Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the Environment and Water. In recent days, the Prime Minister has expressed no confidence in this minister by introducing specific—

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a lot of rubbish!

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Attorney-General may not like what is being said, but he shall not interject while the deputy leader is asking her question. Out of courtesy to her, she will be invited to begin her question again.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the Environment and Water. In recent days, the Prime Minister has expressed no confidence in this minister, by introducing specific legislation to curtail and override her powers under the EPBC Act. Under the new legislation, does the minister retain the power to stop salmon farming at Macquarie Harbour after the next election?

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

I'd like to thank the former minister for the environment for that question. I say to her—she received the report of Professor Graeme Samuel into John Howard's broken environment laws. She had every opportunity as the environment minister at the time to fix it, and she did nothing.

This amendment to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act is a very specific amendment that will apply in very limited circumstances to reconsiderations, a very small number of reconsiderations that meet four particular criteria. The criteria are that the original decision was not a controlled action, if undertaken in a particular manner; that the activity underway is ongoing or recurring; that the activity had been ongoing or recurring for five years before the reconsideration application was submitted; and, finally, that the activity is being carried on under the supervision of a state or territory government—for example, a state or territory environment protection agency.

Under the existing law—as the former minister for the environment should know—an activity, including an established industry, could be shut down overnight if an environmental assessment had to commence. The former minister for the environment could have fixed this problem. She could have fixed this problem in any way she chose to, when she was the environment minister, but she didn't.

As I said at the beginning of my answer, this applies to a very small number of potential decisions. Of the 7,000—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll listen to the Manager of Opposition Business.

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The point of order is on relevance. The question asked whether the minister retains the powers. The minister seems to be suggesting that this bill is completely unnecessary and that she does retain the power, but it can't be relevant to the question.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll hear from the Leader of the House.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The rule on direct relevance applies to the entirety of the question not just the last few words, and the preamble in that question opened it wide up.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister was asked a pretty specific question. I am listening carefully, and she's giving information about the legislation and the characteristics around it. I want to make sure she is being directly relevant. There was obviously a political component to the question, at the beginning, which she's also entitled to address as part of the question.

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

As I've said every time I have been asked about a specific determination under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, if I predetermine something that is potentially litigated before me as a decision-maker, that ends us up in court—just as when the Leader of the Opposition, last week, said that he had already made a decision about a Western Australian project the resources industry in Western Australia blanched. They went white because they were so worried about the prejudgement of a potential decision and the fact that they would end up in court, as they have in two specific court cases that the Minister for Resources is dealing with right now. (Time expired)