Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I thought long and hard about this amendment, but I landed on the other side of the fence again, unfortunately, for the following reasons. It is not environment legislation per se. I recognise that in environment legislation there are instances where there is open standing. In this instance, this contains very serious elements, or offences, that are criminal in nature. I have made it clear that where criminal elements are involved criminal offences should be prosecuted by the Commonwealth for breaches of the legislation. That is an important principle that I will not walk away from.

I do recognise the value in having open standing in various pieces of legislation, and, recognising the public interest litigation work done by that body, it is one area where I came to the view that it should not be included in this bill. It is also a case of dealing with—and I know that you dealt with this in part—vexatious claims that could be made and which could damage industry or business very easily and very quickly.

On those bases the government does not support the amendment that you have offered. However, I do think that it is a matter that should continue to be looked at and not simply rejected out of hand. I am open for it to be re-raised in the review period, because we will then have significant experience about how the legislation has operated and how the regulations have worked. I obviously cannot bind future governments, but I will make it plain at this point that, on balance, because of the nature of the offences—that they were criminal in nature—I landed fairly and squarely in the area of not having open standing in this particular bill. But the issues you raise are not lost on the government.