Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to say that I believe that Senator Campbell has finally exposed the complete lack of merit in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. When the government introduced this, the majority of the conservation movement across the country said that it was completely flawed legislation because it relied almost entirely on the discretion of the minister to determine the fate of any development project that was referred to the minister. It was only the WWF, the Humane Society, the Tasmanian Conservation Trust and the Queensland Conservation Council who stood with the federal minister of the day and made wild claims that it was the biggest win for the environment in 25 years.

Several years later, what we have seen is that the EPBC Act stands condemned. The activities of the minister in relation to the orange-bellied parrot demonstrate why, because it depends entirely on the whim of the minister whether he is going to apply the act appropriately or otherwise. That has always been the case. I inform the minister that when Senator Hill was the minister for the environment he ruled out any consideration of cumulative impacts on orange-bellied parrots as a result of wind farms. If you have a look at his decision then, he said that he was not going to look at the cumulative impacts at all.

I have heard a whole lot of hypocrisy from people around this chamber talking about their desperate concern for critically endangered species. When it was determined that the detention centre was to be put on Christmas Island I did not hear the same sort of passionate outcry for the Abbott’s booby. When it was decided to exempt logging of old-growth forests in Tasmania from any consideration with regard to the proposed pulp mill, did I hear an outcry from either the Liberal Party or the Labor Party about the green and gold frog, which was vulnerable under the EPBC Act? What about the wedge-tailed eagle? It is endangered. We have heard a lot about the wedge-tailed eagle. The assessment from Forestry Tasmania says that they will be wiped out in the north-east if the logging continues there for the pulp mill.

What about the swift parrot, the spotted-tailed quoll, the eastern barred bandicoot and other vulnerable species? The swift parrot is endangered. All of those are listed in the documents put out by the pulp mill proponents as being impacted by this pulp mill—and that is without consideration of the forests. And yet I do not hear a whimper from anywhere in this chamber. That, apparently, is okay. At the discretion of the minister, some species can be wiped out. With others, he takes a passionate interest in them, and the passionate interest has got to do with marginal seats in Victoria. Everybody in the country knows that. In Western Australia, they also know that the decision in relation to one particular wind farm proposal was to out-redneck a local sitting member, Wilson Tuckey. We also had the Treasurer saying that he would not want a wind farm in his backyard.

We are facing a global catastrophe with global warming and climate change. We need the desperate roll-out of renewable energy everywhere we can get it, and we need biodiversity protection to be taken seriously and consistently. We do not need ministers grandstanding and making political decisions because they can under a completely flawed act. Under the EPBC Act there have been hundreds, if not thousands, of referrals to federal ministers since it came in, and only two or three have ever been stopped.

Here is a challenge for you, Minister: Ralph’s Bay and the critically endangered spotted handfish. I want you to take the same decision on the spotted handfish as you took on the orange-bellied parrot. People in Ralph’s Bay will be watching to see if you do, because that is one of the last habitats of the spotted handfish. Let us have exactly the same process applied. You will get any number of reports telling you that the spotted handfish is critically endangered. Let us stop the Walker marina development right now on the basis of the spotted handfish. We do not even have a recovery plan funded, Minister. That is the level of concern the Commonwealth has for the spotted handfish.

As I have indicated, the wedge-tailed eagle in the north-east of Tasmania is also endangered, as the native forests go down in order to feed a pulp mill after a decision by the Commonwealth to exempt those forests from any assessment. How can you have an environmental impact assessment of a pulp mill that is going to use millions of tonnes of native forests every year, locked in for 30 years, and say, ‘I’m not going to look at the environmental impact on the forests’? The EPBC Act has been shown to be poor legislation. It should be repealed. What we need out of this orange-bellied parrot fiasco is new legislation which takes away from the minister the discretion that the minister currently has under the act that makes a mockery of environmental protection. (Time expired)