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

I want to thank the minister for her response just then to the amendments that I moved yesterday. I just want to pick up on a few of the things in the minister's answer to me. The amendments that were moved were moved in consultation with a number of people that are already incredibly active when it comes to having a very clear sense of goodwill vested in seeing the absolute strongest version of an environmental protection agency established here in Australia. I think at the heart of it, as the minister, her team and I have discussed, there is a very real concern that the recognition of obligation to community does not lie in the primary piece of legislation.

Beyond that, access to and the publication of information—responding to what we just heard from the minister—that has been used to make a decision is an essential component of people being able to understand what has helped an organisation come to their final point. In my original speech, I actually referenced a project that's taking place very near my home in Coonabarabran, in the Pilliga forest, the largest native forest west of the Blue Mountains. When that project was first announced to the community and the process was opened, they received 23,000 submissions on that proposal, and close to 95 per cent of those submissions were against that project. Yet, when the project was approved, there were only five paragraphs in the final report even referencing those submissions.

So my response to what we've just heard from the minister, while I absolutely respect everything she has offered in terms of the importance of not providing information because you wish to protect species or the location of sites, is that it's not the absence of that information that the people I've spoken to are concerned about; it's actually the absence of the arguments when a decision has been made to proceed with a project. People really want to understand how we can have a case where 23,000 submissions were made and over 90 per cent said, 'No, we don't want this to proceed,' and yet the project still went ahead. I think there is still room within this legislation to improve that. I really respectfully request that the minister and her team look at that as part of the bill.

You can still retain information. You can do that on the grounds that we could introduce subsets here that say 'information retained due to protective nature of species' or 'information retained due to respect for traditional custodians'. But to just say we can't provide it all because we may end up accidentally giving good information away, I think, provides a really big shield for the bad information that community is concerned about. Ultimately, proponents will go looking for it, and proponents will try and elevate up over the top of any other advocacy groups.

I apologise if the minister touched on this yesterday, but I just want to come back to it. We know at the moment that all of the state EPAs have a charter when it comes to their operations. Really, I thought it was quite significant that there is no charter for the federal EPA. I wondered if the minister could help me understand why there's this break with what seems to be fairly standard practice between the two levels.

See this speech in context