Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Cost Recovery) Bill 2014, which we are debating today, is part of a commitment to a more streamlined and efficient environmental assessment process. That is a well-documented thing and it is part of Labor's election commitments, so we are supporting this bill that is before us. But it is important in this context, because of how the government has framed this debate, to note that Labor on the other hand does not support in any way the other processes put in train by this government to delegate the approval of environmental powers to both state and local governments.

We acknowledge that the principle of this bill—in terms of cost recovery—is sound, because it allows for proponents of developments to contribute to the cost of assessment and to the development of the application process by the Commonwealth. We think that is a good thing. What we do object to, though, is the fact that the minister has presented this bill as part of the government's overall agenda to hand over the Commonwealth's important responsibility to protect matters of national environmental significance to state governments. As we have recently discovered, this also includes local councils.

As we know, the government has begun the process of handing over environmental approval powers to the states. I really object to the fact that this will give people like Campbell Newman control over the Great Barrier Reef and, indeed, it will give Colin Barnett control over our wonderful Ningaloo Reef. It is important today that I emphasise that our attitude to this bill is very separate to our overall attitude to those ministerial intentions, even though the government has sought to present them together as a package. That is, the government wants to broadly hand over our responsibilities under the EPBC Act to the states. We believe that these should be packaged very separately.

The delineation between us and the coalition on these matters should be very clear from the outset. We should be able to do streamlining, as this bill does, and save taxpayer money without attacking standards. Environmental standards have been under demonstrable attack right around the country time and time again. I will highlight some of those for the chamber today. The government went against all reason in handing over—quite sneakily, in my view—the world's largest marine reserve system by reproclaiming it and undoing the very management plans that gave those marine protections effect.

The government has also, in my view, all but abandoned efforts to have Queensland's Cape York added to the World Heritage List. It has also approved every request for development in the Great Barrier Reef that has landed on the minister's desk. This is despite the fact that UNESCO has threatened to list the reef as endangered. We have seen some of those issues play out before the World Heritage Committee this week.

Sharks have been on the hit list, with the minister approving an exemption to the WA government to allow drum lining to take place off the WA coast. That is a completely illogical process, because it has been reeling in shark species that are not even the ones that are implicated in the shark attacks that have been taking place against West Australians. There is a huge amount of environmental cost being wreaked against animals that actually have not been implicated in any of the shark attacks that have taken place.

We know that this government has also been taking us backwards on climate change. We are the laughing stock on the world stage. In Warsaw this year, during the last climate change talks, we were awarded an unprecedented five fossil awards. As we have seen just today, the attempt of the government to approach the World Heritage Committee to delist 74,000 hectares of Tasmanian wilderness has very fortunately been completely rejected by the World Heritage Committee. I cannot begin to tell you how relieved I am that that is the case. We are now resorting to international fora to protect our important World Heritage listed sites, as the government itself has abandoned them. All these issues truly expose the government's lack of environmental credentials, which have been on display time and time again. These kinds of environmental standards are under attack in the other bill that is before this place, which the government claims is packaged up with this one. The EPBC Act deals with bilateral assessments and approvals but that other bill would allow state and local governments to approve developments in what are, in my view, some of the nation's most iconic and significant environmental assets.

I want to reflect very briefly on the parts of this bill which are important and which we do not object to. There is a fee structure for cost recovery within this bill for environmental assessments. This fee structure will be put within regulation and ministerial determinations and will have a formula to ensure appropriate cost recovery for the assessments. Environmental assessment activities are, in Labor's view, appropriate for cost recovery as the activities provide a clear benefit for particular proponents to undertake developments that may impact on the environment. I think this is a clear and important objective. We note that exemptions and waivers are also going to be part of this system, which will ensure that public entities providing a public benefit will not be burdened by additional fees. You can see where cost recovery is appropriate. Where we have resources that are going to be economically exploited, the cost recovery for those environmental assessments should take place but we should distinguish them from things that require assessment for the public benefit. We want to see cost recovery encourage proponents to think about engaging early and in a very strategic way in how to manage their costs within the environmental assessment process. We have seen in the past that there can be a cost blow-out for government as these processes drag on. So this measure is a good thing, because we think it will contribute to a more streamlined assessment process as proponents seek to manage their costs in the most efficient way possible.

To conclude, Labor support the streamlining of environmental assessments for major projects but final approval of matters of national environmental significance should, in our view, remain with the national government—but that is a separate issue to the matters before us in this bill which pertain to cost recovery for environmental assessment and which we are prepared to support.