Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

so Australia is better off and better prepared for the future. That is why this bill is so important. It is another step along the way towards greater efficiencies, more jobs, more productivity and making Australians much better off. But do not take my word for it; the BAE report said exactly that. The Office of Best Practice Regulation, whom we all respect, said it exactly that. This important reform will not only have a direct economic benefit, it will also maintain high environmental standards.

I challenge anyone in this Senate to have more regard for the environment than I. I am absolutely committed to a sustainable environment, because I am interested in the next generations, as so many of us are. There will be no compromise on high environmental standards. We are simply looking for opportunities to increase the productivity whilst maintaining high environmental standards. That is why the high standards of the EPBC Act will be incorporated into state approvals processes. What more could you ask for? You will get increased productivity and the high standards of the EPBC Act into the state approvals processes.

Thanks to the fierce lobbying of those committed environmentalists like myself, the absolute and fundamental principle of this reform is that our high environmental standards will be maintained. One of my colleagues may have said this previously: no state or territory will be accredited under the one-stop shop unless they meet the standards set out in the Australian governments' Standards for Accreditation of Environmental Approvals under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. As a result of that absolute pledge that no state or territory will be accredited under the one-stop shop program, we have already seen some states and territories lifting environmental standards. That is what this federal government does—it lifts the states and territories to perform at a higher level; it lifts productivity; it creates jobs; it creates hundreds of millions of dollars in increased productivity; and it delivers billions and billions of dollars of extra output for Australia. It does all that by simply removing the bureaucracy that was created by the other side of the chamber.

This is a one-stop shop that has the triple bottom line: it has $426 million in savings for businesses; it will add $160 billion in national output by 2025; and it will create 69,000 jobs across the whole economy. That is the triple bottom line for the economy—and it will have a massive win for the environment, because we are already lifting the standards.

Opposition senators interjecting—

I hear the interjections on the other side, and it galls me to think that somehow they are opposed to higher environmental standards and increased economic output. It galls me, and I regret that I only have four seconds in which to conclude my response—

Debate interrupted.