bill, to ensure that the purpose it serves and in whose interests it is working on a daily basis are always clear for Australians to see.

The London protocol is one of the first global conventions to protect the marine environment from human activities—as it should—with the objective of promoting the effective control of all sources of marine pollution. If implementing Australia's international obligations under the protocol is the core purpose of this bill, I must highlight the irony of it being used to enable sea dumping of existing carbon emissions. How can a piece of good environmental legislation possibly allow for solutions which bring with them the very real risk of environmental damage and enable continued carbon pollution, all with the absence of minimum checks and balances. The link between this bill and the protocol therefore is tenuous.

If this bill is seriously about using these technologies for climate action, it must at the very least provide a guarantee of greater transparency around permit applications and public consultation. Numerous submissions to the inquiry by the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee expressed concern that the bill does not contain a requirement for environmental impact assessments of proposed activities. As it stands, the bill also has no requirement for public consultation in relation to permit applications, no notification to interest holders nor any associated requirement for the minister to have regard to comments received from the public or other interest holders. In addition to this, the original act does not stipulate time frames for the publication of certain information on permits, including application for permits; permits granted or any associated conditions; refusals to grant permits; and any revocation, variation, suspension or cancellation of the suspension of a permit, and I'd like to see these gaps closed in this legislation. I'd also like to extend this requirement for publication to include tabling documents in the parliament here for all to see.

It is deeply concerning that so much power is being given to the minister—not just minister; it's any minister—without these checks and balances in place. The successful adoption of carbon capture and storage in Denmark for genuinely hard to abate sectors has been accompanied by transparent processes. There was a robust stakeholder consultation platform with representation of EU institutions, EU and third countries, NGOs, business leaders and academia. It facilitated the deployment of the technologies.

My amendment ensures the necessary checks and balances are in place to prove that this bill is serving the purpose which it seeks to achieve. Without amendment, it is far from convincing that the bill presents a solution that is in the best interests of our climate and environment at this point in time. In this context, I ask our environment minister to please lead by example and embrace these additional measures for transparency and accountability. I commend the amendments to the House.

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