Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The President has received a letter from Senator Siewert:

Dear Mr President,

Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:

The Gillard Government’s plans, at the upcoming COAG meeting, 6 December and 7 December, to hand federal responsibility for protecting our nationally important wild places and most vulnerable species to state governments at the behest of big business.

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today’s debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on a matter of public importance—the Gillard government's plans, at the upcoming COAG meeting on 6 and 7 December to hand federal responsibility for protecting our nationally important wild places and most vulnerable species to state governments—all at the behest of big business.

For people who may not know, the federal government, spurred on by the Business Council of Australia and by state governments—and backed to the hilt by Tony Abbott's opposition—is planning to hastily hand over nearly all national environmental powers to the states by using sections of our national environment laws that John Howard wrote but which even he never used.

The handover includes the abandonment of national powers on World Heritage Areas as well as threatened species to the very same states that have comprehensively failed to protect those species. The next stage of the negotiation of the handover is the COAG meeting in Canberra on 7 December and of course the Business Advisory Forum the day before, on the 6th. The government plans to negotiate the framework of the handover at this meeting and to sign over the final approvals powers to the states by next March. This represents a major threat to threatened species, to World Heritage values, to precious places and to wildlife right across the country. The Wentworth Group, major environmental NGOs and local campaign groups all acknowledge the danger this handover represents. They say—and they are right—that this is the biggest step backwards in national environmental protection in 30 years.

So 7 December is the day that this government, with the full backing of Tony Abbott's opposition, will sign off on the framework to abandon its job to protect the national environment and just leave it up to the states. That is the day that Australia's environment will be completely sold out, and sold off, to suit the mining and the business lobby, who apparently run this country. The decision to hand over environment powers to the states was a snap judgement made after a day's meeting between the ALP government and the Business Council of Australia—the day before the COAG meeting in April this year. There was no equivalent community meeting, of course. All the Business Council of Australia had to do was claim that our environment was too regulated and development was being held up. The government did not do any independent assessment of those claims; they just accepted them. They agreed to gut environmental protections and to get completely out of the way and just leave the states in charge.

Comments from Minister Ferguson last week to the ABC again confirm that these changes to our environmental protections are simply being made to suit the mining and gas industries. He spoke as if environmental protection is a luxury that we can no longer afford because of the fall in commodity prices. I have no doubt that they are his genuine views, but they show that Labor is happy to turn its back on its previously held belief that the environment is of national importance, deserving national protection. Sadly, today's Labor Party is happy to trash the legacy of former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, who stepped in to stop the rapacious Tasmanian state government, which was going to dam the Franklin River, and who fought that all the way to the High Court. That step increased the powers of the Commonwealth like no other event since Federation.

This same Labor government is now, with the stroke of a pen, after one day of lobbying by the BCA, winding back that role and taking environmental protection back 30 years. What a tragic backflip for Labor. And what a backflip for the Prime Minister, who, in 1999, railed against the inclusion of these delegation powers when the EPBC Act was first introduced. She described the Victorian and the other state governments as having 'a track record of environmental vandalism'. Yet, here is the Prime Minister acting on the very powers that she railed against, that John Howard had enacted but even he had not used. In 1999 Julia Gillard thought the environment was too important to hand over to the states. But, sadly, now she thinks that none of the environment is too important to hand over, except uranium mining—so she can ensure that we can ship out this toxic material to India. Even Robert Hill, John Howard's environment minister, told the Press Club in August this year that he thought Labor had gone too far with their plans to hand off environment powers to the states.

When you look at the evidence, on all indicators our environment is clearly in decline. The threatened species list has nearly tripled in the last 20 years. We are losing more and more crucial habitat and biodiversity. We have just had Professor Tim Flannery in the latest Quarterly Essay describe our current biodiversity decline as the gathering of a second extinction wave, set to empty 'vast swathes of the continent'. Our incredible Great Barrier Reef is turning into a coal and gas highway, and we have been warned that it is in danger of losing its World Heritage status. Instead of becoming a new World Heritage area, the Tarkine forests have 10 new mines planned for them. Being the state emblem of Victoria cannot save the Leadbeater's possum from being logged to extinction, even though there are now less than 1,000 of them in the wild. All of this evidence and much more that I do not have time to go into shows that our environment is suffering from far too little protection, rather than too much as the Business Council of Australia would have it.

Putting the states in charge of the environment can only hasten this decline. Let us look at their record.

Historically, states put short-term profits ahead of the environment. And because state governments are far more likely to be fixated on the short-term royalties and returns from mining and development—much of which are trumped up, I might add—there will always be that conflict of interest.

This is why the big environment wins in the past have been when the federal government has stepped in and overturned a bad decision by a state government, such as oil rigs in the Great Barrier Reef or cattle in the Victorian Alps. The states simply cannot be trusted to look after our environment. The sad thing is that our national environment laws are already failing us, but, instead of making them stronger, both of the old parties are ganging up to make them even weaker.

The government will say that they are putting standards in place to ensure that the level of environmental protection will be the same, despite the states being solely in charge. But no standard in the world can or will change the fundamental approach of state governments from prioritising mining, big business and other short-term profits ahead of environmental protection. These weak standards—and I say 'weak' because they might not even need to be reflected in state laws—might just have the status of policy, which makes me incredulous. Those weak standards will not change the states' attitude to environmental protection, and they cannot prevent states determined to approve megamines from destroying the environment. The states will simply find a way around these standards or they will deliberately flout them, as we saw recently in Queensland when the Campbell Newman government refused to comply with the assessment standards for the Alpha coal mine in Queensland.

The reason we have a federal government is to govern in the interests of all Australians on the issues that matter to all Australians. Australians everywhere care about the reef, the Tarkine, the Kimberley and our iconic koala. It remains the federal government's job to look after the most important and precious of Australia's environment assets, which are of international significance, like the World Heritage Great Barrier Reef. No standard will be able to replace the protection that is meant to be provided by the federal government for our precious places and wildlife.

The ALP and the coalition will not believe that these places and wildlife are precious to all Australians. They will not step up to protect our environment from big business and other industries. They will not hesitate to sacrifice these precious places for short-term profit. Sadly, the ALP and the coalition have abandoned voters who care about the environment. With the recent revelation—and the publication of the draft standards showed this—that all environment powers, bar for uranium mining, are eligible to be handed over to the states, there is now no difference between the ALP government's and Tony Abbott's policy on the environment. Just like on refugee policy—and we have seen that again today—same-sex marriage and reducing support for single parents, there is now no difference between Labor and Tony Abbott on the environment. It is now perfectly clear that, if people believe our environment matters, their only choice is the Greens.

Our environment is under attack like never before. We cannot leave protecting Australia's environment up to the states. We can make our national environmental laws stronger, not weaker. We can keep decisions about Australia's environment in the hands of the Australian government. We can protect what we love about Australia, now and into the future. We have so much in this country that is simply too precious to lose. If Labor and the coalition will not step up to save it, it is up to all of us.

Lin Thorp (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to clarify the Gillard government's plans to cooperate with all state and territory governments to develop sound environmental policy. We must ensure that Australia's wild places and vulnerable species continue to be respected and protected against the enduring challenges they face from future development proposals by Australian businesses and, in particular, the mining industry.

The Gillard government treats any amendment to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act very seriously. The government will always face scrutiny if it does not, particularly from those who I believe possess the strongest ecological conscience and passion to protect our environment—the Tasmanian people and the Tasmanian representatives in this place. As a proud Tasmanian, I know how fortunate I am to be surrounded by breathtaking coastlines and forests. I also know how important it is to protect the most intact and undisturbed natural areas of our land. I therefore accept and appreciate the broader concern for the protection of national wild places and vulnerable species expressed by Senator Waters on behalf of the Australian Greens.

The reality is that we must find a balance between the continuing fight for greater environmental protection and the need to allow development to take place in order to move our nation forward. In order to prosper, Australia must maintain a stimulated economy which has the capacity to benefit all Australians, whether they are able to participate in and benefit from our economy or not. This is why protecting our environment, while ensuring that our economy continues to develop, is a clear and valued priority of this government.

On 24 August 2011, the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities released the government's response to the independent review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act as part of a broad package of reforms of Australia's national environment law. Announcing the reform package, the minister said that these reforms would deliver better environmental protection focusing on whole regions and ecosystems and faster environmental assessments, provide a consistent national approach to environmental impact assessments that removes duplication and cuts red tape, and provide better up-front guidance on legislation requirements, with more long-term certainty and transparency.

In order to stimulate our economy, we must listen to the needs of Australian business—that is true. We must act to reduce barriers for business, such as removing duplicate regulation that does not need to be there. On 13 April, the Council of Australian Governments released a plan to implement forward-planning changes to federal and state environmental laws. Environmental issues have a tendency to attract emotional and irrational responses, and therefore I must clarify for those concerned the reality of the impact these changes will have.

The Gillard government's plan at the upcoming COAG meeting in December is to develop policy which balances these two national priorities while clarifying and enhancing the accountability of decision makers determining the outcome of development proposals.

Be assured that the government has no desire to weaken or water down existing environment protections. Since it delivered its response to the Hawke review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act last year, the government has been working hard to deliver simpler environmental protection policies. The Australian federal government boasts very high environmental standards—standards of which, as a nation, we should be very proud. We know that the responsibilities shared between state and federal governments have become increasingly fluid, as policy issues that arise today were not able to be foreseen in the early 1900s, when our Federation was established.

When our federal system begins to struggle with inefficiencies due to excessive green tape, because of practices that duplicate the approval process, we must reassess existing policy and make amendments. The Hawke review identified the need for greater cooperation between the Australian, state and territory governments in delivering a better environmental law system. The review recommended using existing provisions of the EPBC Act and developing standards to enable bilateral agreements on approvals with the states and territories. The government has been working cooperatively with all states and territories to provide a basis for developing bilateral agreements that deliver a streamlined assessment and approval process based on high environmental standards.

The Gillard government's plan to reduce green tape around approval requirements by both state and federal governments will not come at a detriment to the environment. Environmental protection is not being thrown out the window in favour of development. In fact, it is quite the opposite. All development proposals will continue to be subjected to environmental protection guidelines and policy. Each proposal will be rigorously assessed for its foreseeable and likely impacts on protected and vulnerable species as well as important wild places in Australia. The government will retain overall responsibility for protecting matters of national environmental significance and will be able to focus on setting the national environmental policy agenda, including influencing state outcomes, landscape scale and strategic approaches to environmental conservation and investment in Australia.

A strong assurance framework is being and will continue to be built into the bilateral agreements under discussion with states and territories. This framework will ensure that states must demonstrate how their environmental decision making is complying with national environmental standards. If states do not or will not, then the decisions will remain with the Commonwealth environment minister.

The purpose of these amendments is to remove regulatory duplication in order to encourage investment and increase productivity. We know that today we are living in a fast-paced world. It is therefore vital that our regulatory system be equally fast and reactive to the desires of Australian businesses. If government has the capacity to legislate to promote greater certainty for business in a time of uncertainty for our economy, then we should. If government can legislate to encourage an increase in development proposals and activities, then we should. And if government can encourage and secure investment in Australia and create more Australian jobs for the Australian people, then we should.

It was the Gillard government who asked the COAG Business Advisory Forum what it considered to be 'nuisance regulations', and it is the Gillard government who listened. Nuisance regulations are those that are duplicated at both a state and a federal level or those which are considered to have no real purpose. Business Council of Australia president Tony Shepherd considers the goal to remove the duplicate approval process by state and federal governments to be a big step forward—a step forward that has the capacity to have a very real impact on supporting businesses that operate in Australia and assist productivity and competitiveness at a time when we are experiencing a high Australian dollar.

The purpose of the Gillard government's plan is not to streamline environmental protection so that business and development proposals are met with the least resistance; the government's plan is to formalise an arrangement that already exists today. The Gillard government's plan will ensure that development proposals which are in keeping with environmental guidelines are able to proceed without being strangled by excessive green tape and passed back and forth between state and federal governments while investors and companies wait in uncertainty. The Gillard government has been working and will continue to work to deliver a simpler environmental protection plan—a system with clear standards, a system which allows for faster decision making and a system which ensures that our nation has both a healthy, protected environment and a strong economy.

On 2 November the Australian government released the draft framework of standards for accreditation under the EPBC Act. These draft standards underpin the government's approach to the reform process. They recognise the need for sound assurance mechanisms to ensure that the bilateral agreements continue to operate as intended and remain responsive. The draft standards have been released to provide people with the opportunity to see the approach the government is taking as we continue to negotiate with states and territories.

I must strongly affirm to the Senate that the government's plan at the upcoming COAG meeting in December is not about developing policy that will roll back our environmental protections. This December, COAG will receive an update on progress with discussion on bilateral agreements. Not one clause of existing environmental protection law is to be altered. The government's plan is simply concerned with removing unnecessarily duplicative and time-consuming processes.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to participate in this debate on this matter of public importance and bring a sense of reality and common sense to an issue that has been concerning Australians for a long time. I will say at the outset that I was pleased to hear the rhetoric from the previous speaker, Senator Thorp, from the government benches. If only that rhetoric were moved into reality, then I would have to say that it would be perhaps one thing on which I agreed with the Labor government. I will give some credit to the Labor government—and this is a rare thing for me to do. I have to say, as the Howard government we did try to bring together the state and federal environment rules so that there was one assessment process. Unfortunately, we had not achieved that at the time we left government. So I am pleased that at least the Labor Party is paying the rhetoric. I am delighted that at COAG the federal government will be meeting with a series of what are now sensibly governed states who have a real interest in the environment but also a real interest in reducing red and green tape.

I am always proud to come to debates on the environment by reminding the parliament that every serious environmental measure for the betterment of Australia has been introduced by Liberal governments. The first ever minister for the environment came from a Liberal government. When you go back through history and look, for example, at the Great Barrier Reef and Fraser Island, you see that most of the serious environmental advancements, such as the EPBC Act, were made under Liberal governments. As I always said to my good friend Robert Hill, who introduced the EPBC Act, it is an act that is good in the hands of a sensible, responsible, reasonable and balanced minister, but if you put it in the hands of someone like Tony Burke you have real problems—and haven't my predictions turned out to be true.

Unfortunately, the Labor Party's decisions on the environment are dependent on whether they will retain the support of the Greens in the lower house, where they need that one vote for Ms Gillard to remain as Prime Minister, with all the power that the Prime Minister exercises. You will recall that, before the last election, in the greatest rebuff to the voters' trust in the Australian political system, Ms Gillard promised solemnly never to introduce a carbon tax under the government she led. It is no wonder now that Australians simply do not believe anything our current Prime Minister says.

I go back to where I started my contribution. The Liberal and National parties are the parties in the Australian political system that have been the cause of every serious environmental advancement in this country. Once upon a time we had the best managed sustainable forests. That meant that the forestry companies went through and cleared the undergrowth and the fuel. They had tracks through every forest. On site, they had not only capable men and women but also resources to put out any fire that started. The Greens came along and shut down forestry, shut down these tracks and shut down employment opportunities. More importantly, they shut down those people who could address wildfires as they started. As Senator Williams often says, the Black Saturday fires in Victoria occurred because of the huge fuel build-up in the national parks. Fifty per cent of the fires on Black Saturday came from national parks.

The Greens and the Labor Party love setting up national parks but they never put any money into them; they never put any money into properly managing them. They have become havens for feral animals, weeds and fuel that is tinder dry and ready to explode. I understand more damage has been done to Australia's biodiversity by these wildfires, which happened because the Greens will not let any fuel be removed from our native or other forests—

Senator Siewert interjecting—

You only need five tonnes per hectare of fuel, a 40-degree day and a 50-kilometre wind and a fire becomes uncontrollable. And talk about the koalas—what koalas are left after those sorts of wildfires? It is you, the Greens political party, that cause the death of so many koalas and of so much else of our very special biodiversity that makes Australia great. And you want to blame someone—and I do; I point to the corner where the Greens sit with all their misguided logic on the environment.

Far be it from me to support the Labor Party on this, but giving environmental control to one authority, using the environmental laws of both the Commonwealth and a particular state, is a marvellous thing to do. I can give you any number of examples, and I will give you just a few. There is a cassava farm up in Home Hill, near where I live. They spent literally millions of dollars to get state government approval. Everything is ready to go. Once the state government has given its approval, they have to then try and get this lot that presently control the government in Canberra to go and oversee it and do exactly the same thing that the state government—in this case, a Labor state government—had already done.

There is another instance up where I come from, with the Guthalungra prawn farm. Do not hold me to the figures, but they are close enough to be accurate. The proponents spent something like $10 million getting state government approval for the farm. Having gone through the most stringent process, they then come down to Canberra and have this idiot mob here—who are held in office by the Greens and therefore susceptible to every whim of the Greens—put a whole new set of assessments, delays, costs and conditions on them. They get to $20 million to introduce a prawn farm that provides food not only for Australia but for the starving millions around the world that the Greens pretend on occasion they are concerned about. This green tape, this duplication, stops the production of food in Australia.

The Greens hate dams. The Labor Party, being as gutless as they are, also hate dams because they need the Greens support to keep this government in power or to get preferences. We have this Northern Australia Land and Water Taskforce which, in its original configuration, under Senator Heffernan, looked at dams. The government changed and the membership of that committee changed. They brought out a report and, when they were challenged about how weak it was, said, 'Oh, we were told by the government we could not look at dams.'

This shows how neither the Greens nor the Labor Party have the courage to look at the real issues confronting Australia. Sure, animals are important, and if these parties believed they were important they would do something about the fuel loads in the forests so that the koalas would not be killed. That is why we are losing our koalas.

But the Greens do not seem to worry about people—they do not seem to worry about Australians who need jobs or about people around the world who are starving and need Australia's food. The Greens are not interested in people; all they talk about is biodiversity, and they are really the cause of the destruction of most of Australia's biodiversity.

Regrettably, time is not going to allow me to make a lot of the other points that I wanted to make. But I say to the Labor government that the rhetoric on getting a streamlined approach to environmental assessments is good. It does not mean reducing your standards, and it does not mean ignoring any Commonwealth or state environmental law. It means getting a better process and getting rid of an enormous amount of green tape and having not only the science and the environment but also development jobs and—most importantly—food as well.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You certainly would not let a few facts get in the way of a good argument, would you, Senator Macdonald? The clearing of our native vegetation, which everyone recognises as one of the major causes of the loss of biodiversity, and feral and introduced animals, which everyone recognises as another of the major causes of loss of biodiversity, are suddenly not the real causes of the loss of biodiversity. Australia has the highest rate on the planet of pneumonia and decline in critical weight range of native animals, but it seems to be okay with both the coalition and the government that we water down our federal environmental laws. It horrifies me to hear Senator Thorp and the government continue to use the industry rhetoric of 'green tape'. Nothing demonstrates more clearly that the government have bowed down to industry and the miners than their adoption of the rhetoric of 'green tape'. When they say 'green tape', they mean environmental laws that are put in place to protect our environment.

It is absolutely essential that we have strong federal environmental laws. In my home state of Western Australia the importance of having such laws is nowhere more evident than in the state government's granting of environmental approval just this week for the development of James Price Point in the Kimberley on the basis of an extremely flawed environmental assessment process. In Western Australia we could not find five independent environmental specialists with the expertise to be able to make an assessment on the development project for James Price Point. Four of the EPA members had to excuse themselves because they had a conflict of interest. Nothing speaks more plainly of the fact that we need strong federal environmental laws. If a state cannot find five independent people to do an environmental assessment, at least the Commonwealth can take a much more independent view in looking at development proposals.

Let's look at the environmental assessment process that was carried out in Western Australia and the environmental impact assessment statement that the proponents put up. It is riddled with errors, mistakes and flaws—riddled with them. The proponents did not seem to be able to count the number of whales that use the James Price Point area. They did not seem to be able to recognise—though, if they had read some of the scientific literature and done proper surveys, they would have recognised it—that the James Price Point area is one of the most important whale nurseries in the world. They only seemed to be able to see the humpback whales, not the other whales which use the area. They did not recognise the fact that there are at least four different types of dolphins in the area. They failed to find the miniature spinner dolphin, and they did not properly address the issues around the snub-nosed dolphin. They did not find turtle nesting sites near the James Price Point development site. Could that have been because they apparently carried out the survey in the non-nesting time? They did not find the bilbies using the terrestrial area. They downplayed the importance of the vine thickets in the area. They did not do the proper research on the importance of the dinosaur trackways in the area. The conditions on the protection of the dinosaur footprints are laughable, and they did not consider the interruption to the songlines associated with the footprints.

There were all these flaws, and I have not even touched on the issues around the importance of the area for dugongs and the fact that the proponents totally underestimated the impact of the development on dugongs due to the loss of sea grasses. They have not dealt with the fact that the development will move millions of tonnes of dredging materials or the impact that this will have not only on coastal processes but also on feeding grounds for turtles down at Quandong Point. Turtles there are already under pressure from the Gorgon development, which is occurring on one of the most important sites for endangered species on the planet—Barrow Island—on which, because it is an island, endangered species can be protected. All these flaws demonstrate both the 'development at all costs' approach taken in Western Australia—in the Burrup, we have lost priceless Aboriginal heritage—and the need for strong environmental protection laws at the federal level. (Time expired)

Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in this matter of public importance debate on the environment. I am proud to do so as part of the Labor government, which deeply believes in protecting the environment. To demonstrate this fact we only need to look at the scorecard of our latest achievements on the environment. Just last week Minister Burke announced a two-year ban on the supertrawler to allow an expert committee to assess the environmental impacts of large-scale fishing. Earlier this month Minister Burke announced that the government would recognise the Indigenous national heritage values of the Wet Tropics of Queensland in the existing Wet Tropics of Queensland National Heritage Listing. The Wet Tropics of Queensland were added to the National Heritage list in 2007. The Chair of the Australian Heritage Council, Professor Carmen Lawrence, said that she was delighted that the Indigenous heritage of the Wet Tropics had been included. She said:

The national Indigenous heritage values of the Aboriginal Rainforest People encompass a unique cultural heritage including dreamtime and creation stories, traditional food gathering and processing, and land management techniques.

The stories and traditions passed down from the ancestors of the Aboriginal Rainforest People enabled Rainforest Aboriginal People to survive in a difficult and challenging environment and continue to be valued today.

I commend Minister Burke for acknowledging the importance of the national Indigenous heritage values of the Wet Tropics of Queensland and for ensuring they are protected by their inclusion on the National Heritage List …

That is just one example of what we are doing up in the tropics in my home state of Queensland. Based on my experience with Indigenous elders up on the cape—I have conversed with the likes of David Claudie about that area and heard what he considers important for Indigenous people on the cape—I have to concur with Professor Carmen Lawrence's view.

Last week the minister announced the marine bioregional plan. We have the third largest marine area in the world with a $44 billion marine economy. The plan will ensure we protect this beautiful asset and that future generations can experience a healthy marine environment. However, on 16 November Campbell Newman's Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, the Hon. John McVeigh, said that the plan 'will destroy Queensland jobs and local businesses'. That is consistent with the rhetoric we have heard within the chamber today on this subject. He went on to say:

The impact across our fishing communities will be enormous.

These claims need to be disputed. I cannot work out why Campbell Newman's government hates the ocean so much. They argue about protecting the reef and now they are opposed to national parks in the ocean. From these comments, you can only assume they are opposed to their own buyouts, the ones they announced two days ago.

The no-fishing zones are many hundreds of kilometres off the Queensland coast. They are areas which most recreational fishers would never reach in a lifetime of angling. The Newman government's comments are extreme, bizarre and wrong. It would certainly take an effort worthy of The Guinness Book of Records for someone to cast a line from the coast to reach the Queensland exclusion zone, which is 300 kilometres out to sea.

Let's not forget the climate change policy this government implemented, a policy which was supported by the Greens in the end—after they had initially embarrassed themselves by voting with the Liberals and Nationals to oppose this important legislation to protect our environment. So do not come in here and make sanctimonious comments about our party being lukewarm on the environment and compare our policies to Mr Abbott's environmental policies. You are way off the track there.

I was really amazed to hear Senator Macdonald's contribution—his comment about Labor state governments not putting money into national parks. Just recently there was an announcement about jobs in the environment and national park areas of the Queensland government being terminated. How are they going to put money into national parks in Queensland if they are sacking workers—14,000 or more? And they are talking about us having no commitment to national parks. It is an absolute joke.

I will move on to what we are doing as a result of what came out of the April 2012 COAG meeting. We are going to prioritise the development of bilateral agreements, with frameworks and standards to be developed by December 2012. Those bilateral agreements are to be finalised by March 2013. In December, COAG will receive an update on the progress of discussions on bilateral agreements. Negotiating bilateral agreements is not about rolling back environmental protections; it is about reducing unnecessary duplication and time-consuming processes while lifting the states up to provide the same level of environmental protection currently provided by the Commonwealth.

In some respects, I have some empathy for the views embodied in this motion. I accept the point that Senator Waters makes about having concerns about the current Queensland government and their commitment to the environment and to national parks. In doing so, I refer to an article in the Courier-Mailnot always a paper you can rely upon, but in this case I will. The article is headed 'Newman government plan to open national park areas to logging and grazing'. It says:

Newly allocated national parks could be reopened to commercial logging and grazing under controversial Newman Government plans to revive the state's struggling agricultural industries.

It goes on to say:

Mr Dickson—

that is, national parks minister Steve Dickson—

told The Courier-Mail about 875,000 ha of state forest and former cattle stations recently gazetted as national parks were likely to be the first to be rescinded.

That certainly is a concern. I am personally concerned about that, given the beauty of my state of Queensland and of the many national parks I have been fortunate enough to be able to visit, to take my family along to and to camp in and enjoy.

One thing we are going to do through COAG is to bring the states into line with us—to make sure they are involved and on-board in accepting their responsibility to protect the environment. We will retain overall responsibility for providing protection on matters of national environmental significance. The aim is to focus on setting the national environmental policy agenda, including influencing the state outcomes, and landscape scale and strategic approaches to environmental conservation and investment.

A strong insurance framework is being built into the bilateral agreements under discussion with the states and territories. If they do not or will not accept their responsibilities, environmental decisions will remain with the Commonwealth and the environment minister. That is the relevant point here—it is about having the overall responsibility. If the states will not comply, it comes back to the Commonwealth and to the environment minister. That is consistent with my opening remarks, which clearly demonstrated this government's commitment to the environment. Our commitment is undisputed. No-one can come in here this afternoon and have a go at this government about our commitment when it comes to the environment.

On a personal note, I have on many occasions been fortunate enough to travel to the cape to see firsthand some of the areas which need protection. There was a debate in this chamber, before Senator Waters and some of the other Greens came into this place, about a bill to prevent mining on the Wenlock River, that beautiful pristine river.

The Wenlock River owes its existence and ongoing sustainability to several perched bauxite springs, which not only supply the river but also provide habitat for rare fauna and flora.

These are the areas that we need to ensure are protected, especially when you have a Liberal National Party state government like we have in Queensland considering opening mines in the cape hundreds of kilometres in size. They would cause enormous environmental vandalism to the likes of the Wenlock River. This is why we need to make sure, when we are having debates and discussions with state governments, regardless of whether they be Labor or Liberal National Party, that they are on the same path as us. Hopefully I will have an opportunity once again to go up there and enjoy beautiful environmental areas like the Wenlock.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This matter of public importance has been nominated by the Australian Greens. When we look at matters of public importance sometimes we need to look at their tone at the very outset, before we get into the detail. Today we are discussing the Gillard government's plans, at the upcoming COAG meeting on 6 and 7 December, to hand federal responsibility for protecting our nationally important wild places and most vulnerable species to state governments at the behest of big business. So it is evil big business that the Australian Greens would like us to focus the debate on—the pejorative term 'big business' is thrown in there at the end, that little swipe saying that anything business may want must be bad. That is not the case.

Far be it from me to have to stand here in this place and defend actions that the Gillard government may be taking, but equally there must be credit, to some degree, where it is due. In this case credit is due because the Gillard government is trying to work through the processes that exist within the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to facilitate arrangements where the states might be able to streamline some of these environmental approval processes. The coalition has a very clear standard about streamlining—we understand it is one that the government is seeking to apply as well—and that is that current environmental standards should be maintained. This should not be about stripping away standards, but it should be about improving efficiency—removing the costs and the complexity that all too often in Australia mean far too many developments face multilayered approvals processes that see cost and time and delays and uncertainty and hassles for investors mount as they try to get local government approvals, state government approvals and federal government approvals for development proposals. We think it makes sense to move towards something that is more streamlined but that maintains a core level of standards.

The coalition government was proud of its achievement in introducing the EPBC Act. My predecessor as a senator for South Australia, Robert Hill, was the environment minister at the time, and he would cite it as one of his great accomplishments—and so he should, because the act does provide some national standards for environmental protection. Those national standards should be maintained. But they should not be maintained as standards alongside the maintenance of some fake belief that it must all be done by the federal government in a bureaucratic and administrative sense—if the capacity is there, as the act provides for, for states to undertake some of these assessments in conjunction with their own assessment processes, then that is a perfectly sensible step to take as long as standards are maintained.

The coalition has identified very clearly that red tape and so-called green tape is a mounting problem for development in this country. The more investors see that it is going to take a long time and a lot of hassle and cost to get approvals, the more likely they are to think it is easier to go and do business elsewhere. If we can reduce the time involved, if we can reduce the layers of government they have to deal with, if we can reduce the complexity and if we can reduce the cost, we will maximise the chance of investors deciding that Australia is the right place to do business and bring their dollars to. That is what we should all want. That is why the Leader of the Opposition announced earlier this year coalition policy for a one-stop shop for environmental approvals, coalition policy that will seek to ensure that the states and territories can opt into administering a single approvals process under the Commonwealth EPBC Act for major projects so that there is a capacity for those dual assessments to be undertaken covering Commonwealth and state requirements at the same time.

Equally, we say that if the states would rather have the Commonwealth as a sole designated assessor we are willing to work through that process as well. So, from the coalition's perspective, our desire is not to be prescriptive about saying the states should do all of it or the Commonwealth should do all of it, but we should try to reach an outcome where you do not have both levels of government applying the bureaucracy and doing the assessments.

In addition to the single assessment process, we would also seek to create, working with the states, single lodgement and documentation processes for environmental appointments, once again seeking to reduce and minimise the paperwork, the green tape, the cost and complexity that comes with getting developments off the ground. We think that by offering this as an option to the states, rather than simply handing it over, we also create the capacity for some competition between the states. I happen to be someone who believes that if we are going to stick with this model of a federation then we should put the states to some work: give the states the capacity to compete against each other to see who can be the most efficient and effective at doing their job.

Once again, I stress that that does not mean that you undermine the Commonwealth environmental standards through that process. We would expect there to be, and would ensure that there is, strict application of those Commonwealth environmental standards. The option, as I said, would be before states and territories to have the Commonwealth designated as a sole assessor instead, if that were a preference. But the priority is to make sure we shift to a situation where there are not multiple layers of bureaucracy undertaking different assessments at great cost and great complexity to those seeking development approval.

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We already have existing arrangements; you know that!

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Waters highlights arrangements that may exist, and yet Senator Waters and the Greens seem to have this enormous problem and concern with the idea that those existing arrangements could be built upon and improved. With existing bilaterals in place, why can they not be built upon and improved? Why can we not work to an ambition of a one-stop shop? I hope that is what the government seek to do through the upcoming COAG meeting and through their work in this regard.

I am not afraid of the fact that big business might be advocating this. Governments should be able to respond to all stakeholders and all interests, including the so-called 'big business' in the Greens' motion. Respond to them, of course, knowing that they come with their own vested interests. And you need always to act with your eyes open to the vested interests of whomever is knocking on your door. But that does not mean that you reject all of their points and their views outright. You accept what makes sense and you apply the other necessary tests to them. In this case, what makes sense is to reduce the bureaucracy and to achieve a one-stop shop approach but to do so whilst maintaining your Commonwealth environmental standards as the minimum test through these processes.

So if the coalition win the next election we will certainly work through the type of process that I have outlined today and that Mr Abbott announced back in April of this year as coalition policy. If the government at the December COAG meeting is able to work through something similar, then we will welcome that. We will welcome anything where this government actually reduces the red tape and green tape that are clogging so much of business in this country at present. (Time expired)

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

We just heard that so-called green tape is clogging business in this country. Does that not tell you exactly where the government and coalition are coming from in this effort that is underway, driven by the Business Council of Australia? What has been put to COAG came straight from the Business Council of Australia; it is almost the exact language that they put forward. Let us not pretend that the whole purpose here is not anything other than, as Senator Birmingham just talked about, getting development off the ground and, as the government says, streamlining—and read for 'streamlining' 'fast-tracking'. That is what we are talking about here.

We know, those of us in the environment movement around the country, that when you hear the word 'streamlining' it means 'fast-tracking'. Anyone who wants to know what that means should just look at the pulp mill process in Tasmania, where we had so-called 'streamlining'. The then Premier of Tasmania, Paul Lennon, took the pulp mill out of the agreed assessment process because Gunns said that it did not suit them. They knew that they would not pass that process. It was taken out, and what did the Commonwealth do? Did it declare the whole thing null and void? Not on your life! Where is the compliance and enforcement? Tasmanians were put through years and years of division in the state and complete nonsense out of the state government in its assessment of the impacts on the marine environment.

It was the Commonwealth which at least came to the rescue on the marine environment, to actually have the capacity to look at genuine impacts. If it had been left up to the Tasmanian government, it would have been the pulp mill task force and the ridiculous claims by the pulp mill task force that there would be a level of dispersion and dilution of the effluent into Bass Strait. The reason they gave for that—and I will never forget the interview from the pulp mill task force—was that a dinghy that came off a fishing boat washed up on Flinders Island, and that proved that there was a sufficient current to get rid of effluent into Bass Strait.

That is the kind of nonsense you get if you rely on state governments. The fact is that, right around the country, environment departments in state governments have been so hollowed out that there is hardly any expertise left. Anyone who thinks that a state government would ask the Commonwealth to assess one of their projects that they want to be fast-tracked as a project of state significance, just get real. The whole point here is that they want to fast-track it for themselves and take away any kind of environmental protection.

That is where we are with the Tarkine in Tasmania. I know that my colleagues have talked about James Price Point and that they have talked about threatened species and so on around the country. I particularly want to talk about the Tarkine, where you have the Tasmanian Premier totally opposed to the National Heritage listing of the Tarkine, in spite of the fact that the Heritage Council recommended that 434,000 hectares be listed because it contained 'extensive, high-quality wilderness' and because 'largely undisturbed tracts of cool temperate rainforest are extremely rare worldwide'.

That is from the Heritage Council. But what do we have? We have the Tasmanian Premier and Deputy Premier saying that there is no way the state government would compromise Tasmania's mining potential, including heavily mineralised areas on the north-west and west coasts, and so they want all of those mine proposals in the Tarkine to proceed. And who would think for a single minute that if the assessment of the Tarkine were handed over to the Tasmanian government there would be anything like what the Heritage Council has recommended to the minister be protected?

That is the situation we now have. We have it at James Price Point, where the Premier of Western Australia wants the Kimberley opened up for development and wants it to come out of James Price Point. We see exactly the same thing in Victoria with the logging of the habitat of the Leadbeater's possum and in New South Wales with the koala, and elsewhere around the country. And of course there is the Great Barrier Reef, not to mention the Coorong and of course Kangaroo Island in South Australia. We are seeing it right around the country. The whole point here is that Julia Gillard, the Prime Minister, is going to abandon the legacy of the Hawke government, abandon that for Labor and give it away in order to please the Business Council of Australia and to fast-track the extinction of species. That is what this will do: fast-track the extinction of species and the loss of Australia's environmental values around the country and the fabulous habitats and places people love. It is a case of Labor and the coalition getting together to abandon 30 years of environmental protection for destruction, and that is a disgrace. (Time expired)

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for the discussion has expired.