Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate censures the Minister for the Environment and Heritage (Senator Ian Campbell) for:

(a)

abusing his powers under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999;

(b)

undermining the administration of the Act; and

(c)

exposing the Commonwealth to legal and financial risk.

In doing so, I indicate that Labor have rarely moved censure motions against ministers in this chamber. I think this is the first one we have moved following the last federal election. I regard it as a very serious charge and a very serious resolution. While government senators may not like the Senate seeking to hold ministers accountable, I would argue this is one of our core functions.

What we have seen over the last few weeks is confirmation that the process of approval of the Bald Hills project was politically corrupted. The minister did not exercise his judgement and his responsibilities according to the law; he exercised them according to the political needs of the Liberal Party. This is a classic case, a terrible case, of an abuse of the minister’s function and an abuse of his ministerial responsibilities, and the minister stands condemned for it.

Day after day the minister has been given the opportunity to defend himself. The minister was given an opportunity in question time yesterday and he could come up with no defence. He was given the opportunity to defend himself on an urgency motion yesterday, and it was the most pathetic attempt at a defence for a decision by a minister seen in this parliament. It was absolutely pathetic. He sought to discuss Senator Kim Carr, the Victorian Labor Party and a whole range of matters but he offered not one iota, not one shred, of defence for his decision-making process. Again in question time today the minister ignored every question, refused to answer and instead talked at length about a former Labor member of the House of Representatives and his activities, not once trying to deal with the issues.

The issues are clear and obvious to all. The minister failed to do his duty as minister. He is no longer able to hold this important office, he ought to be sacked and he ought to be censured by this chamber because he failed to exercise his duties as he should have. It is an open-and-shut case to which the minister has no defence.

I invite people to have a look at his 10-minute contribution yesterday. It was pathetic. It had no basis for a defence at all. He even admitted that today by complimenting Senator Brandis for his defence of him. I thought Senator Brandis’s defence, a typical lawyer’s effort, was not bad given the material he had. But quite frankly it was outstanding compared to Senator Campbell’s effort. He fumbled around with no idea how to defend his decision because it is absolutely indefensible.

We know what is at the heart of this decision. We only have to go back to his letter to the residents of McMillan which was put out just before the last federal election—a letter from Senator Ian Campbell on official letterhead in his capacity as minister. We still do not know who paid for this campaign letter. We have not been able to ascertain from Senator Campbell how this was funded and I hope he might, during this debate, let us know. But Senator Campbell wrote a totally political letter which starts off discussing the election, makes a cursory reference to mandatory renewable energy targets and then he is into it by the third paragraph:

Labor’s Christian Zahra is sworn to support Mark Latham’s policy and that means many more wind farms in South Gippsland.

The minister sets himself up as the opponent of wind farms in South Gippsland. He goes on to say that unless you vote for us these developments will pick up. He goes on further to say:

... that when the Howard government is returned to office I will also ensure that the funding of any future renewable energy programs are contingent upon community involvement and support.

That is a direct message to those campaigning against wind farms in the seat of McMillan. Further, he goes on to say:

... should Christian Zahra, the Labor candidate, be elected that will be a sign that you are happy to play host to increasing numbers of wind turbines in your region.

In other words, ‘Vote for the Liberal candidate and I will make sure they don’t happen. I will put in the political fix.’ The now member for McMillan, Russell Broadbent, went around the electorate saying, ‘I’ve got a promise from Senator Campbell. He’s assured me the Bald Hills project will get knocked off if we get returned to government.’ The minister for the environment, in his capacity, wrote to everyone saying that he would be making sure that these developments did not occur. The Liberal candidate campaigned on it, it was reported in the press and the community members were all advised.

So you have the minister already committed to a course of action in relation to this project. When it comes before him, does he declare his interest? Does he make it clear that he is in no position to make an independent decision because he has already committed himself to a course of action? No. He abuses his position, does not stand aside and he sets himself up to make a decision on a proposition that he has already campaigned against. He has already promised the electors of McMillan that he will not be supporting propositions like this.

We have a minister who should have stood aside from making that decision in accordance with proper processes but he did not. What he did was wait 450 days when he was required to act within 30. What happened in that 450 days? He went in search of a dead parrot, something that would allow him to hang a defence around. Why did it take him 450 days? Because there was not a defence; he could not find one. For 450 days he tried to avoid making the decision. He commissioned report after report after report. They all said to him, ‘There is no basis for that decision. You ought to approve it.’ Report after report, advice after advice. Why did he keep looking? The advice was not inconclusive; the advice was very conclusive. The advice said, ‘Approve the project.’ The advice said, ‘You have no basis for knocking it back.’ So what did he do? He said he needed another report. That report came back with no basis for knocking it off. He said he needed another report and said, ‘I will keep looking for 450 days until they force me into the courts before I make a decision.’

Finally he was dragged into the courts because he had failed to exercise his duties as minister. He had deferred making a decision. Finally he was called in and forced to come to a decision. His last roll of the dice was the Biosis report which we have obviously heard a lot about in recent times. The Biosis report again does not support the minister’s decision. Constantly he has misrepresented the report in this chamber and outside by selectively quoting. He could not even bring himself to finish the paragraph that he uses in his defence. Why? Because it undermines his whole case.

For the record, the remainder of the Biosis paragraph is this:

Our analysis suggests that such action—

that is, blocking wind farms—

will have extremely limited beneficial value to the conservation of the parrot without addressing the very much greater adverse effects that are currently operating against it.

In other words, knocking this wind farm over will do nothing to save the parrot. There are a whole range of measures that could be implemented but they do nothing to save the parrots, and this is the basis upon which he knocked off a $220 million project. This is the minister who is entrusted by parliament and entrusted in law to exercise his discretion according to law. He did not do that. He exercised it according to his desperate search for an excuse to defend his exercise of another science—not science as we understand it, not environmental science and not the science pertaining to the threat to endangered species, but political science: the political science of winning McMillan. That was the only science that underpinned this decision and the only thing that motivated the minister.

So, after 450 days and being dragged into court, he hangs on to one paragraph of a report that clearly says there is no defence for his decision. When that comes to a head he finds that only one parrot will die in 1,000 years. I suspect quite a few more will die of old age in that period. There is a 0.001 chance that, of the 15 parrots that might fly into the area each year, one may be killed in a collision with a turbine. The risk is minuscule. There are threats to the parrot but this is not one of them. The minister had very clear advice about that.

The thing that really condemns the minister is his own department’s advice, because they were very concerned about the path he was going down. They urged him time and time again not to go down that path because they knew that this would be subject to legal challenge, that it would be exposed for a rort and that the Commonwealth would be liable to be sued for damages. They gave him advice all right—senior advice signed off by a senior departmental officer in March this year. It recommended that the project should be approved. The senior officer, Gerard Early, advised that there was no evidence of any direct impact on the parrot and under the act there were no grounds to oppose the project.

That is not equivocal. That is not: ‘Minister, you can choose one path or the other.’ There are no grounds to oppose the project; there is just clear unequivocal advice from his department. It was not some mad left-wing scientist or someone with a vested interest in the issue but his own department exercising its responsibilities under the act. Mr Early’s advice specifically noted the significant consequences of using the Biosis report to block the project. To do so would cause serious uncertainty for coastal development along thousands of kilometres of coastline. It would dramatically lower the threshold of ‘significant impact’ under the environmental act—a case that Senator Brandis tried to argue yesterday, which was specifically rejected by the department. It was made very clear that by taking this action the minister undermined the operations of the act, undermined the threshold for ‘significant impact’, was putting at risk the department’s role in a whole range of other applications and was making its position totally inconsistent with other decisions it had made. For those reasons, the department strongly recommended that the project be allowed to proceed.

But the minister knows better. He says, ‘I am no Yes Minister.’ That may be true; he is no minister at all. No minister could act in the way he has. All the advice and all the reports said that this project ought to proceed. He had obligations to the Australian taxpayer and to this parliament under the act. All of those were swept away as he pursued his narrow political interests and those of the Liberal Party. When did it come to a head? It only came to a head because the proponents were again forced to go to court to get him to do his job and to seek to overturn his decision. What happened? Just as the case was starting the minister signed up to a deal that said he would reconsider the proposal. If you were so confident in your position and your processes and if you had the swagger and the global responsibilities and vision that the minister has, why would you fold at the first grapeshot? Because you did not have a case. The minister’s legal advice was that he had done the wrong thing, that he was going to cost taxpayers millions of dollars and that he ought to get out of it before it got so damaging that he was forced to resign.

So he got out of it. He did a deal with the company, which was obviously keen to pursue its claims. It just wants to get ahead and do business, so it settled on the basis that the minister would reconsider the decision on the basis of the law—the thing that he should have applied in the first place; the sort of advice that was provided by the department. They acted according to the law and they said that there was no basis whatsoever for the minister to proceed as he did. They knew the law; they knew the propriety; they knew what was expected of them in exercising their obligations under the act. But this minister did not exercise his obligations under the act; he sought to pursue the narrow political interests of the political party at the expense of doing his job. This is clearly established and on the record.

The pathetic defence that the minister has offered this week confirms that there is no defence. It is why he ran up the white flag at court on the first day and agreed to pay costs. He agreed on behalf of the taxpayers of Australia to pay for his arrogance, for his contempt and for his abuse of process. Every taxpayer listening to this ought to know that they are going to be digging into their pockets to pay to get this bloke out of trouble because of him putting in the political fix. We are all going to pay for it and, if he does not approve it next time, we will be paying damages. I have a funny feeling that at some stage the minister will find that the parrot has been saved by some other method. Perhaps mouth-to-mouth resuscitation by the minister will solve the problem and the wind farm can go ahead. I may be wrong, but I suspect that the legal advice is that he has to approve it this time or otherwise the damages claim will be so large that investment in this country will be threatened for a long time. The minister does not have one shred of a defence, other than to misquote and selectively quote a report that recommended he approve the project. He ignored advice after advice and report after report. For 450 days—a year and a half—he searched around, and the best he could come up with is that one parrot might get killed in 1,000 years.

I am an environmentalist. I do not pursue global quests quite as often as the minister does, and I do not big-note myself quite as much about that, but quietly, in my own way, I want to see species protected, apart from Liberal Party ministers. They are the only species that I think ought to be made extinct. Being an environmentalist is one thing, but it does not mean knocking back $220 million of investment on the possibility that one parrot every 1,000 years might fly into a rotor blade. It is complete nonsense! I know we should not go down the Monty Python road, and I will not, because the Long John Silver jokes, the dead parrot jokes and the cartoons have been done before. I could do it but it would just be mean, and it would distract from the fact that this is important. This is a very serious abuse of ministerial power and a very serious issue. The Commonwealth government and the taxpayers of Australia have been exposed to serious financial and legal risk. The proponents have twice had to go to court to get fair treatment. They have been denied natural justice time and time again by this minister because he does not want to have to give in on his political promise. I pay due credit to Senator Campbell. The one thing that he has been consistent on is that he is going to honour the political fix; he puts that above all else. He will not renege, until the next decision he has to make. Until the last ditch, he has been unprepared to ditch the political promise that he made. It is arrogance, it is an abuse of his power and he ought to be censured by this Senate.

Senator Campbell has abused his responsibilities under the act. He has abused the administration of the act. What credibility can the environment minister and the department have after this decision? If you are looking to get a decision out of this minister, the first thing you do is look up the electorate map of Australia and see where you might put something and whether it suits Senator Campbell’s interests. He is pro wind farms in certain seats, and he is very anti them in the other. He makes a big man of himself down in Denmark, in the south-west of WA, when it suits his political interests, but when it suits other interests he is all for wind turbines. The inconsistency of the decision making is just amazing. He says in his defence, ‘Labor would put more wind farms in McMillan than we would, but I have approved 600 in the last few months.’ Is he for wind farms or is he against? Are there going to be more under us or more under him? He is just totally selective. The only criterion he applies to applications for wind farms is politics. Political science is the only basis for the decisions he has taken.

Now the minister is going to reconsider his decision. The bloke that delayed for 450 days, who put the fix in and who refused to apply the act, is now, under the Howard government, going to be asked to make a fair decision according to law. You would have a lot of confidence in that, wouldn’t you? Will he stand aside this time? I guess not. This is the clearest example of a minister failing the parliament. (Time expired)

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have had the distinction of sitting here over a few years and listening to the odd censure motion by the Labor Party against Liberal ministers and I have had the odd opportunity in opposition to listen to opposition censure motions against Labor ministers, and I have got to say that that was probably the most limp-wristed and pathetic first speech in a censure motion that I have ever heard. I was sitting here waiting to see if they have got some reason to censure me, and during 20 minutes of bluster and repetition I sat here with my notebook waiting for Senator Evans to say something that I could actually take a note of and respond to, and the notebook is basically as blank as it was when he started.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Don’t you wish you were still in the Democrats?

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It does give me the opportunity, however, to run through the process and the reasons.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

See no evil; hear no evil.

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We know that the Labor Party are not interested, because they have got very serious difficulties with the hypocrisy that is going on on their own side on this issue.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Two minutes of your defence and you are already off track!

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I look forward to being able to respond to this censure motion, but it is very difficult unless the other side maintains some sort of order. I note that Senator Carr has already been named in this session. One of the accusations is that the legal process was somehow not abided by, but the reality is that the legal process was gone through meticulously. The only reason that the proponent went to the court last week—and in fact approached us the week before and said, ‘We don’t want this to be in court anymore’—is because they did not have the chance before I made the decision to review the Biosis report. I happen to think that their having access to the Biosis report was an entirely fair thing.

I will repeat this; I did say it yesterday, but Senator Evans either is a slow learner or does not listen very well: the only reason they did not have access to the Biosis report—the cumulative impact assessment report, which is the report that assesses the combined effect of wind farms along that coast—was that the Biosis report was before me. The proponents knew it was before me; we told them very openly that I was considering this report. They did not seek a copy of the report. What they did was tell us that they intended to go to court to force me to make a decision. We said to them: ‘Look, there’s no need for you to go to court; I am reading the report at the moment. I should have completed reading it within a couple of days and, having read the report, would be happy to make the decision.’ That is the only reason—

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Did they go to court? Did they put any documents before the court?

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is very hard to speak when you—

John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Carr, I have you on the speakers list; you will have your opportunity to raise those issues then. Senator Campbell is entitled to be heard.

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The only reason they did not have access to that report was because they forced me to make a decision before they possibly could have access to it. I think it is entirely reasonable that they have access to that report, and that is why, when they approached me last week and said, ‘We would like to get this out of court so we have time to consider the cumulative impact assessment report on the basis that you would receive a new submission from us,’ I thought that was an entirely reasonable and sensible thing to do. So for the Labor Party to seek to make some sort of political mileage out of an agreement between the government and the proponent—a consent order to say, ‘Let’s move the process along; let’s ensure we have the opportunity to review this report’—is quite silly. It is hypocrisy to accuse me of using politics in this process when in fact it is the Labor Party who is trying to politicise it.

In terms of the departmental process, the Labor Party accuses me of taking a long time and of shopping around for a report. The department came to me with their advice and said, ‘Minister, it would be appropriate to have a look at the cumulative impact of wind farms.’ They gave me the advice; it was their idea. They said, ‘We should commission a report.’ They said this in about May of 2005. In 2005 the department advised me that we should commission a report on the cumulative impact assessment. That seemed reasonable to me, and it would probably seem reasonable to any sensible person. One person who I am not sure is sensible or not, and who would be a lot closer to Senator Evans, politically, than I, made a statement in the House of Representatives a couple of years ago when he looked at the issue of wind farm development in the Gippsland area. He quoted the Australian Wind Energy Association, that said:

... 62 wind turbines are dotted along the Victorian coast, but plans have been lodged for about 1,000 to be operating between 2005 and 2006.

So we have 62 wind turbines dotted along the Victorian coast now, according to this—

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sherry interjecting—

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is actually Christian Zahra that I am quoting from. He said in the House of Representatives in 2003 that there are likely to be 1,000 wind farms operating along that coast. The department, Christian Zahra and the Australian Wind Energy Association agreed on the incredibly sensible position that, with the cumulative impact of wind turbines on that coast, it was an important way to go. So the department advised me to do that. You can accuse me of some abuse of the process. So I said, ‘Yes, let’s do a cumulative impact report’, which they did, which then came to me in about March or April of this year.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Table all the advice.

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Everything has been tabled in the court. Everything is out there. Senator Sherry says, ‘Table the advice.’ All of these documents are entirely before the Australian public. The only other document—if we go back to the capital ‘h’ hypocrisy of the Labor Party on this—is the advice to the Labor Party government in Victoria which said exactly the same thing about the cumulative impact on migratory birds of wind turbines on the Gippsland coast. That is a report from the Department of Sustainability and Environment in Victoria. It remains a secret report and it comes to the same conclusion that the Biosis report does, and that is that orange-bellied parrots transit through this location, that the turbines would be a substantial threat to the survival of that species and that a conservative approach needs to be taken to the development. That is the advice that the Labor Party are very embarrassed to see. We know that Mr Hulls will not release it. We know that the Labor Party’s hypocrisy on this knows no bounds.

The other point that needs to be made, when you have the Labor Party windbagging on about this issue, is that Christian Zahra’s bill remains, I presume, the Australian Labor Party policy. I think it would be in the interests of full disclosure of all the events for me to table the Local Community Input into Renewable Energy Developments Bill 2003. I will do so. I am sure that the Clerk of the Senate is wondering whether or not it is appropriate to table a House of Representatives bill that may have expired.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Evans and Senator Sherry, Senator Campbell is entitled to be heard.

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is Labor’s policy. This is the policy supported by the Labor leadership. It has not been repealed, as far as I know. It says that it would repeal the section of the renewable energy act, a law of this parliament, and require that a power station, to be eligible for accreditation—that is, to receive the $3 billion worth of subsidies to the wind energy industry that Christian Zahra refers to—would need to meet a couple of conditions. One of the conditions is that, if a local power station were to be eligible to receive renewable energy credits, it would have to—and I quote from clause 1(2)(c) of the Labor Party’s legislation—receive approval of ‘the relevant local council or councils’. The relevant local council or councils did not approve this development, nor do any of the councils in the area. If the Labor Party’s policy had been in place, they would have stopped the Bald Hills wind farm. It was actually Christian Zahra’s policy, Mark Latham’s policy and, we presume, Kim Beazley’s policy to stop the Bald Hills wind farm.

What is the accusation against me? I assessed the proposal under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, I made a determination that it would have an impact on a threatened species under the relevant section of the act and I said, ‘No, the development should not go ahead.’ The Labor Party were not going to go through an existing law; they were going to come in here, if Mr Latham had become Prime Minister—we presume that they would do that if Mr Beazley were to become Prime Minister—and bring into being the Local Community Input into Renewable Energy Developments Bill. They would have brought a whole new law into place. They would not have used an existing law and gone through a proper and correct legal process. They would have actually changed the law and effectively brought in retrospective legislation to stop the Bald Hills wind farm. You cannot really see greater hypocrisy than that.

The other point that needs to be made is that there is a substantial issue in Australia that does need to be addressed. Christian Zahra was right and the Australian Wind Energy Association is right. There are going to be more and more wind developments around Australia. We do have a substantial issue with climate change to address. It needs to be managed well. Wind energy does have a part to play. This government has, in fact, supported the construction of 600 wind turbines across Australia, and by and large they make a great contribution to a cleaner and more secure energy future for Australia.

The government have a comprehensive policy to address climate change. We do want to ensure that solar energy, wind energy, geothermal energy, geosequestration, capture and storage of carbon from coal—all of the prerequisites to a comprehensive climate change management program—are put in place. And wind will be a part of that strategy; it needs to be a part of that strategy. With the Labor Party we see this sort of crass politicisation of wind energy that is taking place. You have the Australian Labor Party down in Victoria saying, ‘We can’t have a wind farm in a Labor electorate. We cannot have a wind farm at Ballan, we cannot have one at Port Fairy, but we want one at Bald Hills.’ There is no science, no justification for it. They just say, ‘We’ll stop it if it’s in a Labor electorate and we’ll approve it if it’s in a Liberal electorate.’ It is pure politics—no interest in the environment, no interest in sensible and rational climate change policy, just pure politics and hypocrisy from the Labor Party.

The coalition government’s credentials on preserving habitat and putting in place recovery programs for a range of species are now substantial. I think it was a very fair question today from Senator Wong when she asked: ‘What are you doing to address other issues? Are you in fact being selective and just saying, “We’ll stop a wind farm”?’ In fact, the coalition’s record is clear on its investment to seek to ensure that the orange-bellied parrot has some chance of survival. I remind the Senate that this is a species that is down to 50 breeding pairs. Before this debate hotted up and became controversial, most Australians probably would not have been aware of the impact that wind turbines have on migratory birds. It is in fact the case that wind turbines of the size of the Bald Hills ones will kill around 100 birds a year. That is one every few days. We have recently seen an assessment done of the Woolnorth wind farm in Tasmania. It was assessed that that wind farm would kill one wedge-tailed eagle a year, and it has killed one a month in the last three months. The wedge-tailed eagle is a highly threatened species, with only 130 breeding pairs left. So that is a massive impact on that species.

We have had a comprehensive policy put in place to ensure the recovery and viability of the orange-bellied parrot population. This has involved in total around $1 million of investment from the Commonwealth government. There is $80,000 a year for orange-bellied parrot recovery programs and $492,800 over three years to find and conserve key mainland habitat for the orange-bellied parrot. Further comprehensive work is being done on the King Island multispecies recovery plan to assist the orange-bellied parrot and there is a $29,000 program to bring cats under control on King Island. There are also orange-bellied parrot captive breeding programs. There is a range of programs adding up to over $1 million. So this is not a government that has just taken a recent interest in the orange-bellied parrot, unlike the Labor Party, who have chosen to make cheap politics out of it.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are accusing us of making cheap politics out of it! What a hypocrite!

John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Evans, withdraw that comment, please.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw, Mr Deputy President.

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This government has a longstanding record of work on not only this threatened species but also a range of species. I believe that we do have to ensure that communities are part of decision making when it comes to wind farms. Christian Zahra was quite right on this, though I think he chose to go about it the wrong way. I think retrospectively changing the renewable energy target program and effectively banning Bald Hills retrospectively, which is what the Labor Party pledged at the last election, was the wrong way to go.

The reason that I think communities should be engaged is that these wind farms do have a significant impact. They can have a significant impact on property values and a significant impact on tourism. Communities should be engaged. That is why I have proposed a national code for wind farms and I have put out a discussion paper. Every single state government has opposed it—and you do not wonder why when you have an environment minister like Mr Mark McGowan in Western Australia, who says in relation to community consultation on wind farms: ‘Sometimes when local communities don’t agree you have to roll over the top of them.’

Jeannie Ferris (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who said that?

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He is the WA Labor minister for the environment. He said: ‘Sometimes when local communities don’t agree you have to roll over the top of them.’

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can you prove that?

John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, Senator Sterle!

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In relation to the siting of wind farms in his own state, Mr McGowan, the WA Labor minister for the environment, said: ‘Sometimes when local communities don’t agree you have to roll over the top of them.’

We believe that wind does have a future in Australia. We believe that it can make a contribution to renewable energy, but we also know that these large industrial wind farms do have massive impacts on communities and potentially massive impacts on the survival of threatened species. You can in fact have a renewable energy policy that builds renewable energy facilities that do make a positive contribution to the environment and minimise their environmental damange. You can in fact have a win-win if you manage it well. But if you do as Labor does and just play cheap politics with this issue, you will actually destroy the chance of the wind energy industry in Australia for all time. I want to work with that industry. I want to make sure that they have a sustainable industry here. Labor obviously wants to work against them.

John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Ian Campbell, when you were addressing the chair you were referring to a document and you may have interpreted the response of the Clerk as being that that document could not be tabled in the Senate. I inform you that it is possible to table it.

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I table the document.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If ever there were a case where a minister should not just be censured but also be sacked, it is this one. If we look at the speaker’s list for this debate today, we can see from the list of government speakers that those on the other side of the chamber know this to be the case as well. I have no doubt that Senator Ian Campbell would be somewhat disappointed. Over the six years that he was a parliamentary secretary, he would have had to come in here time and again and defend ministers and he would have seen ministers defend ministers. But, when a censure motion is moved against him, not one minister is put on the list to defend his actions.

The Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Minchin, is not on the speaker’s list. There is no minister from that frontbench on this list to defend the miserable action taken by the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator Ian Campbell. Why? I put it to you, Mr Deputy President, that it is because they know that there is to be a fundamental redistribution of the frontbench as a result of this minister’s action. They know the truth of this matter—that is, that this minister not only deserves censure but also deserves the sack. It is only a matter of time before the Prime Minister sees the truth of that as well. They know the truth of the matter. Senator Minchin has not come in here to defend his colleague because he knows the truth of this matter.

The Australian political system and its environmental legislation provide for considerable latitude in the actions a minister can take—if he acts in accordance with the law. For example, he can draw upon precedents. In the case of this government, there were five other decisions by ministers for the environment to approve wind farms which carried out management studies. There was a case in South Australia involving the Stanwell Corporation. There was a case back in 2001, when the then environment minister, Minister Hill, approved a 130-megawatt wind farm at Woolnorth in Tasmania on the condition that the Hydro-Electric Corporation ‘prepare a plan to repair or mitigate damage to the habitat of the orange-bellied parrot’. The management plan approved by the minister allowed for six parrots to be killed every two years.

Minister Kemp approved a 150-megawatt wind farm in 2002, on 17 October, for near Portland in Victoria. He did so on the specific condition that Pacific Hydro prepared a management plan that mitigated against impacts in the event of orange-bellied parrot mortalities as a result of collisions with turbines. In 2002 and 2003, various ministers approved wind farms near Port MacDonnell in South Australia and Jims Plains in Tasmania—again with management plans attached. So the minister had plenty of precedents to call upon. In fact, the circumstances are such that this government has managed to ban wind farms where there are no orange-bellied parrots but to provide permission for wind farms to be developed where there are parrots.

We have a situation where the minister can also rely upon the advice of his department. We have here a clear case where Mr Gerard Early—a man who I have observed over many years at Senate estimates committees to be of considerable reputation within the Australian Public Service and a person who is known to not be a red hot radical but rather a moderate, considered and conservative public servant—advised the minister not in any equivocal way but in an unequivocal way that there were no grounds for him to act on this matter. In fact, the advice was that if he did he would be opening the government to legal challenge over a whole range of developments around the south-east coast of Australia. The minister chose to ignore that advice as well.

The minister, however, accepted the advice that he himself gave to the electorate of McMillan back in October 2004, during the federal election. It is clear what occurred. As we know, there was a federal election on 9 October 2004. On 12 October 2004, the local newspaper in McMillan, the Great Southern Star from Leongatha, provided us with details of the Liberal candidate saying, ‘When Ian Campbell arrived, the whole complexion of the campaign changed for me.’ Senator Campbell gave a commitment to do everything within his power under the EPBC Act to veto the Bald Hills project. That was a position that he made clear three days after the election. A statement was made in the local newspaper to that effect. It follows the articles that were published in other newspapers at the time and the letter that the minister distributed throughout the electorate during that election campaign. It is quite clear that the minister acted not on the basis of legal advice, not on the basis of departmental advice, not on the basis of precedent but on the political basis that he had committed to a position before he had considered the evidence.

The illusions of this minister, like so many broken pieces of china at a Greek wedding, were smashed by Justice Weinberg on 4 August, when he said that the decision of the respondent dated 3 April was to be set aside. He said that the matter was to be remitted to the respondent for reconsideration ‘according to law’ and that the respondent should pay the applicant’s cost, to be taxed in default of agreement. The minister has confirmed that that is the commitment he gave.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was a consent order.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the senator representing the Perry Masons of the backbench has indicated, it was a consent order. And he caved in; he surrendered to it. That was the legal advice that he was finally forced to accept, because he had no defence at law for his actions and had to give in and agree that his position was indefensible, which was clear for anyone else to see. That position was clearly spelt out in the Senate estimates. It was clearly demonstrated in the Senate estimates that the minister’s position was totally indefensible.

What strikes me here is that the minister’s obligation to be fair and transparent in the way in which he administers the duties of his ministerial office has been fundamentally corroded by the political commitments that he gave during the election campaign. He has prostituted his office as a consequence of making those commitments to the electorate of McMillan, as part of the marginal seat strategy of the Liberal Party, rather than undertaking his office on the basis of the integrity and legitimacy of the legislative and regulatory processes that are available to him as a minister within this government.

Quite simply, we take the view that this minister has to go. Any analysis of the extraordinary events over the past two years makes it very clear that there are three basic problems in the way in which he has behaved: firstly, he has corrupted environmental approval processes for party political gain; secondly, he has twisted and misused scientific evidence provided to him in the approval process and he has been caught out doing so; and, thirdly, he has now been forced to backflip in the Federal Court and has exposed the Commonwealth of Australia to the potential of considerable legal liability. These are all serious failings for any minister and collectively they are grounds for dismissal. This Senate ought to censure this minister and the Prime Minister ought to sack him.

Let us go through the issues that I mentioned. On the matter of misusing his office for political advantage, it has become quite apparent that Senator Ian Campbell pursued these policies following the commitments he gave in McMillan during the election campaign. He saw an opportunity to use his office to swing a marginal seat in Victoria to the Liberal Party. Before he had even sighted scientific analysis against this proposal, he publicly announced that he would do everything in his power as a minister to halt the Bald Hills project.

The scientific evidence is that there were no parrots identified in the surveys undertaken. Over a 12-month period, the consultants undertook a study, and 10,441 birds were seen, but not one single orange-bellied parrot was spotted. There was no record of the orange-bellied parrot at Bald Hills. There was identified, 20 kilometres away, a habitat for the orange-bellied parrot. There was in fact a sighting 40 kilometres away from the proposed wind farm site, but there had already been a wind farm approved for that site. But in the case of Bald Hills the scientific facts were very clear. The minister commissioned advice, it did not suit his purpose and he chose to ignore it. He sought advice from the department and that did not suit him, so he ignored that. He ignored the legal precedent established by his own colleagues in previous Howard governments. He sought to buy time, 450 days of time. He sought to avoid the fact that he had to make a decision within 30 days. He chose to ignore that in his desperate bid, his desperate worldwide quest, to find a parrot that would suit his purposes with regard to Bald Hills.

The second line of defence that he chose to use was to white-ant the approval process. Despite his very best efforts, he could not find a mechanism to do that, because his own department confirmed the validity of the Victorian approval processes. Independent experts retained by his department reached the same conclusions. In fact, his expert went further, to an unwelcome extent. She argued that the analysis was clear and that further research would be of no use to him. This is exactly what Senator Campbell did not want to hear. He did not want this project to proceed, no matter what the science said, and it did not suit him to have his own departmental officials tell him that he was dead wrong. That is what occurred. He went ahead anyway. He commissioned further advice, this time a general study of the possible impact of wind farms. He chose to look at 23 separate examples and still did not come up with the result that he wanted. This process was, of course, an attempt to buy time and defer decisions, but the proponent intervened with court action and forced him to make a decision. That decision was made, and it went against the company. It was finally overturned by the Federal Court on 4 August.

There is a problem here of a minister ignoring scientific advice, and we know that in this portfolio it is particularly important for the minister of the Crown to pursue evidence based policy. That is exactly what we have not got in this case. We have got a decision being taken by the minister on political grounds, not on scientific grounds. He wilfully defied the scientific advice, on the basis that he had already made a political decision. He sought to reinterpret that advice, to misrepresent that advice, to take evidence out of context, to twist it to his political advantage, and he has been caught out on that score as well. His hand-picked advice, the Biosis report, said that ‘almost any negative impact on the species could be sufficient to tip the balance’ against the parrot. However, the fundamental problem was to address that question at source, not by the rejection of this particular wind farm. That is what his scientific advice told him:

Our analyses suggest that such actions will have extremely limited beneficial value to conservation of the parrot without addressing very much greater adverse effects that are currently operating against it.

The real question that arises is: what action did the minister have to take to support his conclusions? He had no evidence to back up his decision, which had already been made. He fell back on twisting the evidence and relying on half-truths. Evidence was presented from the scientific research, and I quoted from it yesterday. Ashley Stephens, an officer of the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment, wrote to the authors of the Biosis report, asking whether the multiplied effect from tables 3 and 4 of the report meant that there was a mortality rate of one bird every 1,000 years. The senior zoologist confirmed on 7 April 2006 at 10.28 am, in an email response:

Yes you’ve calculated correctly.

So there was just no question about what the evidence was and what it meant, except for this minister. It fundamentally contradicted his major proposition. In the May estimates hearings, what did he try to do? He tried to bluff his way out of the situation again. He sought to abuse and denigrate members of the opposition. If I recall rightly, when I tabled that particular email he went so far as to suggest that I had acted improperly. I recall he even said that I was gutless. Whatever claims have been made against me, that is one that would not fit.

However, the Prime Minister has expressed some concern about the actions of this minister. For instance, on the Neil Mitchell program, which is broadcast on Southern Cross Radio, earlier this year Neil Mitchell asked the Prime Minister: ‘What about the moth?’ John Howard said to him, ‘The moth?’ The conversation continued:

NEIL MITCHELL: You’re going to stop a residential development at Melton because of a moth—the golden sun moth.

JOHN HOWARD: Who said that? I’m not aware of that. Who’s stopping it? A residential…

NEIL MITCHELL: You are.

JOHN HOWARD: I’m stopping it?

NEIL MITCHELL: Well, your minister.

JOHN HOWARD: My minister is?

NEIL MITCHELL: Ian Campbell is.

JOHN HOWARD: Well I will investigate that. He hasn’t taken any decision has he?

NEIL MITCHELL: No, he’s looking ... he’s considering whether the future of the moth is jeopardised.

John Howard then said: ‘Yeah, all right. I’ll have a look at it.’ Of course, the statement was made shortly thereafter that the housing development in Melton could go ahead.

We had a court fiasco, which was predicated, of course, to follow from such a trend of events. It was inevitable that the minister would get himself into such trouble. The end game is that it has highlighted the scandal within this government. The scandal within this government is that the minister for the environment is prepared to misuse his office, to prostitute his office, for political advantage and to do so to try to advance the marginal seat objectives of the Liberal Party in the state of Victoria. He has sought to ignore the clear precedents of previous ministers within the same government. He has sought to ignore the legal advice given to him. He has sought to ignore the unequivocal departmental advice given to him. He has now placed himself in the position where a Federal Court judge has told him that he must reconsider this matter according to law.

The wind farm has been set aside. He has agreed to pay the plaintiff’s costs. We all know that that does not occur in the Commonwealth of Australia unless the Commonwealth of Australia knows how weak its position is. I noticed in the press today, and the minister confirmed it in question time, that the very same project is now to be approved on the basis that the proponent comes back with a management plan, which, of course, is the position that should have been taken 450 days before the minister made his ill-fated decision on 3 April. The minister has found that his whole argument has been torn to shreds by the court in this country. The half-truths, the misrepresentations, the political hyperbole, have been exposed for the lies that they are. The minister’s position has been overturned at great expense to the Commonwealth. This is a clear case of there being no principles at stake because the minister has acted without principle. (Time expired)

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have been sitting here for the last 20 minutes listening in utter fascination to Senator Carr constructing for himself an evermore implausible, elaborate, Byzantine conspiracy theory. As Senator Carr’s time counted down, I thought: ‘What a pity Senator Carr’s time is expiring, because, if he had another 10 minutes, I am sure he could have worked out a way to persuade himself that Senator Ian Campbell had something to do with the Kennedy assassination.’ Of course, Senator Carr, being an old-fashioned Stalinist, loves conspiracy theories. For Senator Carr, everything is a conspiracy. Senator Carr, I do not have any doubt that you believe it but, as the great Sir Isaiah Berlin once famously said, there is no a priori reason to believe that the truth, when discovered, will turn out to be interesting. Senator Carr, although I listened with rapt fascination to your elaborate baroque conspiracy theory, I am afraid the truth is much more prosaic.

What I am going to do in the time available to me is to take the Senate carefully, methodically, through the prosaic truth of the matter. But before I begin to do that—

Judith Troeth (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! There is an enormous amount of talk and laughter coming from the opposition benches. The Senate would be obliged if that ceased. Please resume, Senator Brandis.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I do that, let me at once nail the misconception upon which Senator Carr’s—and indeed Senator Evans’s—entire case against Senator Ian Campbell seems to rest, and that is that there was a determination by the Federal Court of Australia against the minister’s decision last Friday. That is not right. What there was last Friday was a consensual settlement of the litigation between Bald Hills Wind Farm Pty Ltd and the Commonwealth on the basis of which a Federal Court judge made a consent order—the most commonplace routine form of legal order—

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about a costs order?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

which, as you well know, Senator Wong—because unlike Senator Carr you do know a little about this—does not constitute, never constitutes, a determination by the court on the merits. Let us lay this to rest at the start. There has been no determination by any court on the merits of this case. What there has been is a negotiated resolution embodied in a consent order, and the use, as I tried to explain yesterday, of a formulaic expression in the consent order that it be remitted for determination according to law, which is purely a legal formula, does not constitute a decision by a court turning its mind to the merits of the question one way or the other.

Let us go back to the process, because the one thing that Senator Evans and Senator Carr did get right is that this is a question of process. The question on which Senator Ian Campbell stands or falls is the question of proper process. It seems to me that within that question there are three issues. The first issue is this: was the minister bound to follow the initial departmental advice, which it is common ground he did not follow? Plainly, the answer to that question is no, and I will explain why in a moment. The second issue is: was the minister entitled to commission and, having commissioned, to rely upon the study by Biosis Research Pty Ltd? Plainly, the answer to that question is yes. The third issue is: did the findings of the Biosis report support the minister’s conclusion? Plainly, once again, the answer to that question is yes.

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There’s a fourth question: why didn’t you ask the parrot?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You can satirise this, Senator Forshaw, but if you are reduced to satire and the sort of Monty Python burlesque on which the Labor Party has gorged itself throughout question time rather than turning your mind to the legal, factual and scientific issues that are raised by this debate then no doubt those who listen to the debate will judge your contribution accordingly.

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Acting Deputy President, on a point of order: Senator Brandis should be addressing his remarks through the chair and not to me directly, and it was Senator Brandis who raised Stalin and the Kennedy assassination.

Judith Troeth (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Forshaw, in response to your point of order, Senator Brandis has referred his remarks through the chair and it is my understanding that he referred to you in the third person, which would indicate that it was through the chair. At this point I also ask opposition senators to refrain from interjecting.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much indeed, Madam Acting Deputy President. I was not satirising Senator Carr when I made that remark either. What Senator Ian Campbell was obliged to do was discharge a statutory obligation set out in quite elaborate detail by the terms of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. What he in particular was obliged to do was to make a determination under part 9 of that act as to whether the particular project that was before him for consideration, the Bald Hills wind farm project in southern Gippsland, on the coastline of Gippsland, should be approved. But he did not have carte blanche in making that determination. He was governed by certain statutory criteria.

In particular, he was governed by the criteria in section 18, which is one of the core provisions of the act and which contains the scheme for the protection of endangered species. It is common ground that the orange-bellied parrot is an endangered species. It is listed on the appropriate lists of endangered species. We are told—and nobody has called this into question—that there are only 50 breeding pairs of this particular animal left. Apparently, most of them are in southern Victoria. So nobody is arguing that this is not an endangered species.

Therefore, the protective obligations under section 18 of the act calling for a ministerial determination under part 9 of the act are invoked. Section 18(3) of the act, dealing with endangered species, says:

A person must not take an action that:

(a)      has or will have a significant impact on a listed threatened species included in the endangered category; or

(b)      is likely to have a significant impact on a listed threatened species included in the endangered category.

The act then provides for an elaborate process by which such a determination may be assessed. In particular, the minister is required to commission one of five different varieties of assessment. That is an obligation that lies on the minister or his delegate under section 87 of the act.

The minister, by his delegate, adopted one of the five alternative courses of action that were open to him under section 87 for the purpose of making an assessment. That was, under section 87(4), to decide to commission an accredited assessment process. Nobody doubts or suggests that the minister, by his delegate, was doing the wrong thing in doing that. What happened—because this is the way in which the act is administered—is that the accredited assessment process was commissioned by the Victorian government. That is the commonplace way in which this act is administered. State government environment departments are accredited authorities for the purpose of assessment processes under section 87(4) of the act. That was done.

On 19 August 2004—and hold that date in your mind, Madam Acting Deputy President, because something important turns on it in a moment—the Victorian Minister for Planning wrote to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, providing a copy of the assessment report for the Bald Hills wind farm. It was on the basis of that assessment report, itself a document generated within the Victorian government, that the department, through Mr Early, the senior officer of the department, provided the initial advice to the minister that it seemed that the Bald Hills wind farm project should be approved, subject to conditions, and made that recommendation.

Nevertheless, the minister, in consultation with the department, considered that the assessment report provided by the Victorian state government was insufficient. So, on 25 May 2005, on the advice of his department and in consultation with it, the minister commissioned another report, the report from Biosis Research Pty Ltd, to address a different or more particular issue which had not been addressed sufficiently in the assessment report generated by the Victorian government. That was to undertake a study to assess the cumulative impacts of bird strike from wind farms, including the Bald Hills wind farm, on priority Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act listed bird species, which included but was not limited to the orange-bellied parrot.

The minister, on the advice of his department and before making his decision, commissioned this further, more particular study. Why? You know, Madam Acting Deputy President, as a Victorian senator that there have been quite a number of these wind farms built along the shore of the Gippsland Peninsula. Whereas one wind farm in isolation might not pose a significant risk to migratory bird species whose routes of migration track through that area, if you build a multiplicity of wind farms along the migration path, depending on the heights at which the birds fly, trajectories and a range of other considerations that scientific experts know about but we do not, the greater the accumulation of wind farms in a given migratory bird area, the greater the risk to migratory bird species.

I think Senator Campbell was wise to heed the advice of his department to commission the further study by Biosis. The Biosis report was received, and this was its conclusion in relation to the orange-bellied parrot. I will read from page 47:

Given that the Orange-bellied Parrot is predicted to have an extremely high probability of extinction in its current situation, almost any negative impact on the species could be sufficient to tip the balance against its continued existence. In this context it may be argued that any avoidable deleterious effect—even the very minor predicted impacts of turbine collisions—should be prevented.

Rather than the one birdstrike in a thousand years that the Labor Party kept citing, if you read the relevant sections of the Biosis report, as I have done, you will see that under three alternative models the authors of that report predict a likelihood of about one birdstrike a year from wind turbines built in this locality. Under the three different models, there is one study that suggests fewer than one a year—about 0.87 a year; one that suggests about one a year; and one that suggests a greater frequency than one a year.

That is what we are talking about. We are talking about the likely incidence of one turbine collision producing the loss of an orange-bellied parrot per year; this being a species in which there are only 50 breeding pairs left in the world. I think most people would consider that the avoidable loss of one per cent of the population of this endangered species per year was something which, to apply the statutory words in section 18 of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, would ‘have a significant impact on a species’.

Relying on the Biosis report, and also relying on all of the other matters, Senator Campbell made an adverse determination. In doing that, he was acting within his statutory obligations. I do not want to embarrass Senator Carr in the eyes of his more intelligent colleagues such as Senator Wong, but Senator Carr would have had us believe that one of the mistakes that Senator Campbell made was that he did not follow the precedents. But you, Senator Wong, and you, Senator Kirk, both of whose legal skills I have considerable respect for, do not need to be told that an administrative decision maker always has to address the question before him on the basis of its own particular facts, and not be governed by precedents emerging from other circumstances in which there are materially different facts. He may have regard for guidance to precedents, but the one thing that is guaranteed to ensure that the decision of an administrative decision maker will be overturned is if the decision maker addresses his mind to the wrong question by slavishly applying a precedent involving different material facts to the determination of the very question before him.

Senator Campbell did the very thing he was meant to do. He addressed himself to the particular case before him. He did not slavishly say, ‘Because we approved a different wind farm in a different part of the country, lying on land with different environmental characteristics in the past, we have to approve this one now.’ That is what he avoided doing, as he should have done. In making his determination to refuse the application under section 133(7), Senator Campbell was in fact fulfilling his statutory duty under section 136 of the act, which says, among other things, in subsection (2):

In considering those matters—

that is, applying the statutory criteria I read before—

the Minister must—

I interpolate to emphasise the word ‘must’; he does not have a discretion—

take into account:

(a) the principles of ecologically sustainable development; and

(b) the assessment report relating to the action; and

                 …         …         …

(e) any other information the Minister has on the relevant impacts of the action ...

In the published decision which he made on 5 April 2006, Senator Campbell does list the various matters to which he had regard in the discharge of his statutory obligation under section 136 of the act—to have regard to the assessment report, but also to have regard to the other information available to him, which included the Biosis report. Ask yourself the question, Madam Acting Deputy President: if a minister has a statutory obligation to make determinations for the protection of endangered species, which include refusing applications for controlled projects, to use the statutory expression, ‘which may have a significant impact on a species’, and if he is seized of scientific conclusions to the effect that I have read to you, is he entitled to arrive at the conclusion that the project should not be approved? Of course he is. He might have been entitled to arrive at a different conclusion; I do not address that matter. But was he doing the wrong thing? Was he acting irrationally? Was he acting extra-jurisdictionally? Was he acting unlawfully in arriving at that conclusion, being seized of that scientific advice? Of course he was not.

There is one codicil to this story and it is this. You might remember, Madam Acting Deputy President, that I asked you to keep in mind that date—19 August 2004, the date on which the Victorian government’s environmental assessment, which became the assessment report, was transmitted to the minister. That is put forward as the case in favour of approving the Bald Hills wind farm. You saw the pile of papers he had before him in question time; it was about two-foot thick. It was all the material that was sent to him by the Victorian government, but what was not sent to the minister by the Victorian government and in fact was not before him at the time he made that decision was a submission received by the Victorian government on 19 December 2003 from the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment. That was something to which the author of the assessment report had had regard but it was not provided to the minister. This is what it said about the orange-bellied parrot:

The Bald Hills wind farm proposal will increase the level of threat to the orange-bellied parrot, an IFG listed species. The department agrees that the orange-bellied parrot is unlikely to utilise the site; however, it is highly likely that the OBPs commuting between habitat patches in South Gippsland will fly across the site. Their commuting flights are often at heights encompassed by the rotor swept area.

(Time expired)

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today because I think that people across Australia must be asking themselves if the minister has really seriously taken into account his responsibilities under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to make sure that:

A person must not take an action that:

(a) has or will have a significant impact on a listed threatened species included in the endangered category; or

(b) is likely to have a significant impact on a listed threatened species included in the endangered category.

They would be asking themselves today: why is it that every single day threatened species, endangered species, across Australia are going to extinction and the government is not doing anything? I wonder if the government has asked itself why people are so sceptical about the minister’s decision in this case. It is because of the hypocrisy that is involved here.

If the minister was serious about his statutory obligations under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act he would rip up immediately the bilateral agreement he has with Tasmania. The EPBC Act accredits the regional forest agreement as taking into account, and fulfilling, all the responsibilities of the Commonwealth in terms of threatened species. As a result, as I stand here today there are chainsaws ripping down old-growth forests in Tasmania and sending any number of endangered species further towards extinction.

I have heard the minister say a couple of times that he is concerned about the Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle. I have not seen him take any action to prevent the wedge-tailed eagle going to extinction, or the swift parrot for that matter. The minister will have an opportunity very shortly to show his real commitment to endangered species, and he will be able to stop the marina development put forward by Walker Corporation for Ralphs Bay. On the argument Senator Brandis has put forward today about the minister’s statutory obligations it will not be a problem. Under the EPBC Act the spotted handfish is critically endangered. It is listed under the Commonwealth act and it is in the vicinity of Ralphs Bay. I hope the minister will commission report after report in the same way he did in relation to this, and make sure that that development does not proceed because it will further endanger the spotted handfish.

The same goes for the pulp mill. We have very clear evidence that logging across Tasmania is sending these species to extinction. In fact, on 6 July Forestry Tasmania announced late in the day that an endangered wedge-tailed eagle’s nest had been cut down and destroyed by the logging industry. It shows that, regardless of whether the industry had best intentions or not, it is still destroying the breeding habitat of endangered species. At the moment in the Federal Court we have the case of Brown versus Forestry Tasmania, which is challenging the logging industry’s exemption from the federal threatened species legislation under bilateral arrangements with Tasmania. My colleague Senator Brown, when the EPBC Bill came into the parliament in 1999, stood up here and said:

In future, the great environmental issues of the day in Australia will be determined by what are called bilateral agreements. These are bilateral sell-outs of the environment, and I will tell you why. They involve the federal government entering into an agreement about such things as forests with the state and territory governments involved. It is a process of the lowest common denominator dictating national policy.

That is precisely what has happened. Threatened species legislation in Tasmania does not exist because it comes under the auspices of the regional forest agreement, which is delivered on the ground by forest practices which allow for and see the destruction, as it has turned out, of an active breeding nest of the wedge-tailed eagle. In fact what has become apparent is that the timber industry is reducing the habitat of the eagles to the point where Forestry Tasmania is trying to substantiate its claim that there are 457 breeding pairs of eagles left in Tasmania. But the expert, Mr Mooney, estimates that, whilst there may be a total number of 457 pairs, breeding is severely compromised by habitat loss and disturbance. The expert estimates that there are only 250 active territories. That is the situation at the moment.

What is Senator Campbell, if he is really concerned about endangered species, doing about the fact that every single day in Tasmania that is the case? The wedge-tailed eagle is getting closer and closer to extinction. He has been standing up here today telling us that every month another wedge-tailed eagle is going into the turbines in north-western Tasmania. When that was drawn to the attention of his colleague Senator Hill, the former minister for the environment, Senator Hill went ahead and approved that wind farm regardless of what people said about the impact on migratory species and the wedge-tailed eagle. That was clear in the evidence given at the time.

Why people are so frustrated about this example is that it is a clear use of the EPBC, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, for cynical political purposes. There is no consistent application of the act, and the bilaterals with the states make it a joke anyway. In a sense I am grateful to Senator Campbell for exposing to the whole Australian community what a joke, how fundamentally flawed, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act is. It is irretrievable; you cannot amend it to fix it up. We need new legislation in this country that genuinely gives protection to rare and endangered species. All the claims made about this legislation for the last five or six years have come to absolutely nothing. There have been several assessments of it. One such assessment was done by Andrew Macintosh of the Australia Institute. He pointed out that, of the 1,913 development proposals referred to the minister from 2000 to 2006, only 462 were declared to be controlled actions. In fact, the overwhelming majority of them were declared to be exempt.

The Australian community is being told by Senator Brandis and Senator Campbell that they take endangered species so seriously that they apply the principles of ecologically sustainable development, one of which is the precautionary principle. Where do I see that being applied in relation to logging in Tasmania? I do not. Where do I see it being applied in relation to the Walker Corporation proposal at Ralphs Bay? I do not. Where have I seen it being applied to a whole range of other developments that have come before this assessment authority? I have not seen it being applied. It is only being applied here because of a political situation in Victoria.

What I thought was interesting was hearing Senator Brandis quote from the conclusion of the Biosis Research report. Let me add the final sentence which Senator Brandis did not read out. Let me read the whole conclusion. They said:

Given that the Orange-bellied Parrot is predicted to have an extremely high probability of extinction in its current situation, almost any negative impact on the species could be sufficient to tip the balance against its continued existence. In this context it may be argued that any avoidable deleterious effect—even the very minor predicted impacts of turbine collisions—should be prevented.

That is where Senator Campbell and Senator Brandis stopped. The final sentence says:

Our analyses suggest that such action will have extremely limited beneficial value to conservation of the parrot without addressing very much greater adverse effects that are currently operating against it.

So I put to the minister, to Senator Brandis and to anyone else from the government who is prepared to stand up and defend Senator Campbell: what action is the government now going to take to address the very much greater adverse effects that are currently operating against the orange-bellied parrot? What are they going to do to look at this issue? Or are we just going to see this as a sufficient reason to somehow suggest that the Commonwealth is taking the plight of this bird seriously?

The government knows full well that it can quote this report. It is not choosing to quote other reports that it got, such as the Latitude 42 Environmental Consultants report which found that the impact of the wind power project was likely to be minimal on local bird populations and that further species-specific studies were unwarranted. It looked at all sorts of things.

The department looked at it as well. The department’s point is that to veto the wind farm on the basis of the low likely impact on the orange-bellied parrot would be inconsistent with the approach taken to approve wind farms elsewhere. The department knows that Senator Hill and Senator Campbell, the minister, never ever took the same attitude to other wind farms. The department was rightly highlighting the fact that if you go down this path you will open up every other wind farm that you have approved to the same kind of scrutiny and questions will be asked about whether the minister took the same action with them that he has in this case—that is, to commission report after report. If those reports said that one per cent was going to be affected, why didn’t they stop those wind farms if they are going to stop this one? In fact, that is where this is likely to go. That is why the department is saying, ‘You’d better be consistent about what you’re doing here.’

As I pointed out in this chamber yesterday, when the wind farm at Woolnorth in north-western Tasmania was first approved, Senator Hill, as minister for the environment, refused to assess it on the basis of the cumulative impact of the wind farms then proposed for north-west Tasmania, South Australia and Victoria. He said he did not have and would not take responsibility for cumulative impact and he was looking at each one as a specific and separate case, which I pointed out at the time was completely ridiculous. When you have an endangered species which has a clearly defined migratory path, you cannot look at development applications as one-off applications; you do have to look at the cumulative impacts. Senator Hill, the minister for the environment of the day, said no.

Senator Campbell has now opened up a real can of worms. He has brought into question the appropriateness of previous decisions that ministers have made. He has demonstrated that he has been prepared to use the EPBC Act for political purposes. He has been prepared to commission extra reports on some bases but not on others.

Down at Recherche Bay, where we had the Southport Lagoon conservation area, there is a critically endangered plant there, the swamp eyebright. It exists in an area of less than 100 square metres. The minister was prepared to let a road go straight through that area, knowing full well that a road would lead to the extinction of that plant because people travelling on that road leave the road. It is a complete mess from four-wheel drives, as any Tasmanian senator would be aware. Senator Campbell knew full well about the swamp eyebright. Why didn’t he stop that road going through the conservation area? That would have protected Recherche Bay because without road access they could not log it. But did he take any notice of that? No, he fell back quickly on his bilateral agreement with Tasmania saying, ‘Under the regional forest agreement I don’t have to assess a logging road,’ even though the swamp eyebright is critically endangered. It is the one small place on the whole planet where it exists and it is going to extinction. What did he do about it? He did zero, zilch, nothing.

People are so critical and cynical about him because he has been so selective in what he does about endangered and threatened species. But what he has now done—and I am grateful for this—is open himself up in regards to every single threatened and endangered species across Australia. Senator Brandis so admirably read out the minister’s responsibilities as follows:

A person must not take any action that:

(a) has or will have a significant impact on a listed threatened species included in the endangered category;

On any endangered species in the country, if anyone takes any action any resident can come to this minister and say, ‘Why have you got a bilateral agreement with that state government which exempts you from taking this statutory responsibility under the act?’ That is what is flawed. Until he rips up those bilaterals that allow the logging industry in Tasmania to send these species to extinction, he has no credibility whatsoever. I am looking forward to the residents at Ralphs Bay asking him to take into account the critically endangered spotted handfish and to apply the same level of concern he has with the orange-bellied parrot at the Bald Hills wind farm to that particular development application.

Like the seat in question in Victoria—that is, Mr Broadbent’s seat—I am looking forward to the minister doing the same in Bass, because it is a very marginal seat in next years federal election. We have the proposed pulp mill there. Even though the minister is happy to have the bilateral that excludes assessing the logging and the impact it is going to have on threatened species, in the pulp mill’s own assessment report it identifies the endangered wedge-tailed eagle and swift parrot as being on the site. The Commonwealth has a role in assessing this project. It has exempted all the forestry activities associated with the project but they have to assess the project at its own site.

I am looking forward to the people of Bass contacting this minister and saying, ‘These are endangered species under the act. They exist on the site. You stopped this wind farm in Victoria because it might have an adverse impact of one mortality per year from all sites. What we know is that 12 species listed as threatened under the Commonwealth EPBC Act have been recorded or have the potential to occur within or adjacent to the proposed development areas.’ Michael Ferguson holds Bass by what, one or 1.5 per cent? It is something like that. So here we are in Bass and it is a marginal seat, and yet we are going to that find this passion from both the Liberal and Labor parties in this place evaporate when it comes to the plight of the endangered wedge-tailed eagle, the white-bellied sea eagle and also in relation to the swift parrot.

If you are so concerned, all of you, about the cynical way in which this minister has used the act, I look forward to seeing the same enthusiasm about rejecting the Gunns pulp mill proposal in Northern Tasmania because of the impact it will have on endangered species in Tasmania at the site. I look forward to the tearing up of the bilateral, because what has been said in this place today from both sides says to me that both Liberal and Labor recognise that that bilateral agreement under the regional forest agreement is sending species to extinction in Tasmania.

The minister himself has said that they are going to extinction. He has said that they are highly endangered. Let members and senators take the action they need to take. This minister has sent shockwaves through the whole development community in Australia because what he has done is said that there is no certainty at all under EPBC legislation. He has opened up to communities, as it should have been all along, the right to take this minister and this government to task about development applications that do threaten endangered species across this country.

Senator Ian Campbell, the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, has let down all Australians in relation to endangered species but he has, to his credit, totally exposed this legislation as the joke that it is. Anyone who looks at the trends on endangered species and loss of habitat around the country would have to say that there is not one single environmental indicator that has improved since this legislation came into being some seven years ago.

Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The problem in this instance is not with the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. In fact it is a very powerful piece of legislation and it fixes a long-term problem that there was in this country: that the federal laws to do with the impacts of development on sites of national significance or on species that were threatened and endangered were very weak. The problem with this legislation is that there is enormous ministerial discretion, and that is what you would expect in decisions that are as far reaching as matters to do with national significance are.

But this minister has used the act for political purposes, and that is why we are here censuring him today. He has used it cynically and in a way which has nothing to do with orange-bellied parrots, wedge-tailed eagles or any other animals which deserve protection. He has used it in a way that he has not in the past on worthy cases against development. In fact, as I said yesterday, 2,745 projects have been referred to the environment protection and biodiversity conservation laws and only four applications have not been approved. That is less than 0.15 per cent of those that have been brought to the minister. A significant number of those 2,745 projects involved threatened species, but the minister has been reluctant to knock back those projects. Instead, for the most part, he and ministers before him have put conditions on the projects to minimise the impact on threatened species.

What are the real threats to the orange-bellied parrot? I can remember debates about this in Victoria. Madam Acting Deputy President Troeth, you may also remember when the state government wanted to put a chemical storage facility just past Corio Bay, which was a habitat. The foreshore was a place that orange-bellied parrots are seen on a regular basis, and the state government was considering putting the Coode Island chemical storage plant down there. There was quite a lot of community backlash and a great deal of interest in this issue. That did not go ahead because of community concern about it and because it would have been a very serious threat to the orange-bellied parrot.

But you cannot say the same thing about the wind farm at Bald Hills. Enough has been said here already today about the report which was done for the minister which he used selectively, about the advice which was given to him by his department which he totally ignored, about the process that had been gone through by the state government and so on. We know that the threat to the orange-bellied parrot was very minimal indeed. The real threats are fragmentation and degradation of over-winter habitat by grazing, agriculture or urban development; competition with other seed-eating birds; foxes and feral cats; disease; and disorientation during migration from brightly lit fishing boats. These are the real threats, but is there anything in Minister Campbell’s actions which would ameliorate any of those threats? No. The other big problem for threatened birds is climate change, and it is ironic that here we have a project which might do something about climate change. In fact, it would reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are produced in Victoria by 435,000 tonnes a year. This project, which might in some way assist to limit the threats on the orange-bellied parrot, is being used by the minister for political purposes. Through this decision, he is effectively sacrificing the orange-bellied parrot rather than protecting it.

Rather than knocking back this project, what might the minister have done? He could have required that the wind farm minimise the impact on the habitat. The wonderful thing about wind farms is that they have very little impact indeed. In fact, you see photographs of cows grazing up to the base of the turbines. Given their size and their importance, they probably have the least impact on the environment of any development I can imagine. Nonetheless, the minister could have required there to be a minimisation of habitat disturbance. The minister could have said to the wind farm proponents that a percentage of the revenue from the wind farm was to be used on other sites to restore habitat or to create new habitat for the orange-bellied parrot. Mind you, they would have to be quite a way away from the Bald Hills wind farm because, as I understand it, the orange-bellied parrot does not move too far inland. I think two kilometres is about the maximum range from the shore and the Bald Hills site is a little further inland than that. Money could have been used to create more winter-feeding habitats and secure current habitats, but there is very little by way of understanding of what those actual threats are and where we could improve the long-term chances of survival of the orange-bellied parrot. The minister has effectively been very arbitrary in this whole approach. It is all about seats and appeasing the handful of people, as I understand it in this instance, who opposed the wind farm and who will always oppose wind farms. For some reason, these people see them as a blight on the landscape. I do not; I find them to be amazing pieces of technology which seem to me to be most elegant, and in that landscape I am sure I could point to many other constructions which are more offensive than a wind turbine.

One of the most problematic aspects of this decision is the damage that it has done to confidence in the wind industry. It has set the wind industry back I do not know how many years, but it would have to be a substantial period of time. I think wind farm developers are still reeling with the shock of this decision, knowing that future approvals might also be dealt with in this arbitrary political way and that there will be no certainty about what might be able to proceed and what might not. It costs a great deal of money to find a site and to get to the point where you can make an application for approval, and this would most definitely be a very strong deterrent on such developments into the future. A number of people from the wind industry have been quoted in the media over the last few months of this debate talking about the process. Mr Bracks, for instance, said:

[The minister] took so long to do it that he had to find the most flimsy of pretexts. This will not stand up to scrutiny.

The chief executive of the wind farm developer Wind Power said the company had spent millions of dollars on the project and was seeking advice about any potential legal action. As we know, that legal action was commenced. This obviously panicked the minister and forced him to start to think a bit more about this and negotiate with the wind farmer and the wind farm developer. He has offered them another chance to make an application, which is very generous indeed. I understand that that application is no different from the one that went before. So this is just a face-saving device on the part of the minister.

We are talking about this issue because his decision making has been arbitrary, capricious and political. We do not need that kind of decision making from our ministers; we expect better of them than that. Despite the fact that the Democrats very strongly support the EPBC Act—we are also very keen to see the minister use it more effectively than he has in the past and we would like to see a few more projects knocked back that threaten species in many ways—I cannot in any way endorse what the minister has done. I think it is unacceptable. If it was a minister in any other portfolio we would do likewise, but the particular arguments in this case make it clear to me that he has misused his ministerial powers. It is appropriate for the Senate to remind him of that and to have this debate.

It is very disappointing. We would like to have an environment minister who took his role seriously in protecting endangered species. This minister has not done that. When he comes to this chamber and says, ‘This is what I’m going to do for the orange-bellied parrot; this is how we will make sure that it doesn’t become extinct,’ then we will be the first to applaud him for that. But stopping a wind farm where no orange-bellied parrots ever go is not a way of doing that. If he is serious about promoting himself as a minister who looks after the environment then we would be happy to congratulate him for doing that, but it is certainly not possible to do that in this case.

Robert Ray (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a fine speech by the Leader of the Democrats here today. I am a little cynical about censure motions, and I have expressed that cynicism before. I have seen really good censure motions in this chamber, with unimpeachable evidence, and then the political vote comes in and the motion goes down. On other occasions I have seen very shaky cases mounted in this chamber and the censure motion has carried. We have always said that it is not really the end result of the censure motion but the process that counts. Anyone listening to Senator Campbell’s defence of his actions today, both at question time and in this censure motion debate, has cause to worry. How could someone become a minister in cabinet yet perform in this chamber so incompetently and so abysmally? It is really scary. It frightens me. I like to see politicians be professional. It is not true that we always like to see them humiliated. But humiliated is what we have seen today.

When did all this begin? I can tell you precisely when this issue began. It began the day the Australian Electoral Commission handed down the new and final boundaries of McMillan that turned it from a 53 per cent Labor seat to a 52 per cent Liberal seat. That is the genesis of this decision: when it became a marginal Liberal seat. If you want to see how political this issue is, go back to the grubby correspondence that Senator Campbell had distributed in the electorate of McMillan back in October last year. This is on a letterhead; this has got the coat of arms on it. Under that it says, ‘Senator the Hon. Ian Campbell, Minister for the Environment and Heritage’. It is then signed at the bottom, ‘Senator Ian Campbell, Minister for the Environment and Heritage’. We know this was not paid for by the Commonwealth, because if it had been he would be in breach of proper accounting and legal processes. This was paid for by the Liberal Party. This is a political letter, and as grubby a political letter as I have ever read. Let me just quote one part of it:

If Christian Zahra really cared about his community, about you, he would have protested the issue with his Victorian Labor mates. If he was serious about protecting the visual amenity of the region that elected him, he would have moved an amendment to the renewable energy legislation when it came before the parliament in 2002. If he really wanted to stop inappropriate wind developments he would be fighting Mark Latham on this issue instead of jockeying for a position on the front bench.

It was all about politics. It was never about the national interest and never about the right thing to do. It was all about politics—not surprising when you consider Senator Campbell’s background in Western Australian politics. He was in the Crichton-Browne machine and then denied them and set up his own operation in Western Australia.

Look at the actual decision making: Senator Campbell went through 450 days on this particular project. Others are decided in half a minute and flicked off. But what he did, very clearly, was not only to ignore his departmental advice, which is his right; but I bet he never confounded that advice. He simply argued for more and more reports until finally a sliver of hope arrived and he ticked it off to meet his political requirement.

I pointed out in question time today the analogy of the Wonthaggi decision about a wind farm 20 minutes drive away. I do drive pretty fast, but I think for anyone it is 20 minutes from Bald Hills. So it is not far away. In that decision that Dr David Kemp had to make, there were orange-bellied parrots sighted near the Wonthaggi site. But, when that minister granted approval to go ahead, no conditions whatsoever were put on. Compare that with Bald Hills, where they have never sighted an orange-bellied parrot and one will probably never go near it. So why the difference in decision making? Is it true that Dr Kemp was an incompetent environment minister not attuned to protecting endangered species? I have not always been a fan of Dr Kemp, but I tell you what: as he is the smarter brother of the two, I would always rate him well and truly ahead of the political Senator Ian Campbell. You could not get a clearer contrast in decision making than what occurred then.

This really begs the question: who in this country is really serious about alternative power sources? Coming from Victoria, I can tell you that the Victorian government has been very serious about them. The Victorian government is leading the way in Australia in terms of solar development. Some new and exciting projects are under way in Victoria that are cutting edge world wide. The Labor Party have led the way—and we do not apologise for it—in endorsing wind power. Senator Ian Campbell comes into this chamber and says, ‘If you vote Labor, you will get five wind farms for every two the Liberals will approve.’ That is right, and we are proud of it. We are proud of the fact that we will support alternative power. We are also at the cutting edge of changing the technology from the use of brown coal in Victoria. By far the heaviest polluter Australia wide is brown coal electricity production. We are at the cutting edge of technology that could cut the output of pollutants by up to 40 per cent in that particular area. The Victorian government has been serious about this.

This also raises the economic development issue. How often have we heard Senator Minchin come into this chamber and say, ‘Labor is anti-development. Labor does not support economic growth’? I will tell you what: we do not sell out a $220 million project just for a few political reasons—to prop up someone in a marginal seat because a minor sector of that seat may change their vote on it. That is real weak politics.

I heard Senator Ian Campbell say today, ‘Why did the company approach me to remit the decision, to think about it again? Surely that shows that the company thinks I am a fair person.’ Can’t you just imagine going in to see Senator Campbell and saying, ‘We want to withdraw from the court case,’ and the first thing that Senator Campbell says is: ‘We’ll pay your expenses’! What a ridiculous proposition to put to this chamber.

I was rather amazed at the editorial in the Australian on Monday. The Australian is hardly a red rag; it is not noted for its Labor leanings and it is not a closet socialist publication. I do not have time to read the entire editorial, but let me read the last paragraph. It says:

It adds up to a confused message from the federal Government when it comes to wind power and a shambolic regulatory environment that can only discourage investment in renewable energy. As a first measure towards restoring confidence in the federal Government’s policy on renewable energy technology, John Howard should sack Senator Campbell as Environment Minister.

Hear, hear! It continues:

In his mishandling of the Bald Hills affair, Senator Ian Campbell has shown not only that he is inept when it comes to decision making but that he is willing to allow political considerations to influence his ministerial judgment. After dealing with Senator Campbell, Mr Howard must appoint in his place a minister who is committed to upholding a transparent process for assessing the environmental impact of development projects—whatever their nature—with the best interests of all Australians in mind.

Come on down, Senator Colbeck! Time for you to move up! Time for you to become a minister! At least we would know that the national interest would be protected, not just the petty political interests of the Liberal Party.

If you want to have a look at this political theme today, I ask you: did Senator Ian Campbell try to address any of the serious questions put to him? No, he did not. He spent most of question time and most of his defence on the censure motion talking about Christian Zahra—a Labor member who has lost his seat. It is as though Senator Campbell is excused from any misbehaviour whatsoever if that Labor member had a particular view. There is a massive difference between the behaviour of backbenchers who are trying to protect their own political interests and the national interest. One of the first things you learn in politics is: always put the national interest first—not out of principle, although that would be good, but out of self-interest—because putting the national interest first is what protects a ministerial career.

A lot of us on this side of the chamber wondered why Senator Ian Campbell was a parliamentary secretary for six years. We wondered why so many others came off the back bench—like Senator Ellison and others who are more advanced in their political careers—ahead of Senator Campbell. Now we know. We now know that the Prime Minister was highly suspicious as to how well Senator Ian Campbell would perform as a minister. His insight was, for once, very accurate. We in this chamber have all known that Senator Ian Campbell is a person who is subject to temper tantrums, to immature political behaviour and to the absolute bottom end of puerile approaches to politics. We all hoped that he would make the step up and that, having been given a ministry, he would actually mature and leave the political never-never land that he was in and that he would actually become a proper political and ministerial performer in this chamber. He has failed the test and he has failed it absolutely.

You have got to ask yourself: where is the pastoral care in the Liberal Party that allows this behaviour to occur? Where is the guidance and leadership that should be guiding this minister down a proper path? It does not appear to exist. Apparently, you are just thrown into the deep end and you either swim or drown. This is not really just Senator Ian Campbell’s responsibility; it is the responsibility of Senator Minchin and the Prime Minister to give him some guidance in order for him to perform properly.

What this issue is all about is a minister behaving like a third-rate ward heeler, totally ignoring advice from his own department, manufacturing advice and misinterpreting it for political purposes—and we have to put a stop to it. But I will make one last prediction: I will bet anyone in this chamber that Senator Ian Campbell reverses his decision in the next few weeks. It does not take much courage to say, ‘You heard it here first’. He will change this decision because, if he does not change this decision, he will change portfolio in very quick order. I have this advice for the Prime Minister: make him change the decision and then remove him from the portfolio. I am not sure which one he is capable of handling, but it is certainly not the environment. We need an environment minister who is committed to the national interest, who will be fair and reasonable and who will put the best interests of Australia and its biological diversity well ahead of his own political interests.

Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak to a censure motion that effectively has asked that this chamber censure the Minister for the Environment and Heritage for his actions in blocking the Bald Hills wind farm on the basis of its first application. I would like to congratulate Senator Brandis because he has led not only this chamber but also the Australian people very carefully through a step-by-step process, which was very easy to understand—no conspiracy—about how this minister has stuck very closely to the process and has followed the requirements under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to the letter.

In fact, if the minister has failed in any way, he probably failed to automatically place a project—the value of which we just heard from Senator Ray—worth $220 million ahead of environmental considerations. Yes, he probably failed to do that, but his job is to ensure that he finds the balance—not just some vague balance you can pull out of the air—that is prescribed under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. What we heard from Senator Brandis in this chamber today is that the minister absolutely held to the letter of the law of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity and Conservation Act.

We have had people from the other side stand up and say, ‘We can quote people like Mr Early.’ What was he relying upon? That is right: he was relying upon the Victorian government’s material, which we have now exposed today to be, whilst voluminous, missing a couple of important points. I note Senator Ray’s criticism of the previous environment minister, Dr David Kemp. Perhaps the mistake that former minister David Kemp made was that he also relied on the Victorian government. In hindsight, perhaps he should not have relied on that information to make the decision on Wonthaggi—only 20 minutes away from Bald Hills. I am quite sure that, if that minister were here today and heard about the disingenuous way that the Victorian government provided that information, he would think that he should have been more cautious about what weight he put on the Victorian information.

The Minister for the Environment and Heritage thought that there were obviously some bits missing in the report, so he said, ‘This is in relation to quite a specific context, but there is another context under which I need to be provided advice.’ It is quite clear under section 133, part VII, of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act that it is the minister’s responsibility to seek further information. That is what he did. He said, ‘We will commission something that specifically prescribes what the impact of these wind turbines will be on four particular species’—one of which was the orange-breasted parrot. He sought the very best information—the very latest, most scientific information—which was obviously far more comprehensive and specific than the information provided by the Victorian government. After he considered that very specific information—the very best available—he made a decision based on good science. I do not understand why those on the other side are somehow criticising our minister for using the very best, very latest information that was based on the best science.

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Rubbish!

Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not rubbish, Senator Forshaw. It might be absolutely beyond your ken that a minister would put aside financial and development pressure and considerations and put aside making arbitrary decisions and actually make a decision based on science. That might not be the way you do business, but it is the way we do business on this side. That is why we consistently have the support of the Australian people on these matters.

This minister and this government have a long history of following the process and making sure we get it right. Senator Forshaw, I know you are interested in this matter. From your wide reading on these matters, you will no doubt understand that it is a very delicate balance that one has to find between the pressures of development and the need to provide good environmental protection. The government, under successive ministers, including Minister Campbell—have very carefully sought information to get this balance right.

For your benefit, Senator Forshaw, the way the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act works is that we follow a series of steps. I will mention an example which is perhaps a little out of your jurisdiction—the dugong recovery plans. This was a process that was laid down very prescriptively. Under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, an application needed to be made to continue a number of fisheries that interacted with the dugong. A specific amount of time was given. It was said, ‘Under the current circumstances, that sort of fishing will not be allowed to continue for a certain time until a specific recovery plan is implemented.’ That is how the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act works—just for your benefit, Senator Forshaw. Of course, that is quite consistent with the decision that the minister has made today.

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aged Care, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why didn’t he bring in any conditions?

Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the moment, all he has to do is simply refuse it. We did not make up the conditions for the Queensland barramundi industry, Senator McLucas. You should be aware of that. They decided to make another application. That is exactly what happened. You have to understand the process. I know it is difficult, but stick with us.

Senator McLucas, I know that another thing that you are very keen on in Queensland is the turtle recovery plan. Exactly the same process was used for that. The very best and most recent scientific information was used. Several of those steps took place. This is not something that is completely new. What we are talking about here today is exactly the same process that has been used consistently by this government, this minister and ministers before him.

Honourable Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

While people on the other side may make turtle and dugong jokes, I say that this is a very important issue, because these are iconic species that we are talking about. That is why we care about this. If these were house sparrows, we would not be bothered. That is why the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act is there: to directly protect some of our iconic species. Another recovery plan that I would point you towards is the albatross recovery plan, which very clearly laid out the specific pieces of information required. There were no less than three applications from the seafood industry, because this government said, ‘You will not be able to continue to catch tuna unless you come up with an amelioration plan.’

What is happening now is that in exactly the same circumstances the proponents of the Bald Hills wind farm are being asked to come up with a mitigation plan. I understand that that mitigation plan is coming in the near future. Senator Ray made a huge prediction that we will change our mind on this. This is a process that identifies changes in behaviour. If you change your behaviour and mitigate the damage towards the orange-bellied parrot then the application will get the go-ahead. That is a process that has been consistently applied by this government over time. I will add here that I admire very much Senator Brandis’s use of the English language. He has coined a new phrase: ‘the Monty Pythonesque burlesque from the other side’.

There are a lot of threats to this bird that have not been discussed in this place. You would think that the only threat to this bird was from the wind farm. People keep saying, ‘One in 1,000 years.’ Let me tell those on the other side that they can giggle and they can laugh but to be associated with such a disingenuous comment should bring shame on them. One in 1,000 years is, according to the survey, absolute rubbish. There has not been any evidence to show that that is the case. Senator Carr got up and said, ‘One parrot in 1,000 years.’ That is absolute rubbish.

Senator Brandis talked about some modelling that was done in the Biosis report. This is a very recent report. The reason that you have to apply the precautionary principle is that reports like these normally provide a whole range of circumstances. In this report, the range was from 0.87 of a parrot—which is probably not really a parrot but a parrot with a bit missing—in one set of circumstances, to about one parrot in the next set of circumstances, to 1.39 of a parrot.

Honourable Senators:

Honourable senators—Is that an Alan Jones parrot?

Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Negative. If you look at the science, the interesting part of this is that the variability is in the capacity for a parrot to avoid the strike. It is called ‘avoidance’. In this report, it was worked out that there will be 98 per cent avoidance. There are other behaviours of this parrot, however, that may alter that. The reason that it is so hard to know how many there are is that it may migrate at night. This report clearly indicates that that may well be a scenario and that any impacts at all on this parrot are going to be extremely deleterious to its continued survival.

If you look at the whole range of scientific impacts discussed in this report and apply the precautionary principle, if it migrates at night there will not be 98 per cent avoidance. I have not had the opportunity this afternoon to do the numbers on that, but one would think that the number of parrots—or half parrots—endangered would increase substantively. This continued use of the phrase ‘one in 1,000 years’ is disingenuous. I will quote the study:

Given that the Orange-bellied Parrot is predicted to have an extremely high probability of extinction in its current situation, almost any negative impact on the species could be sufficient to tip the balance against its continued existence. In this context it may be argued that any avoidable deleterious effect—even the very minor predicted impacts of turbine collisions—should be prevented.

Senator Carr went on to tell me that parrots are very hard to find. We got plenty of parrot jokes from Senator Carr. He said that they are particularly hard to find. He said that we have only seen one 40 kilometres from Bald Hills. It is not the information that he provides but the information that he leaves out that is important. I would have thought that he would have read the report. The reason they are so difficult to observe is very specifically laid out in the report. Not only are there very few birds in the extended population but there are only a very small number of ornithologists able to identify the bird. Further, the terrain along much of the west coast of Tasmania—its habitat—is very difficult, and access to that terrain is also very difficult. Also, often when it is seen in the open it is because it is flying across Bass Strait, and unless you happen to have the right sort of ornithologist on the boat at that moment it is obviously going to be pretty difficult to observe. Further, the size of its habitat along the coastline of Tasmania is extremely large. Again, I point out the fairly disingenuous arguments being made by the other side. They are trying to provide real scientific evidence and failing. It is absolute gammon; it has absolutely no scientific substance.

We make a lot of fun of the orange-bellied parrot but the Victorian government’s own website states that several proposals over recent years have been stopped due to the risk to the orange-bellied parrot. In fact, the Victorian government ranks the orange-bellied parrot among the rarest and most endangered of world wildlife, alongside the giant panda and the Siberian tiger. The precarious position of the orange-bellied parrot was recently recognised by the World Conservation Union, which has included the bird on its red list of critically endangered species. It is extremely endangered.

Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That’s why you’ve got to have a management plan.

Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Indeed, and thank you for the interjection. We are now still waiting for a management plan to arrive. When the minister considers it, it is a possibility—as Senator Ray so wonderfully predicted—that it may be approved, as is the case with every one of these processes. If it is not, we would encourage people to look at some other way of ameliorating the situation and to make another application. As I said, it took several applications for the albatross, the turtle and the dugong, and the amelioration processes regarding the orange-bellied parrot and the turbines may well involve a series of steps.

I wonder exactly what we are doing here. What is the notion behind having this censure motion? This is the big issue of the day for the Labor Party. I wondered what the big issue for the Labor Party would be today. It has been the orange-bellied parrot and wind farms for the first two days we have been back after the recess. As I mentioned yesterday, I think there is probably a little bit more to this. The key should have been when Senator Carr—the love child of the Victorian government—stood up. This is just a cover-up of the complete hypocrisy of the Victorian government and its complete failure to deliver any environmental outcomes.

Wind energy, which we are talking about with the Bald Hills project, is actually being developed simply because this government, the Australian government, has provided the mandatory renewable energy targets program. That is why it is being developed in the first place. As was mentioned earlier, the Bald Hills wind farm would actually have only mitigated about 175,000 tonnes of carbon every year. Talking about the benefits of wind farms, Senator Carr stood in this place and thumped his chest and said, ‘What a great job the Labor government is doing in Victoria.’ That is what this is about, isn’t it? It is about talking up the wind farms. Only a cynic like me would think about the Victorian government’s very recent decision to extend the life of the Hazelwood coal fired power station, which is going to see another 445 million tonnes of carbon going into the atmosphere. That has nothing to do with this debate at all—nothing at all! If you want to talk about a conspiracy, I think this is just trying to divert the public’s attention from the complete inadequacy of Victoria’s Labor government to provide a single environmental outcome in this matter.

The renewable energy target will put another 400 turbines into the Gippsland area and yet the net benefit will be only 27 million tonnes of greenhouse gases. Today’s sham of a censure motion is an absolutely pathetic attempt by Senator Carr to assist the Victorian government in diverting the public attention away from its abysmal record on both climate control and environmental protection. Instead of censuring the minister, we should congratulate him for holding to the process, for making sure that he was not influenced by development and for ensuring that we continue to deliver consistent outcomes and continue to protect our environment.

Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to speak to a few of the issues that are perhaps being lost in the flames being thrown backwards and forwards in this debate. We have before us a censure motion against the Minister for the Environment and Heritage with regard to a decision he made about a wind farm in Victoria. I have of course been quite critical of Minister Ian Campbell a number of times publicly, as he and anyone else who bothered to listen would know. I think he has acted in various ways across his portfolio somewhat erratically, inconsistently and in a contradictory fashion. But that in itself is not grounds for censure.

There are a few mixed messages here that I want to take the opportunity to correct, particularly with regard to the nature of the EPBC Act. That act was actually opposed by the Labor Party and the Greens, and indeed we heard Senator Milne saying that the Greens’ view is that the EPBC Act should be repealed. Of course, the Greens opposed it in the first place. The simple fact is that if they had been successful in that position—and the Democrats had followed their line and not supported the heavily amended EPBC Act—then we would not be having this debate, because the federal minister would not have the power to do anything with regard to endangered species. So I think it is completely the wrong tack to attack the EPBC Act. Nobody, least of all the Democrats, has ever suggested it is perfect, but it certainly provides a mechanism for review of projects and proposals to see whether or not they impact on key national matters of environmental significance, including endangered species.

Another key part of that act, which did not exist previously, is the scope for third party rights, for other people to have standing. Again, we would not be having this debate if it were not for the strengthened federal environment laws, because it would not have been possible to take court action against the minister’s original decision. Court action is not ideal—it is very expensive—but the fact that people have the right to challenge a decision by the minister in this area is very important and it is a key protection that the Democrats put in.

Using this example to attack the EPBC Act is, frankly, misguided—unless it is just a deliberate attempt to run a political agenda. But it is a bit strange that we have the Greens saying the EPBC Act should be repealed. According to what Senator Milne said yesterday, it always depends entirely on the whim of the minister whether he is going to apply the act appropriately or otherwise. Well, this case proves that that is wrong, because there was the opportunity for court action to be taken to generate a situation where the minister agreed to review his decision, and his decision was set aside by mutual agreement through the court. It is particularly strange because, at this very moment, as Senator Milne herself knows and indeed alluded to, her Tasmanian colleague Senator Bob Brown is running an extremely comprehensive court case in Tasmania using the EPBC Act to try and protect some endangered species. It baffles me how this act can be completely hopeless, terrible, useless, appalling and should be repealed, and yet it is being used to attempt to protect endangered species.

I support Senator Brown’s court action, as does the Wilderness Society. They are on the record as saying that it is an important test case, that if it succeeds it will have very positive effects for the future of biodiversity and native forests throughout Australia. I do not know if it will succeed. It is attacking a particular component of the act. All I will say is that it is certainly not a sure thing but I hope it does succeed. If it does then we will have one Green Tasmanian senator using this act to make, according to their own words and those of the Wilderness Society, a major advance in protecting biodiversity and threatened species in forests around Australia, and we will have the other Tasmanian Green saying that the act should be abolished.

I think people need to move forward from their politically driven and politically motivated opposition to the EPBC Act from 1999. I will again use Senator Milne’s own statistics, which came from the Australia Institute report. I know that report, and I know the author quite well and broadly agree with his conclusions. The government has not been using the EPBC Act enough and it has not been using it strongly enough. Nonetheless, there were 1,913 proposals, according to the figures Senator Milne gave, and 462 of them were controlled actions. That is over 450 more actions and proposals than were previously overseen or intervened in by the federal minister. Out of a number of those controlled actions, many were approved, but many of them were approved with extra conditions.

I think Senator Scullion outlined the process of going through this approval mechanism using controlled actions, negotiating and assessing the potential impacts under matters of national environmental significance and how, even if the proposal still goes ahead, that can and has led to very significant pluses in environmental outcomes. Certainly, where conditions have been applied as a result of that process, that has also meant in some cases significant environmental outcomes. So, the very statistics that are being used to say the act is useless actually reinforce the fact that it has had some positive results.

I do not for a minute say that it is perfect, as I said. I certainly think it needs to be used far more often and far more strongly. But the simple fact is that it is an extra mechanism that would not otherwise exist at all and which would allow a lot of these actions at state government level to go ahead and be put through without any decent assessment at all. It is a completely wrongheaded approach and it is not helpful in the context of this debate. Indeed, one could suggest it is somewhat ironic that people are complaining about how the minister does not use his powers to stop inappropriate developments and the one time he does use them he gets hauled over the coals for it.

There is no doubt, in my mind anyway, that there is a lot of politics involved in this—obviously from all sides but particularly in the decision that the minister came to—but the key thing, when you are looking at law, of course, is whether or not under law his actions are able to be justified. If they are not—if he did just pluck it out of the air with no justification, purely for political motivation—then of course there are grounds for a legal challenge, and that is what the proponents of the wind farm did. By agreement, the original decision has been set aside and there will now be further examination of it. All of that has actually shown a situation where the act has worked. I agree that the minister has certainly taken way too long in coming to a decision. That is certainly the case, and that is clearly problematic.

There was advice from the environment department about non-approval potentially having implications for coastal development. I am on record in this place a number of times calling on the minister to use the act more frequently with regard to coastal development. Certainly, in my own state of Queensland, we need better protection, and we need the environment minister intervening more to stop some of the coastal development, because communities and environments are being decimated. There are lots of places up on the Queensland coast—I have spoken about Mission Beach and Airlie Beach and other areas before in this place—where this not just massively impacts on communities but also causes real damage to threatened species and icon species, like the cassowary, and causes fragmentation of habitat. I want the minister to use his powers to stop coastal development more often—obviously, on a scientific basis. I do not want him to do so capriciously, but I think there is clearly a death of a thousand cuts happening with a lot of coastal developments, many of which are being referred as controlled actions under the federal act but which are nonetheless still going ahead. I think the cumulative impacts of all of those do need to be more strongly assessed.

Senator Milne also called on the minister to make the same decision on the spotted handfish with regard to a development in Tasmania. Again, I concur with her on that. The trouble is that she is attacking his decision on the orange-bellied parrot, which makes for a bit of an anomaly. She opposes the EPBC Act and wants to abolish it. If it were not there, if it had not been passed by the Democrats in 1999, there would be no power for the federal minister to do anything about the spotted handfish, whether he wanted to or not. So I do think it is important to clarify some of those inconsistencies. The situation now is that the decision is being reviewed by the minister and will be remade. Obviously, people will be watching that closely. I do not think that anyone could possibly suggest that a decision in this context is not going to be political, because it has political ramifications one way or the other.

People use ‘political’ in this context as a dirty word. That is understandable, but the word ‘politics’ has a lot of different meanings. There is another meaning to it, which is paying attention to community views. As I have also said in this place a number of times, at the moment the Queensland government is planning to build a couple of—and one in particular—extremely destructive dams. The local community is very strongly opposed to this, as am I. It will clearly have heavy environmental impacts as well as social impacts, and it is economically stupid—not that you can appeal about that under the environment law. I think in these circumstances we need to have the safety net of the federal environment act that can ensure a minister moves in.

Of course, the act is not perfect and, of course, we will always be in a situation where the minister has some discretion. But, frankly, the minister has to exercise his discretion according to law. That always leaves a lot of leeway, but it is not a total blank cheque. There is a loophole in the act with which he can just exempt himself from it, as happened with Christmas Island, and that is unsatisfactory. But the minister does not have open slather under the act. He has to make his decisions according to the law, and if somebody believes he does not then, if they have standing, they can challenge them. I suggest that that situation is as it should be.

The attempts to link the minister’s less than perfect actions on this particular issue to the flaws in the EPBC Act are wrong and, frankly, unhelpful. We do need to strengthen that act. We do need to strengthen the actions of the minister under that act. But simply discrediting the act and discrediting the times when the minister does use his powers will not be particularly helpful. I should also emphasise that the statement made that the act has proved to be useless is simply not correct. It may have proved to be useless in terms of what people want to do in Tasmania—I do not know—but it has certainly proven on a couple of occasions to be very powerful in situations in Queensland.

An example is a decision made by the former environment minister in regard to another dam, the Nathan Dam, in which, because of the EPBC Act—and it would not have been able to happen otherwise—people were able to take that action to court to challenge it, and the action was successful. Because of that, it was made clear that under law, contrary to what has been said in this debate by some on this side of the chamber, the minister is required to consider the cumulative impacts of any proposal including, of course, the Nathan Dam. That principle was not challenged by the government, not appealed, so it now applies at law with regard to any other proposal, including the new dams that are being planned in Queensland. So the act has demonstrated significant benefit already. That is not to say that the Nathan Dam will not go ahead eventually, but it has certainly been held up for two or three years. It is a dam that both major parties supported. I did not. I hope it does not end up going ahead, but it is one case in which the act has proven to be very useful.

Another case is with regard to spectacled flying foxes in North Queensland, where a court challenge under the act was able to have direct positive consequences for the prevention of the slaughtering of that particular endangered species. More court actions have continued subsequently with regard to that. The third party rights of standing provisions in the federal act were forerunners that were key to ensuring that similar provisions are now in place under Queensland’s Nature Conservation Act, which have now been successfully used once again to try and protect continued threats to the spectacled flying fox by orchardists in that area. I do think those aspects of the debate need to be put in place and put on the record. There have clearly been politics with regard to this decision, and that is perhaps not surprising because we are all politicians. Certainly, it took a lot longer than is desirable.

As to the issue of industry certainty, I am certainly a strong supporter of the wind industry, but I actually do not want industry certainty for coastal developments, for tourism resorts or for canal estates. I want them to know that they might not have success, I want them to think twice and three times before they go ahead with proposals and I want those proposals to be thoroughly examined by the strongest environmental mechanisms. We still need to strengthen this federal law, but it is a lot stronger than what was there before. That is directly a result of the Democrats strongly improving the EPBC Act in 1999 and not caving in to the, frankly, hysterical crusade launched against those who supported the legislation at the time which, judging from some of the comments made in the last day or so, is still continuing today. The minister’s decision, as I said, is one that has aspects that are problematic. Whether or not it undermined the administration of the act and he abused his powers is a rather more open question than what many others in this debate have suggested.

Question put:

That the motion (That the motion (Senator Chris Evans’s) be agreed to.) be agreed to.