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

I thank the member for North Sydney. Just on the second question first, the way that we are handling the description of the expectations of Environment Protection Australia is that I will write to the CEO of Environment Protection Australia with a statement of expectations, as the minister. That will be a public document. The CEO of Environment Protection Australia will respond with a statement of intent. That will also be a public document. I will make it very clear as minister. Any subsequent minister will write their own statement of expectations, and the EPA CEO will then respond with how they will properly discharge those expectations.

I would also draw the honourable member's attention to the fact that transparency is an object of the act. The CEO can publish as much information as the CEO wishes to publish.

Of course, regarding the issue that she's raised on community consultation, we will have a national standard on community consultation that will describe the expectations of community consultation, because I do understand how very important it is for local communities to have the opportunity, a proper opportunity, to make their views known about a proposed project. Quite often, what happens in these instances is that we get very large numbers of people signing a form letter. So it can be that you have many thousands of people responding to a proposed project, but the information provided in those responses isn't always unique information 23,000 times. It can be quite similar information provided a number of times.

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