Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I, and also on behalf of Senator McAllister, move:

That the Senate—

(a) welcomes the release of the Auditor-General's report Referrals, Assessments and Approvals of Controlled Actions under theEnvironment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act1999 (EPBC Act);

(b) notes the damning findings from the Auditor-General including that:

  (i) there has been a 510% increase in the average delays for approval decisions since the Liberals and Nationals were elected (between 2014-15 and 2018-19),

  (ii) 79% of approvals assessed were non-compliant or contained errors,

  (iii) in 2018-19, 95% of key decisions (referral, assessment method, approval), were made outside the statutory time frames,

  (iv) conflicts of interest are not managed,

  (v) reporting arrangements are not consistent with the EPBC Act, and

  (vi) environmental outcomes are not being monitored;

(c) further notes that government cuts and mismanagement (Liberal Party blue-tape) is at the heart of job and investment delays, poor quality decisions and legal challenges; and

(d) calls on the Government to stop tying-up projects and strangling the environment with Liberal Party blue-tape, which is delaying jobs and investment, putting a handbrake on our economy, failing to protect iconic Australian species like the koala, and allowing the state of our natural environment to rapidly decline.