Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I apologise to Senator Waters if I have been mispronouncing her name. I do wish that you would also get your facts correct before you enter into these debates. Senator Waters also talked about the marine protected zones which the Abbott government has changed so that decisions are now made on the basis of—heaven forbid—science and scientific advice. That is rather different to relying on some American conservation agency that was set up, I might say, on the back of the profits of the oil industry decades ago. That group was embarrassed by what it had done to the American environment and now it pours millions of dollars into the Pugh Foundation, which then roams the world lecturing everyone else in the world about proper management of marine parks. Fortunately, under the Abbott government, marine parks will be managed according to science.

I am sorry that I have not even got onto my speech yet, but this is a debate and I cannot let the Greens continue to mislead the Australian public. Senator Waters laments the passing of the mining tax, but it was tax that did not make any money. It was a tax that cost more to implement than it ever recovered. Why wouldn't you get rid of it? Senator Waters also talked about the abolition of the Biodiversity Fund. She does not remember that it was the Howard government's Natural Heritage Trust that put all that money into the protection of biodiversity. Senator Waters also laments that a group of Canberra bureaucrats will lose their jobs because they will no longer have work to do in the Commonwealth Department of the Environment. That is because the work they were doing was duplicating work that another set of bureaucrats had done in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide and Perth. Why should you employ a group of people to do exactly the same work as another set of bureaucrats? Of course, we will reduce the numbers, because they are not needed. The Commonwealth laws will be addressed by the state bureaucrats when they are doing the state environmental assessments.

The final comment of Senator Waters that I recorded was that local councils would make decisions on the EPBC Act. I would like you to show me where that is provided for, Senator Waters. It sounds good. It will frighten some people who have Labor councils, I guess, in Sydney and elsewhere, to think that they would be left in charge of EPBC Act applications, but the state governments will be administering things, as they should.

I have extended my time to speak but I have not even got on to my speech. The second reading speech does clearly indicate what it is all about. I will not repeat that, except to say: the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Cost Recovery) Bill 2014 will amend the act to allow for cost recovery for environmental impact assessments and approvals. And who could argue with that? That is the way things are these days. Cost recovery will help to ensure that the Department of the Environment is adequately resourced to undertake efficient environmental assessments.

In a nutshell, that is what this bill is all about. I welcome the support of the Labor Party for the bill. It would be too much to expect that the Greens would support anything that the Howard or Abbott governments brought forward, and so I, to a degree, disregard their mismatch of reasons for not supporting this. But this is an appropriate step on the way through to bring some sense and good process to the protection of our environment, which this government is so keen to do and enhance.