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

I might ask the minister and I might ask Senator Rhiannon as well. As I recall—and I do not have the EPBC Act in front of me—anything that has any impact on Ramsar wetlands is something that the EPBC Act can deal with. Again, I am not well enough prepared to actually name the Ramsar wetlands in the Murray-Darling Basin except to say that I am sure some part of the Murray-Darling Basin is subject to Ramsar classification. If I speak long enough, the names of those Ramsar wetlands will come to me. You were talking about subsidence from mining operations—drawing a very long bow—but, nevertheless, if subsidence in the Murray-Darling Basin because of mining is going to occur then it must, of necessity, have some impact on Ramsar wetlands, which are in the Murray-Darling Basin area. That then would seem to me to be an issue for the EPBC Act. There are other provisions of the EPBC—unfortunately, I do not have it in front of me—dealing with a range of water issues which would enable the EPBC Act, as I understand it, to do what this Water Act provision that we are trying to repeal already does. It was typical of Labor and of the Greens that it did not matter to put regulation on regulation and regulation. It did not seem to worry the Greens that that, effectively, at the bottom-line, cost jobs for Australians. I have mentioned in this chamber on many occasions that sort of duplication costs Australia jobs.

I have often spoken in this chamber about an aquaculture project—digressing slightly, I see the Marine Conservation Society is saying what a great thing aquaculture is yet their mates in the radical Green movement will take every step possible to stop any proper aquaculture operations—that I am familiar with. I saw the project's EIS for the Commonwealth and it was about half a metre high of paper. That is okay; it needed to be done thoroughly. But this is half a metre paper for the Commonwealth investigation when they already had another half metre of paper for the state investigation on exactly the same sort of thing. And that is what this Omnibus Repeal Day is all about and our party is all about—trying to maintain the standards and protections that are essential but stopping the senseless activity of having to do the same exercise over and over again. It just does not make sense. Sure, the protections need to be there, they need to be strong and they are strong.

You have a process where you go through all of the state government approvals, which takes years, millions of dollars and costs hundreds of jobs, and that is fine; it has to be done. But then, having got state government approval on a very rigorous process, you would think you could go ahead and create the activity and create jobs for Australians but, low and behold, you have to do it again under the EPBC Act. You have to go through the same process again, costing millions of dollars and hundreds of jobs.

That is what this whole process wants to address, and that is what I am quite confident the EPBC Act will do in the hypothetical situations raised by the Greens political party in their questions to the minister. My question to the minister goes to whether the minister or his advisers have the sort of information that we need to explain to the Senate which provisions of the EPBC Act are relevant to the issue. From my memory, I am sure there are provisions in the act, and I hope the minister can refresh my memory on just what they are.