Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I present the report of the Environment and Communications References Committee on Australia's environment, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.

Ordered that the report be printed.

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I rise today to table the report of the Environment and Communications References Committee into Australia's environment. Firstly, I would like to thank all the people who took the time to submit to this inquiry and recognise the amount of work and effort that went into these submissions. I would also like to recognise the people who took time out of their own days to appear before the committee at hearings in Brisbane and Canberra. The committee received 61 submissions and held two public hearings. I would also like to thank the Environment and Communications References Committee secretariat staff for their hard work and excellent advice on this and all other inquiries that I have worked on with them.

Of course, it is no secret that this government is no friend of the environment. Their record is truly shocking, ranging from moving backwards on climate change to risking our international reputation for outstanding World Heritage icons. Soon after coming to office, the Abbott government began rushing through environmental approvals. The government disallowed the endangered community listing of the River Murray from the Darling to the sea. The government discarded any sense of reason and ignored expert advice to sneakily have the world's largest marine reserve system re-proclaimed to undo the management plans that give them effect. But it does not end there. This government has taken us backwards on climate change by repealing the carbon tax in favour of a taxpayer funded dressed-up slush fund. In its first auction of its emissions reduction fund, it paid $660 million of taxpayers' money for only 10 million tonnes of new carbon abatement—a carbon price of $66 per tonne. It also wants to axe the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which provides assistance to clean energy developments and actually makes money for the budget bottom line.

The government approached the World Heritage Committee to delist 74,000 hectares of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage area. This embarrassing application was dismissed out of hand by the World Heritage Committee. The government has been entrusted with one of the greatest honours in public life: to protect and promote Australia's magnificent natural assets. Instead, it is intent on destroying them and the Prime Minister is not embarrassed for the world to know what he is doing. In fact, this government is in the unenviable position of being internationally renowned for its disregard and disrespect for the environment. When this reference was accepted to the committee, it was much more broad-ranging and also included consideration of the government's attacks on carbon pricing, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the renewable energy target, the Climate Change Authority and the Climate Commission. It was also due to look at the government's cruel cuts to Landcare and consider the government's plan to hand over environmental approval powers to state governments, as well as the government's poor record on the Great Barrier Reef and Tasmania's Wilderness World Heritage area.

After the lodgement of this reference, however, it became very clear that these areas needed serious investigation as discrete inquiries themselves, which were undertaken through the committee. As a result, the focus of the terms of reference was narrowed to look at the remaining areas that had not previously been looked at and that still needed further investigation. The first of these was the Biodiversity Fund, an initiative of the previous government which was established to improve the resilience of Australia's unique species to the impacts of climate change, enhance the environmental outcomes of carbon farming projects and help landholders to protect carbon and biodiversity values on their land. The Biodiversity Fund represented a significant investment of Commonwealth funds in Australia's environment and allowed ecologically complex solutions to be pursued in a variety of landscapes across Australia. The committee received general concerns from witnesses and submitters about the implications that changes to access to Commonwealth funding and decreases in the level of funding for environmental projects would have for the future of Australia's environment.

We also dealt with the Environmental Defenders Office. Currently, there are eight state and territory—or there were at the time of the hearing—community environmental law centres which form the EDOs of Australia. The work undertaken by the EDOs relates to legal advice and representation, community legal education programs and the formulation of environmental policy and law reform. The EDOs are the only public interest environmental lawyers in Australia. As a result of this status, the EDOs of Australia argued that, 'Access to environmental justice ultimately depends upon our continued capacity to deliver a range of specialist legal services to the community.' The EDOs also argued that they provide a unique service to local communities through their education programs. They also play a significant role in public interest environmental litigation.

The EDOs receive funds through fees, donations, gifts and government grants and programs. EDOs of Australia also commented that the funding received by each office fluctuates markedly from year to year due to progress-based funding, one-off philanthropic grants and a variable success of fundraising efforts and income from services. In December 2013, the Mid-year Economic and Fiscal Outlook outlined cuts for legal protection reform and advocacy funding, including a $10 million cut in funding over four years to the EDOs. The Attorney-General's Department noted that the supplementary funding agreements entered into by the previous government included an immediate termination clause. This was executed immediately with the December 2013 MYEFO announcement.

At this time, the EDOs were also notified that their ongoing base funding would not be renewed beyond its expiry date of 30 June 2014. The Attorney-General's Department commented that the recurrent funding was not terminated or cancelled, rather that the government had agreed not to continue this funding at the expiration of the current funding arrangements—that was at 30 June 2014. The committee received evidence on the consequences of the defunding of the EDOs on the organisations and the work that they undertake. The EDOs of Australia pointed to the importance of stable funding for the long-term delivery of services. The committee acknowledges the vitally important role that EDOs have undertaken over many years. The EDOs empowered communities through education about their legal rights regarding the environment and the provision of advice on legal matters. The EDOs also played a significant role in providing access to justice where it is in the public interest for environmental matters to be pursued by those who cannot afford private legal representation. By providing this important legal assistance, EDOs serve to reduce frivolous litigation by taking very few matters to court.

The committee notes the finding of the Productivity Commission that, in the past five years, no cases in which the EDOs were engaged were dismissed on the grounds that they were frivolous or vexatious. The concern of the committee was that, without the EDOs, communities and individuals across Australia will not be able to access legal assistance or legal advice on matters that directly affect their local environment. The committee went on to make three recommendations. Those recommendations are: in relation to the Biodiversity Fund, the committee recommends that the Department of the Environment undertake an evaluation of the impact of the Biodiversity Fund; recommendation No. 2 was the committee recommends that the Commonwealth government reinstate funding for projects for biodiversity conservation to the level which had been available under the Biodiversity Fund; and the third recommendation of the report was the committee recommends the Commonwealth government establish a new funding agreement for the Environmental Defenders Offices which reinstates the funding previously provided.