Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

The problem in this instance is not with the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. In fact it is a very powerful piece of legislation and it fixes a long-term problem that there was in this country: that the federal laws to do with the impacts of development on sites of national significance or on species that were threatened and endangered were very weak. The problem with this legislation is that there is enormous ministerial discretion, and that is what you would expect in decisions that are as far reaching as matters to do with national significance are.

But this minister has used the act for political purposes, and that is why we are here censuring him today. He has used it cynically and in a way which has nothing to do with orange-bellied parrots, wedge-tailed eagles or any other animals which deserve protection. He has used it in a way that he has not in the past on worthy cases against development. In fact, as I said yesterday, 2,745 projects have been referred to the environment protection and biodiversity conservation laws and only four applications have not been approved. That is less than 0.15 per cent of those that have been brought to the minister. A significant number of those 2,745 projects involved threatened species, but the minister has been reluctant to knock back those projects. Instead, for the most part, he and ministers before him have put conditions on the projects to minimise the impact on threatened species.

What are the real threats to the orange-bellied parrot? I can remember debates about this in Victoria. Madam Acting Deputy President Troeth, you may also remember when the state government wanted to put a chemical storage facility just past Corio Bay, which was a habitat. The foreshore was a place that orange-bellied parrots are seen on a regular basis, and the state government was considering putting the Coode Island chemical storage plant down there. There was quite a lot of community backlash and a great deal of interest in this issue. That did not go ahead because of community concern about it and because it would have been a very serious threat to the orange-bellied parrot.

But you cannot say the same thing about the wind farm at Bald Hills. Enough has been said here already today about the report which was done for the minister which he used selectively, about the advice which was given to him by his department which he totally ignored, about the process that had been gone through by the state government and so on. We know that the threat to the orange-bellied parrot was very minimal indeed. The real threats are fragmentation and degradation of over-winter habitat by grazing, agriculture or urban development; competition with other seed-eating birds; foxes and feral cats; disease; and disorientation during migration from brightly lit fishing boats. These are the real threats, but is there anything in Minister Campbell’s actions which would ameliorate any of those threats? No. The other big problem for threatened birds is climate change, and it is ironic that here we have a project which might do something about climate change. In fact, it would reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are produced in Victoria by 435,000 tonnes a year. This project, which might in some way assist to limit the threats on the orange-bellied parrot, is being used by the minister for political purposes. Through this decision, he is effectively sacrificing the orange-bellied parrot rather than protecting it.

Rather than knocking back this project, what might the minister have done? He could have required that the wind farm minimise the impact on the habitat. The wonderful thing about wind farms is that they have very little impact indeed. In fact, you see photographs of cows grazing up to the base of the turbines. Given their size and their importance, they probably have the least impact on the environment of any development I can imagine. Nonetheless, the minister could have required there to be a minimisation of habitat disturbance. The minister could have said to the wind farm proponents that a percentage of the revenue from the wind farm was to be used on other sites to restore habitat or to create new habitat for the orange-bellied parrot. Mind you, they would have to be quite a way away from the Bald Hills wind farm because, as I understand it, the orange-bellied parrot does not move too far inland. I think two kilometres is about the maximum range from the shore and the Bald Hills site is a little further inland than that. Money could have been used to create more winter-feeding habitats and secure current habitats, but there is very little by way of understanding of what those actual threats are and where we could improve the long-term chances of survival of the orange-bellied parrot. The minister has effectively been very arbitrary in this whole approach. It is all about seats and appeasing the handful of people, as I understand it in this instance, who opposed the wind farm and who will always oppose wind farms. For some reason, these people see them as a blight on the landscape. I do not; I find them to be amazing pieces of technology which seem to me to be most elegant, and in that landscape I am sure I could point to many other constructions which are more offensive than a wind turbine.

One of the most problematic aspects of this decision is the damage that it has done to confidence in the wind industry. It has set the wind industry back I do not know how many years, but it would have to be a substantial period of time. I think wind farm developers are still reeling with the shock of this decision, knowing that future approvals might also be dealt with in this arbitrary political way and that there will be no certainty about what might be able to proceed and what might not. It costs a great deal of money to find a site and to get to the point where you can make an application for approval, and this would most definitely be a very strong deterrent on such developments into the future. A number of people from the wind industry have been quoted in the media over the last few months of this debate talking about the process. Mr Bracks, for instance, said:

[The minister] took so long to do it that he had to find the most flimsy of pretexts. This will not stand up to scrutiny.

The chief executive of the wind farm developer Wind Power said the company had spent millions of dollars on the project and was seeking advice about any potential legal action. As we know, that legal action was commenced. This obviously panicked the minister and forced him to start to think a bit more about this and negotiate with the wind farmer and the wind farm developer. He has offered them another chance to make an application, which is very generous indeed. I understand that that application is no different from the one that went before. So this is just a face-saving device on the part of the minister.

We are talking about this issue because his decision making has been arbitrary, capricious and political. We do not need that kind of decision making from our ministers; we expect better of them than that. Despite the fact that the Democrats very strongly support the EPBC Act—we are also very keen to see the minister use it more effectively than he has in the past and we would like to see a few more projects knocked back that threaten species in many ways—I cannot in any way endorse what the minister has done. I think it is unacceptable. If it was a minister in any other portfolio we would do likewise, but the particular arguments in this case make it clear to me that he has misused his ministerial powers. It is appropriate for the Senate to remind him of that and to have this debate.

It is very disappointing. We would like to have an environment minister who took his role seriously in protecting endangered species. This minister has not done that. When he comes to this chamber and says, ‘This is what I’m going to do for the orange-bellied parrot; this is how we will make sure that it doesn’t become extinct,’ then we will be the first to applaud him for that. But stopping a wind farm where no orange-bellied parrots ever go is not a way of doing that. If he is serious about promoting himself as a minister who looks after the environment then we would be happy to congratulate him for doing that, but it is certainly not possible to do that in this case.