Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

The Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question:

(1) In August 2011 the Commonwealth and Western Australian governments agreed to undertake a strategic assessment of the Perth and Peel regions of Western Australia. The terms of reference for the strategic assessment were finalised in May 2012, following public consultation. The strategic assessment will identify the impacts on matters of national environmental significance from the future development of the Perth and Peel regions to accommodate a population of 3.5 million people. As part of this process, the Western Australian Government is developing a plan to manage matters of national environmental significance and an accompanying Impact Assessment Report. It is expected that Western Australia will release these documents, as well as related planning documents and policies for public comment in mid 2013.

(2) Given the broad scope of the question placed on notice in terms of time period, the large number of projects involved and the detailed analysis of data required, I consider that the preparation of answers would involve a significant diversion of resources. In the circumstances I do not consider that the additional work can be justified.

Information regarding the department's offset policy can be found on the department's website. The department has recently developed an offsets mapping tool which will allow future offsets to be entered into a spatial database to improve data available for decision-making, monitoring and compliance.

(3) Since the commencement of the EPBC Act, no projects referred in Western Australia have been deemed either clearly unacceptable or not approved.