Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the minister for her comments. I appreciate her at least agreeing with the sentiment that it is important to have a proper statutory review mechanism in place. I would disagree with the minister that waiting six years for the currently mandated legislated complete review of the operation of the EPBC Act is the appropriate way to go in this regard. As I have outlined in my remarks, this is an exceptional amendment to the EPBC Act. I do not say that in terms of it being outstanding or brilliant. It is exceptional in terms of the fact that it is unusual and novel. My concern is that—and we saw this with the Hawke review—thorough though the Hawke review was, it is an enormous piece of work to properly review the operation of the entire EPBC Act. It is a very substantial act. It has far-reaching ramifications. It covers, as we know, a huge number of matters of national environmental significance already. There are always proposals to include others, which were canvassed, as I said, in the Hawke review—not notably a water trigger, which we are now debating.

The scope of such a review is far too significant, I think, to adequately do justice to assessing a very specific new section like this one that the government has introduced. That is why the coalition stands by its amendment calling for there to be this particular review just of this new water trigger. This new water trigger takes the EPBC Act, as I said before, into uncharted territory. It is unknown for the act to single out industry sectors, as this amendment does with coal seam gas development and large coalmining development. That is a whole new focus for the act. It will present, as we have already debated in this place, potential perverse outcomes. The Greens highlighted in their first amendment the fact that shale gas operations will not be included but coal seam gas operations will. We just had a subsequent debate about what other actions beyond the specific actions of a coal seam gas development or a large coalmining development could potentially be included. So we have a range of concerns about exactly how this new section is going to work.

Within four years there will have been the opportunity to see a decent number of cases. Within that four years, $38 million on the administration of the act will have largely been spent. The 50 new staff in the department of the environment will have been hired. The systems will have been ironed out, one trusts, for them to work out exactly how it is going to operate. We will have a good idea by then as to whether in fact it works seamlessly with the states, as Senator Conroy has sought to assure the chamber already in this debate. So there will be ample evidence to be weighed and considered for a review. Ample time will have elapsed after the period of several years to, importantly, give it some specific attention. Waiting another six years for the next complete legislative review, which then, as history suggests with the Hawke review, will take quite some time to complete and which will take potentially even longer for the government of the day to respond to in a comprehensive way, means that ultimately it will be many, many years that we leave this new section with the water trigger specific to the two industries in question in operation without any real test or any real assessment as to what its impact is.

We need to understand and remember that this proposal came essentially out of left field. As I understand it, this legislation never even made its way to cabinet. This was done on the run by a government that just wanted to appease the member for New England. They wanted to keep Mr Windsor happy when he said, 'We must do this.' When Mr Burke, as the minister, said, 'Actually it will align with some of our political concerns and issues we are facing in New South Wales at present,' the government of the day said: 'Okay. We will jump. We will do this.' The Prime Minister gave Mr Burke the nod. The minister introduced the legislation, and its introduction was the first, I gather, that certain key ministers even saw of it.

Such is the dysfunction in the government that we are quite used to these types of issues happening. The government surprises industry and many key players with what actually happens with regard to the legislation that is brought forward. We will debate shortly the fact that the government accepted quite significant amendments to the operation of this legislation in relation to the potential for bilateral approvals on the floor of the House out of the blue and again with no proper consultation. The government, as highlighted in my earlier remarks, failed to carry out a regulatory impact statement on this legislation and really has demonstrated that it has given very little consideration to exactly how this will work and what the impact will be.

That is why, if this is passed, as it will be, it deserves to at least be subjected to a proper, thorough review at the earliest reasonable opportunity. The earliest reasonable opportunity is not six years away, when the whole act is scheduled for review; the earliest reasonable opportunity to review this is in around three or four years' time, when there will have been ample controlled actions assessed and ample evidence to work with, and when the Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development will have been in operation for around four or five years.

It is one of the tragedies of this rushed and reactive piece of legislation before us that the independent expert scientific committee has in some ways been sidelined from this process, because it was the great unifying reform this parliament took when it came to how coal seam gas developments would be assessed. There was an agreement that significant funds, significant expert resources and significant skills would be applied to ensure that we developed the right informed body of knowledge that could guide both Commonwealth and state approvals processes. This expert body would inform states about the impact that coal seam gas or large coalmining developments had on water resources, and in doing so would ensure that the states were far better equipped and informed to deal with those water resource questions. It would also inform the Commonwealth with regard to its approval powers across the suite of measures that the Commonwealth has historically undertaken.

Sadly, whilst the committee will keep doing its work and will now be able to inform on these matters as well, it is a shame that it was not given a chance to demonstrate that it could address the community concerns that existed, and manage to work across both state and Commonwealth boundaries to provide an effective outcome. The government chose to go through this approach instead and, having gone down this pathway, we deserve to put in this legislation something that will give a clear and specific independent review mechanism to this unique addition to the EPBC act, something that would ensure it is done at the earliest opportunity. That is why I urge the chamber to support this amendment.