Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to rise to join this debate to take note of the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications and the Arts report into the operation of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. Like Senator Siewert, I acknowledge that this is the first report under this inquiry. There will be a subsequent report into the regional forest agreements and their impact on and interrelationship with the EPBC Act.

I note as well that some aspects of this report will probably duplicate some of the arguments that will occur there, particularly some of those that stem from the objects of the act—such as how those objects have been interpreted by the courts—that both Senator McEwen and Senator Siewert have spoken of. The coalition looks forward to the deliberation of the committee on that matter and to further exploring those issues and indeed the overall issue of the interrelationship between those two important acts. We do so with the caveat that we believe that in all of these areas of environmental management—be they forestry, fisheries or elsewhere—we should, as far as is possible, strive to ensure that there is a single framework in place for management, reporting and accountability. These industries should not be burdened by multiple reporting regimes under Commonwealth legislation that could impose undue costs on them.

This act was landmark legislation in its time. It is legislation that the coalition is very proud of. We know that it is not necessarily perfect; it was not perfect when it was first introduced and it is not necessarily perfect today. That is often the case with landmark legislation. I put on the record credit to one of my predecessors in this place, the great former South Australian Senator Robert Hill, who was the environment minister that shepherded this legislation through and, in doing so, heralded a new era of environmental management by the Commonwealth. Like many of these areas, it comes under intense criticism. That intense criticism should not be misinterpreted as saying that it is all wrong, because, of course, you cannot please all of the people all of the time; in fact, in many instances, you cannot please all of the people any of the time. That, of course, is because in many of the instances considered under this act there are extreme positions and often everybody is disappointed by parts of the outcome.

But, as I said, this act is worthy of continuing review and improvement, because it is a critical area. This type of environment protection in our law is now a critical area of Commonwealth responsibility. We on this side of the chamber are pleased that the former government stepped up to the plate in that regard and we look forward to working constructively with all parties in the chamber to seek further improvements going ahead. We note that the act contains a mandatory statutory review which has been initiated during the conduct of this inquiry. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Peter Garrett, has initiated that, and that review will report late next year. I hope that that statutory review—the independent review—that is being undertaken into the operation of the act will be able to look much more closely at the details in terms of the scope, implementation and operation of this act than necessarily our inquiry has been able to do.

As Senator McEwen acknowledged, there was enormous interest, and I thank all of those parties who displayed interest in this inquiry. Not all issues have been able to be adequately covered in the time available. Indeed, I hope the independent review will be able to look at the detail of the legislation far more closely than we have been able to to address some of those concerns that exist, both from, shall I say, the environment lobby on the one hand and those industry groups, business organisations and others, on the other hand, who all have differing concerns about the operation of this act. Nonetheless, the coalition provided additional comments which indicate where we support the majority report recommendations and where we have concerns. I welcome those areas that particularly touch on resourcing. There is no point in having an act that requires conditions to be adhered to in many instances if you do not have appropriate policing of it and enforcement of it. Now, making sure that there was appropriate policing and enforcement is an area that we probably erred in when in government; these were the early days of the operation of the act, and, unsurprisingly, most of the resources and effort probably went into those initial assessments and initial considerations under the act. But it is important that we continue to beef up all aspects, from that assessment process right through to compliance and enforcement. It is especially important.

We have canvassed in this committee—I have particularly done so in estimates with Senator Wong and others—issues such as the north-south pipeline in Victoria, for which Minister Garrett has provided a conditional approval. That conditional approval relates to a range of factors, including water savings. I, for one, will be going into those estimates committees time and time again to make sure those water savings have been met. I expect that the government will in this area, as with other conditional approvals, be ensuring that the appropriate enforcement is in place.

We encourage especially the independent review but also the government overall to look at the full use of powers. Something that I think has come through in this inquiry is that there are a range of areas and mechanisms that already exist under the act that probably are not being employed sufficiently or appropriately—areas such as strategic impact assessments, the listing of threatened species and the preparation of recovery plans. It is not all about simply assessing individual projects on a case-by-case basis. So we would encourage the independent review and the government to look at that full spectrum of powers that exists. We do so, really encouraging the government to try to make the act, as far as possible, work to meet its current objectives. Let us get this act working now with the broad scope it already has before we necessarily branch out and seek to include further scope.

I also welcome and encourage looking at the impact of bilateral arrangements with state governments in terms of the assessment of projects. I have concerns, again in my home state of South Australia, that we have an instance at present where numerous applications, such as the building of the Wellington Weir and the admitting of salt water into Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert, have been applied for by the South Australian government and yet the South Australian government is also conducting the environmental impact statement on those applications by themselves. It is a poacher turned gamekeeper type situation and whether it has appropriate oversight is something that we need to look at.

There is one area of major concern that I have, and that relates to triggers. The government and the Greens have spoken about adding greenhouse gas emissions as a new trigger. Well, we have serious concerns about the impact of that. We believe that it would be very inappropriate to add greenhouse gas emissions as a trigger under this act, because it would be simply a case of asking the minister to consider in total isolation from many other things the impact of emissions in one area from one project. That really is not the way Australia should be going about managing its greenhouse gas emissions. At that project conceptualisation stage, that stage when those putting projects on the table are looking at the approvals they need, they are considering where they are going to base their project—whether they are going to base it in South Australia, New South Wales or Western Australia or whether they are going to base it in Australia, New Zealand, China or India.

The real risk that we face by putting a greenhouse gas emissions trigger in this act is that it will drive those types of projects offshore and that will be another impediment. I support reducing greenhouse gas emissions as rapidly as we possibly can. The coalition supports that, and we have announced many policies of our own in this regard. However, we need to be careful that we do not drive a situation where we simply encourage further carbon leakage from Australia to offshore. By implementing a greenhouse gas trigger in this act we would seriously risk driving those businesses and jobs offshore before they have even had a chance to lodge an application in Australia, because they would probably be too scared of the process that lay ahead of them.

We need to consider greenhouse gas emissions on a holistic level, not on an isolated, case-by-case, project-by-project basis. That is an area in which we urge the government to proceed very cautiously. We do not believe it should occur. I hope that there will be much greater exploration of this. I believe it would be inconsistent with their plans for the CPRS. I believe it would be inconsistent with the belief that we should be managing our greenhouse gas emissions on a far broader scale. In closing, I thank the secretariat and all those who participated in this inquiry, and I look forward to further contributions in the second stage.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.