Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Hansard source

I do not concur that the assertion that you are putting forward is in fact the case. As I have said previously, for every activity authorised under this act, an environmental management plan is required. Those environmental management plans are developed in accordance with the EPBC Act and also the environmental regulations that were referred to previously. So it is not a situation of carte blanche. If a company want to conduct some explorations, they make an application to do so and it goes through the processes that we have described. So I would reject the assertion that you are making that it is in fact carte blanche. There is a process for approval that does include consultation, and the process for the development of management plans under that process has gone through a process of consultation with players, including environmental groups, and they have ticked off on that. So I cannot agree with the assertion you are making, Senator Milne, that essentially any area outside a marine protected area—or a marine park, for that matter—is carte blanche.