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

I rise to speak in support of my bill, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Retaining Federal Approval Powers) Bill 2012. This is a crucial bill because it seeks to prevent this government or the next handing off responsibility for our nationally significant environmental icons to state governments. This would fly in the face of 30 years of gradually increased Commonwealth protection for the environment, and I am sure folk on both sides would remember that great intervention by then Prime Minister Bob Hawke where he stepped in after the Tasmanian government was prepared to dam the Franklin. It went all the way to the High Court and confirmed that the Commonwealth had a role in protecting nationally and internationally significant parts of our environment. That was a seminal moment, and yet it is that moment and the 30 years of environmental law that followed that are now at risk if this bill does not pass.

It warrants an examination of how we even got to this point. We have had John Howard's law, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which came in in 2000, and it always had this little section that said the federal government can give away its approval powers to state governments. No-one had ever used it before, and common understanding was this would be a crazy idea, a risky idea, something that simply would not happen—which is why it came as such a shock to the environment movement and to anyone in the community who cared about protecting our environment when in April of last year the Prime Minister, a day after a meeting with the Business Council of Australia, announced that she would be using these very provisions that John Howard put into our laws. Despite Bob Hawke's legacy, she would be using these powers to absolve the federal government of any environmental responsibility for approving projects that could significantly damage our natural icons.

There appeared to be no evidence base to support this decision, and yet all we had was the Business Council of Australia making claims that somehow there was duplication in the system. I want to come to those claims because, sadly, upon examination, they bear absolutely no weight. I say 'sadly' because it is a disappointment that a government has taken such a drastic policy decision with absolutely no evidence base to back it up. The business community has claimed there is duplication here, but the fact of the matter remains that we have already excised those parts of the law that allow assessment processes at the state level to be accredited. Developers do not need to do two sets of documents; they just do one set of documents under state laws, and then those documents get sent to the federal government, who apply a different test, look for different things and then give an approval or refusal—I wish there were more of those, but there have not been many—or place conditions on the development. So any duplication that might have existed in the system was fixed about five years ago with agreements between the Commonwealth and most of the states and territories—all of them, in fact, although one has now lapsed and will soon be renegotiated.

So any of that duplication has already been fixed; and, if there are improvements to be made to that process, fine. We will consider those. We have no problem with that. What I do object to is the Business Council claiming that there is duplication at that approval stage when they know full well that actually it is at the earlier assessment stage. I object to the government not requiring some proper evidence to back up those claims before it says: 'Yes, Business Council, we'll simply do your bidding. I, the Prime Minister, who railed against these very provisions when John Howard brought in these laws, will now use those very sections to opt the federal government completely out of protecting the environment and leave it up to the states.'

I want to explain why it is that we are so concerned about the states being in charge of our national environment. Perhaps Queenslanders will not need me to spell out just how disastrous Campbell Newman has been for our national environment since he took office, but I want to list the things that Campbell Newman has done. I will then talk about the record of some of the other state governments to show that these are the last people you want in charge of nationally and internationally significant environmental assets.

Campbell Newman, in his short time as Premier of Queensland, has managed to say that he will repeal our protection for pristine, free-flowing rivers—that is, repeal our wild rivers laws—despite the wishes of traditional owners, the vast majority of whom say they want those protections for their rivers retained. He is going to do away with protection for rivers and let the big miners and dams go in on our last remaining free-flowing rivers. He repealed our coastal protection laws shortly after taking office. This is the same guy who, when asked about protecting the Great Barrier Reef, said, 'Queensland is in the coal business,' so naturally he is going to be repealing any laws that put the brakes on that. His Deputy Premier famously said he thought concern for the reef was 'really a bit overdone'. The perspective on the Great Barrier Reef by Premier Newman and Deputy Premier Seeney is clear.

So those are wild rivers laws and coastal laws. Unfortunately, the story does not stop there. We have had the ban on uranium mining in Queensland lifted by Campbell Newman. It was a 20-year ban put in place for very good reason. And when we have just seen the second anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, who would want our uranium to be contributing to any such disaster in future? Yet that is what is on the books under Campbell Newman lifting that uranium mining ban. It is not the only ban he has lifted: shale oil mining is now back on the agenda in Queensland, effectively coastal strip-mining along that very reef coast that the LNP government thinks is overblown, and they are repeating that Queensland is simply in the coal business. Indeed it is in the fossil fuel business.

So wild rivers, coastal protection, lifting the shale oil ban, lifting the uranium mining ban, but it does not stop there. Approximately three weeks ago we had the ban on native forest logging lifted in Queensland. This was after a long and tripartisan approach to negotiating the end of native forest logging. This is where the state government, the environment groups and industry themselves got together to say, 'This industry is on its knees, let's phase it out. It is not good for the environment. There is $250 million, industry players. Let's transition to plantation forestry and save our native forests in Queensland.' Everyone agreed to that. The agreement was about halfway through its 30-year lifespan for a 30-year phase-out and all of a sudden Mr Campbell Newman has simply ripped up that agreement. He has not said anything about whether that money needs to be paid back to the Queensland taxpayer and has not said anything about whether he will now let the mining industry go into those forest reserves, although his environment minister has implied that.

So we have a clear agenda by this state government of destruction of Queensland's environment and the removal of any of the environment protections that Queensland had. They are the last people that you want in charge of our nationally significant icons, our World Heritage areas, our internationally significant wetlands, our threatened species that are at risk of extinction. And that is just Queensland; it does not stop there. People will be familiar with the New South Wales state government's agenda of opening up our national parks to shooters, which simply beggars belief given the danger to human life, let alone the ecological impacts of massive noise and disruption on these areas, which are meant to be there to protect biodiversity and protect those natural icons.

It does not stop there. We had the Victorian government wanting to put cows in the Alpine National Park. The federal minister in that case did step in and was able to say, 'Sorry, that's not acceptable. I'm going to use my powers to stop that.' That might be the last time those powers are able to be used. Unless this bill goes through to stop this government or future governments handing off their approval powers, the federal minister simply will not be able to stop actions like that in future. This is serious business here. We have at risk 30 years of environmental protection that has been built up to save our World Heritage icons, to save our precious threatened species. The problem is that those laws are already not strong enough to do the job, so why on earth are we weakening them even further and giving them away to cowboys like Campbell Newman and like the New South Wales and Victorian premiers? It simply makes no sense and it flies in the face of 30 years of the Labor tradition of having the Commonwealth play a role in protecting the environment. That is why we were so dismayed when the Business Council were so easily able to get the Prime Minister to say sure, she will use these provisions, she will hand off those powers.

That all unfolded last year. We then had the December COAG meeting and of course the Business Council love-in that happens the day before COAG now, again an initiative of this government. There appeared to be some pause that had been put in place. It was very unclear. There were some reporters who were tipped off and who covered it that day, but the communique itself that came out of the COAG meeting left the door wide open. It said, 'Okay, we are going to have another look at this issue but states should come back at the next COAG meeting with a more uniform proposal.' My point here is that this hand-off of power is not off the table. The Gillard government have not ruled it out. They have simply said to states, 'Gee, it was going to be a bit of a dog's breakfast. Some of you wanted some powers, others wanted others. This is going to make it complicated and we just want to deliver business certainty, never mind environmental protection. So you had better go back and come with a cleaner proposal, one that is a bit more harmonious and uniform, and then we will give you everything you want because the Business Council tells us to.' So the Prime Minister has not ruled out this reform, for want of a better word, because basically it is a massive backward step and it takes us back 30 years in environmental protection.

My concern is it that Mr Tony Abbott has confirmed, repeated by the opposition again this week, that they will use these powers in the EPBC Act to hand off federal responsibility to state governments. There is no doubt about that. Clearly there is uncertainty about whether the government now will; they are not ruling it out but who knows what they will do. The opposition have said they will use these powers. They cannot wait to use these powers. It was John Howard who put these powers in place in the first place.

So we have a situation where we have a window for this parliament to make a change for the future that will protect our national environment. We have a chance here with the parliament as it currently is to take these sections out of our national laws and make sure that the federal government will always have to give that final tick on damaging developments in World Heritage areas, in developments that might send a species to extinction. We can make sure the federal government will always have that role by passing this bill. It remains to be seen what the government and the opposition will do but there are indications on that in the Senate report into this bill, which I might say is an excellent report that then leads to some bizarrely unrelated recommendations. One could almost surmise that folk on the committee agreed with this bill but felt that politically they were not able to back it, but I will leave that for the commentators to speculate on. We now know that the opposition will use these powers. We have a window where we can make sure that Tony Abbott cannot trash our national environment and cannot leave it up to his state cronies to run our World Heritage areas into the ground, to send our threatened species to extinction. It is incumbent upon this Labor government to work with the Greens, support this bill and protect our national environment into the future. There is this one chance to Abbott-proof our national environmental laws. If the government do not take this chance and if they refuse to support this bill, they will be complicit in allowing either themselves or Tony Abbott's government, should the polls be borne out on election day—

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, the opposition leader should be referred to by his correct title.

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

Mr Tony Abbott. The government will be complicit in allowing either themselves or Mr Tony Abbott's government, should he form government after the election, to hand off those powers to state governments and to abandon our national environment to the whim of state governments, who will not act in the national interest. That is not their job; of course they will not. They are traditionally seen, and evidence bears it out, to be much closer to developers and to the big miners, although I am afraid that contention could also be put to the two big parties here.

I urge all senators to think long and hard about their position on this bill. I would be so disappointed, as would, I think, the Australian public—and anyone who has visited the reef and knows how beautiful it is and how important and fragile it is and anyone who has visited the beautiful forests of Tasmania and seen the wonderful koalas which are now nationally threatened and experienced the beauty and the joy of our national environment—if it is politics that stops this bill going through. When we have this one chance to make sure that our national environment remains able to be protected by our national government—as folk in the public expect that it should and would be—is politics really going to get in the way of a good outcome?

Perhaps I am naive to think that it is even possible that anything other than that might happen. We Greens stand here saying: 'You have a chance to stand to protect our national environment. Please take this chance. Remove those powers that would allow the federal minister to simply get out of the way and give the green light to state governments to trash the environment as much as they can.' What an absolutely dismaying and depressing outcome that could be.

I want to quickly touch on some of the reassurances that the Labor government have put. They said, 'Oh, it is fine if the states are in charge. It does not really matter who makes the decision, because we will have standards in place and they will have to adhere to the standards.' Coming at this issue as an environmental lawyer who practised in this area for 10 years, I have seen the standards that exist already for that assessment phase and I have seen how they have been breached on several occasions, not least by our Queensland Premier—to the extent that the federal minister had to step back in and take that assessment off Campbell Newman for the Alpha coal mine, Gina Rinehart's big mine, which, sadly, the federal minister then approved anyway.

So we have seen that the states will not comply with standards. There is nothing in the standards that obliges compliance. I asked this question both in estimates and in the Senate inquiry: what is the guarantee that these standards will be complied with; where is the reassurance? I was simply referred to that part of the law that says, 'The federal minister can revoke the whole arrangement if one person has breached one part of it.' Well, do you think that is likely to happen? That is certainly not what has happened so far in those assessment agreements. It is an incredibly unlikely outcome. What is far more likely is that you will see the state governments undermining those standards, letting development through that will trash World Heritage areas—sending threatened species to extinction and riding roughshod over wetland areas and other important international icons—and the Commonwealth will not be about to lift a finger to stop it.

This is such an important bill and I again urge senators in this place to search their consciences and think about the legacy that is at risk here if these sections remain in the law and allow a future Abbott government—or indeed even this government if the Business Council breathes down their neck again as it is wanting to do—to use these powers to hand it off.

I want to mention and thank all of the people so far who have supported the Greens campaign to protect our national environmental laws—the laws that protect the places that we all love. I want to thank the environment groups and I want to thank everyone who went to the trouble of making a submission in support of this bill. The vast majority of the submissions to our inquiry did support this bill. People know what the risks are if we do not pass this bill. They fear Campbell Newman being in charge of the reef with no check and balance at the federal level—and rightly so. So I want to thank those folk for putting their views on the record.

I want to urge senators to really listen to the evidence. We had some very compelling evidence presented in the Senate inquiry, including, I might add, from the environment department themselves, who confirmed that the Minerals Council of Australia and the Business Council of Australia actually had not provided evidence about duplication and delay, that they had given some anecdotes but there was no solid evidence that had been provided. That was a really shocking admission because it showed that the government was prepared to adopt a policy without any evidentiary basis, without any demonstrated need for a change. Frankly, it showed just how in the pocket of big business this government is. And, of course, we know that any future government from the other side of politics would be equally, if not more, in that same pocket.

We have the evidence that was presented so cogently to the Senate inquiry from all of the environment groups, from economists and from lawyers, all saying: 'It is really risky to hand off these powers to state governments. They could do serious damage. There are not enough guarantees that any standards will be complied with. There is a possible loss of public rights. This whole idea is insane. Please do not go ahead. No-one ever thought these provisions would be used. For heaven's sake, get rid of them so that we can always have the national government with that oversight role to protect our international icons.'

Again we have seen the Business Council and the Minerals Council making unfounded claims, seeking to get exactly what they want. It remains to be seen whether the government will still pursue this policy outcome. If they fail to vote for this bill, they are leaving open the option of either themselves or a Tony Abbott government using these powers. I believe that will simply lead the Australian public to the conclusion that only the Greens are prepared to stand up to protect our national environment, to protect our World Heritage areas like the Great Barrier Reef and the wonderful Tasmanian forests, to protect our nationally threatened species like the beautiful Leadbeater's possum in Victoria, and the koala—which is, sadly, now nationally threated. The public will know that only the Greens are serious about actually protecting our environment and that we are the only ones recognising that, in order to have a health economy and a healthy community, you need a healthy environment—and that requires proper federal oversight of damaging developments that stand to threaten these natural icons that could underpin a sustainable economy and give us all great joy for generations to come.

I look forward to the debate and I certainly look forward to hearing, hopefully, a change of position from the two big parties, although, sadly, I am not expecting to hear that. I look forward to the debate on this really important bill.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in opposition to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Retaining Federal Approval Powers) Bill 2012—and I do not rise in opposition to the bill on the basis of the arguments that have been put forward by Senator Waters. This plaintive plea that only the Greens are interested in the environment is so much rubbish—so much rubbish!

As a government I am proud of what we have done on environmental issues. You only have to look at the big picture issues that this government has addressed. We have finalised reform to the Murray-Darling Basin. We have created the biggest network of marine reserves in the world. Against huge opposition we stood up and said, 'We're going to make sure that marine reserves are in place and that we protect the wildlife.' We have set up a network of wildlife corridors across Australia. We have supported a network of indigenous ranges. We are cutting carbon pollution and driving investment in clean energy—solar, gas and wind. We are supporting Australian jobs in existing and renewable industries nationwide. At local level we are working to improve our urban waterways instead of treating them as a drain, as we have done in the past.

It grates when the Greens stand up and say they are the only people doing anything on the environment. They make speech after speech to say they are the only people interested in the environment, but that is not true. I do not think any politician comes here, either from the coalition, from Labor or as Independents, to think about how we can destroy the environment. No-one does that. It is an absolute nonsense to say that only the purity of the Greens has a way forward in terms of environmental matters.

The push on this bill, without dealing with a wider range of issues, proves my point on this. There is a range of issues that the evidence before the inquiry that I chaired has brought forward. The recommendation from the committee is for the minister to assess all of the issues, including the issues that the Greens have raised about ensuring that national environmental protections are conducted by a national government. But the Greens want to stand up and say that only they care about the environment—only they want to do something about the environment. The committee recommendation is that we look further at the issues that have been raised by the evidence to the committee on a wider range of issues than the Greens have raised in this narrowly based piece of legislation.

The Labor government is continuing to do work in environmental areas—in the Great Barrier Reef, in Antarctica and in the urban rivers area, as well as what we have done on global carbon pollution. So it worries me when the Greens come here and use the rhetoric of 'caving in to the Business Council', that here is a legacy that is at risk, and that the Labor government is in the pocket of big business. I invite the Greens to have a look at any of the newspaper reports over the last couple of years in the context of the business community to see whether we are in the pocket of big business. There is not a day that goes by without some big business leader trying to protect their vested interest against the protection that the Labor government is putting in for working people in this country, and we are maintaining a decent approach on taxation for big business. There is not a day that goes by when big business is not attacking this government. For the Greens to stand up and say that we are in the pocket of big business is a bit rich. What it really means—and I hate to agree with the coalition on this—is that they want environmental issues to be dealt with regardless of the social, economic or job impacts anywhere in the country. That is an unacceptable proposition.

There has to be some reality in terms of where we are, where we want to get to and how we deal with that part in the middle. How do we deal with jobs? How do we deal with the issue of communities depending on mining? How do we deal with communities that are building through coal-seam gas? How do we deal with communities that rely on the minerals sector for jobs? I am not here defending the Minerals Council. I am not here defending the resources sector. But you cannot just dismiss employment issues around the country on the basis that we should suddenly stop our mining industry and our minerals industry on the basis of this purity of environmental outcomes that the Greens keep arguing about. I do not buy that for a minute.

The Labor Party and the government is concerned about ensuring that we have proper and effective environmental protections in place, and it is not just Labor. It is interesting that, after going through this inquiry and having a look at the issues, it was a coalition government that brought in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. That became clear in some of the submissions that we had, where people were complaining about a change of position from the coalition in relation to their long-held position. In 1999 the former Howard government, through its representative the Hon. Dr Sharman Stone, MP, said that the EPBC legislation:

… enables the Commonwealth to join with the States in providing a truly national scheme of environmental protection and biodiversity conservation recognising our responsibility—

and remember, this is a coalition minister back in 1999—

to not only this, but also future generations.

It is not just the Greens who are concerned about environmental issues. Every senator in this place, in my view, is concerned about ensuring that the environment we leave to future generations is protected effectively, fairly and in a manner that does not destroy jobs, the economy or local communities. We have to manage those competing interests. That is what government is about, and that is what the Greens never seem to understand: there is a management task between the purity of environmental legislation and the need to ensure ongoing employment in this country.

It was not only Dr Sharman Stone; the minister for environment at the time, Robert Hill, noted that the new legislation 'provides for Commonwealth leadership on environmental matters and respects the primary role of the states in relation to on-ground natural resource management.' He went on to say:

The Commonwealth is ultimately responsible for ensuring that Australia meets its international environmental responsibilities and in our view must also demonstrate leadership on environment matters by, for example, working with the States to set national standards. The EPBC Act recognises the need for Commonwealth leadership and the reality that on ground delivery should be carried out as far as possible by the States . It allows this carefully balanced partnership between Federal and State Governments to be expressed through bilateral agreements. Under these agreements responsibility for certain matters may be delegated to the States subject to various safeguards contained within the new legislation and other safeguards identified in regulations under the Act. Under this model the Commonwealth and the community can be confident that the matters of national environmental significance are being protected by processes we believe meet best practice.

That was not the Greens that were arguing these points, that was not Labor, that was a coalition minister and a coalition front bencher back in 1999. Let us forget about this argument that it is only the Greens that care about the environment, only the Greens. We heard that word 'only', 'only, 'only'. If it was only the Greens there would be no jobs left in this country in areas where we have to get a balance between the environment and employment and local communities earning a living. If it was up to the Greens we would be in a lot worse position in terms of the balance between jobs and the environment. I do not say that a Labor government should ever capitulate to the simple argument about jobs when it comes to the environment. Sometimes there will be a need to say that the environment must come first. That is our international obligation on matters of national importance, on matters of international significance. The act as it stands at the moment, without any changes, makes the government deal with the issues of protecting the environment, promoting conservation and biodiversity, protection and conservation of heritage, promoting ecologically sustainable development, promoting a cooperative approach to protection and management and assisting in the cooperation and implementation of Australia's international environmental responsibilities.

After listening to the evidence that came before the committee I am inclined to the view, similar to Senator Waters, that it is not a good idea to send any powers back to the states. There are a number of reasons for that and I will come to that. The recommendation of the committee in its majority report is that we need to address a range of issues, not just this narrow aspect. We are asking the minister to have a look at the evidence that came before the committee. I am sure when the Prime Minister and the minister look at the evidence that came before the committee then any idea of sending powers back to the states will be quickly quashed. That would be my view. It would be my argument within the Labor Party that we should not do this.

But I do not want to just look at one narrow aspect of the bill when the minister is already looking at significant changes to the bill through a process under the Hawke review. There is a process already underway. This tries to pre-empt that process and I do not want to pre-empt the process because I want the minister to look at changes to the bill in the context of all of the evidence that has come before the committee. That is what the government senators argued in the bill. We have not hidden away any of the evidence that came before the enquiry. The report is broad based, it is accurate, it takes up the issues as to why we should not refer the powers back. We actually do outline evidence that came mainly from employers, to say that we should refer the powers back to the states, but it gets pretty short shrift from the evidence that is before the committee. The committee was not prepared to accept that so-called evidence, because there was nothing that came before the committee that would say we should do this. In fact when I was questioning Dr Dripps, who is leading the department's evidence on this, I said to Dr Dripps—and I quote from the evidence:

CHAIR: So there has been no evidence from the Minerals Council or the BCA to say : 'Here are the efficiency problems with the EPBC'?

Dr Dripps: Not that I recall.

CHAIR: I find that amazing because of everything you read in the papers. I went to Corrs Westgarth and their environmental lawyers are saying the efficiencies that can be gained by this are unassailable, but you have not heard of that, have you?

Dr Dripps: We are certainly doing some work internally—as I think Mr Knudson said at the estimates earlier in the week—to improve our efficiency, but in terms of the problem definition, I am certainly often confronted with generalities and I look forward to receiving any advice on specifics.

So what the senior public servant is saying is they have only had generalities; they have had no specifics as to why we should send powers back to the states. I said:

CHAIR: That is interesting Dr Dripps. That is all we have had. We have not had one hard piece of evidence before this committee that says that a federal government should change the EPBC Act to allow for the states to make assessments and approvals on the basis of these inefficiencies. I have not seen any, and you are saying you have not been seen them either.

Dr Dripps: That is right.

There is no evidence for what the Business Council is arguing. There is no evidence for what the Minerals Council is arguing. The senior public servants say that there is no evidence. I went on:

CHAIR: I just think it is very important. Your evidence tells us that there is no evidence that putting the federal powers back to the states will improve efficiency.'

Dr Dripps: I think what I said is that we have the publicly available reports and we have the same anecdotal evidence that has been presented to you—

CHAIR: So no hard evidence.

Dr Dripps: from the various industry organisations about the efficiencies and inefficiencies that occur in the administration of the act.

CHAIR: That means that there is no hard evidence; there is anecdotal evidence. Is that correct?

Dr Dripps: That is a conclusion from reading the reports, if you like.

So there is no evidence. In fact, we had expert evidence that the majority of delays are in the state processes, not in the federal processes.

The committee's report gives a number of recommendations. The first recommendation is:

Given the need to address a range of issues raised with the committee and associated with the reform of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, the committee recommends that the bill not be passed.

What we are saying there is simply that we should look at the wider issues that have been raised in the evidence, and that the minister should not dive in and get a change for one area of the act. The minister should look at all the evidence that has come before us and provide a comprehensive list of changes to the act to protect the environment. That is the minister's responsibility; that is the government's international obligation. We should only do it on the basis of the evidence that is before us. We have wide-ranging evidence and we should take in all the issues.

The second recommendation was that the minister analyse all the evidence and look at all the issues. We also say that the government should '…reconsider its position on the recommendation from the Hawke review for the appointment of a National Environment Commissioner and the creation of an independent National Environment Commission.' It is an important Hawke review recommendation and I think the government should do it. We are asking the government to assess that issue. We also say that the COAG processes—I have only a minute-and-a-half left—are not good enough, are not sufficient, are not the best way to deal with national environmental issues, unless there is fundamental change to how COAG operates in this area.

Having the Business Council and the business lobby coming to COAG without evidence and arguing for change is not a proper way for COAG to operate. There has to be proper analysis and it is good that the government has said, 'Whoa, we are not going to make these changes because there are significant issues to be dealt with.' Some of the significant issues are at the state level, where state governments have set about, as part of their austerity program, cutting jobs in environmental departments across the country. They are cutting jobs all over the place. They are trying to fix the environment by letting people go and shoot in national parks—that is the level of environmental understanding at the state level. Hundreds of jobs are disappearing.

The Premier of Queensland, Campbell Newman, argues in support of competitive federalism. Well, competitive federalism in terms of the environment is a race to the bottom. We are drawing all of these issues to the attention of the minister; that is why we are saying, 'Not this narrow piece of legislation before us. Minister, look at the broader issues that have been raised: how COAG operates, how we protect the environment, and how we meet our international obligations. That is the key issue.

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

I will start by doing something a little unusual in this place, and that is to agree with some of the sentiments of Senator Cameron.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, no!

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

It will do your reputation no good, I realise, Senator Cameron. But Senator Cameron rightly said that he believes every senator in this place cares about environmental protection. I believe Senator Cameron is right in that regard. Of course there are differences of opinion that exist right around the chamber, not only between parties but, I have no doubt, within parties as well, as to the extent of the types of protections that are required, as to the priorities of what needs to be protected, and as to the approaches of how the environment should be protected. But there is a consensus and a broad understanding and support that transcends across governments, that sees support across the board for environmental protection.

Indeed, as Senator Cameron rightly highlighted, the substantive act that we are debating today, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, was a reform of the Howard government, implemented and delivered by my former employer and a great senator in this place for a long period of time, former Senator Robert Hill. It is one of the great legacies of the Howard government that we implemented this reform and provided for effective national standards around environmental management.

The bill before us today, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Retaining Federal Approval Powers)Bill 2012, seeks to remove some of the original provisions from that 1999 act. Let me be very clear: the coalition's position as we come to this debate today is consistent, as it was when that act was passed in 1999. The bill that the Greens propose today seeks to remove provisions for which there is absolutely no evidence that those provisions have been abused; no evidence that those provisions have been misused. In fact, those provisions have barely been used. They have been used on just one occasion in the history of this act.

Senator Waters interjecting—

Senator Waters says, 'Exactly!' Well, exactly, Senator Waters, you are seeking to strip something from the act that, to date, no government has managed to find an effective way to make work. That does not mean that a government in future could not find an effective way to make these provisions work. Senator Waters wants to take out a flexible approach, a capacity to try to get some efficiency in the operation of the EPBC act, even though there is no evidence to say that there have been problems under such an approach, because she believes there might be problems under such an approach in future. The Greens, of course, in this sense, are equally being consistent in wanting to see the greatest level of bureaucracy, the greatest level of regulation, the greatest level of red tape and the greatest duplication across local, state and federal governments of assessment processes—all of which, of course, add to the costs in the economy and the costs of doing business and are to the detriment of the growth of business, economic activity and jobs in Australia.

The coalition's position as we come to this is very consistent. We support the provisions of the act that we were proud to pass when in government in 1999. We support key recommendations within the Hawke review, a substantive body of work that looked at and analysed the entire operation of the EPBC Act and tried to recommend improvements to it, which I will come back to shortly. We support our policy, announced during the term of this parliament, to implement a one-stop-shop approach that attempts to streamline environmental approvals processes without in any way undermining the standards of environmental assessments.

There is an important point to make here: that the types of reforms we are advocating and the types of reforms the government briefly stood for are reforms to try to get greater efficiency in our approvals processes but maintain the same level of standards.

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

It won't work.

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

Senator Waters says it will not work. Well, there we go—I am pleased to know that the Greens have got a great big crystal ball over in that corner of the chamber! I am pleased to know that the Greens know what the future holds entirely! I guess we do hear that from many in the Greens all of the time—that they know what is going to happen in the future and have supreme confidence that their outlook on the world is of course the only outlook on the world.

The genesis of this bill lies in a government policy that barely lasted for 12 months. It lies in the fact that this Labor government, for a brief period of time, attempted to have the same policy position as the coalition—a policy position of saying that we should attempt to follow the recommendations of the Hawke review, streamline some of the processes if possible, and get greater complementarity between what the Commonwealth and the states are doing in terms of environmental assessments, and, in doing so, maintain all of the standards. And, for a brief window there, the government agreed with us. However, the government changed its mind late last year after Senator Waters had introduced this bill and has since backed down yet again—another case of a government in disarray and a government that backflips on its promises and statements.

But I think it is important to look at the recommendation of the Hawke report that led to this process of changing the EPBC Act, or led to this process of the coalition and the government saying, 'We should have greater streamlining.' Recommendation 4 of the Hawke report—and it is a long one but I think it is important to put it all on the record—states:

The Review recommends that the Commonwealth work with the States and Territories as appropriate to improve the efficiency of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) regime under the Act, including through:

(1) greater use of strategic assessments;

(2) accreditation of State and Territory processes where they meet appropriate standards;

(3) accreditation of environmental management systems for Commonwealth agencies where the systems meet appropriate standards;

(4) publication of criteria for systems and processes that would be appropriate for accreditation;

(5) creation of a Commonwealth monitoring, performance audit and oversight power to ensure that any process accredited achieves the outcomes it claimed to accomplish;

(6) streamlining and simplification of assessment methods, including combining assessment by preliminary documentation and assessment on referral information and removal of assessment by Public Environment Report;

(7) establishing joint State or Territory and Commonwealth assessment panels;

(8) use of joint assessment panels or public inquiry for projects where the proponent is either the State or Territory or Australian Government; and

(9) greater use of public inquiries and joint assessment panels for major projects.

In the main, these are wise recommendations. In the main, these recommendations of the Hawke report would provide a step forward by seeing greater cooperation in a formalised sense between the Commonwealth and the states around assessment and approval regimes in a transparent way where processes are accredited, where they must meet appropriate standards, where those standards must be made public, and where there is an understanding and a review and continued assessment to ensure that systems and processes used by the states are appropriately upheld as a result of such accreditation approaches.

So the Hawke review outlined a comprehensive way in which the powers in the original EPBC Act as it still stands today could be used to engage the states in a bilateral assessment and approvals process in a way that would protect and uphold existing standards. As I said earlier, the Hawke review was a very, very comprehensive review.

The government, to its initial credit, indicated its support for those recommendations. The government, initially, in its response stated that the government was:

… committed to enhancing the scope and use of these mechanisms to reduce duplication of systems and provide more certainty for business without reducing protection for matters of national environmental significance.

Minister Burke went on in his response on 24 August 2011 to say that the environmental reforms included:

A more streamlined assessment process to cut red tape for business and improve timeframes for decision making, including an option for decisions on proposals within 35 business days, if all required information is provided.

He also committed to new national standards for accrediting environmental impact assessments and approvals to better align Commonwealth and state systems.

The government made very clear in its response to the Hawke review that it accepted, supported and embraced the review's recommendations to have greater utilisation of the bilaterals processes within the existing EPBC Act—the exact same clauses that the Greens, through this bill, seek to strip out. The Prime Minister took this approach to COAG and sought to begin the process of working with the states to actually try to get in place these reforms that would see a more complementary approach between the Commonwealth and the states to environmental approvals. What the Prime Minister said at the COAG joint press conference on 12 April 2012 was:

Look, what we want to work towards here is a streamlined system, so that projects don't go through two layers of assessment for no real gain.

And so the classic examples that are brought by business is where people have gone through sequential assessments, so it's double the time, things that have been required for the first assessment are required in slightly modified form for the second assessment, so they don't even get the benefits of just uplifting the work and re-presenting it, it's got to be redone.

So clearly that is an inefficient system.

In a press release she said:

At the inaugural meeting of the Business Advisory Forum yesterday, business leaders raised delays in environmental approvals and assessments as a major cost. These delays, due to duplicative processes across federal and state systems, can take businesses months or even years to resolve.

Today COAG acted on that concern and the Gillard Government and states and territories agreed to fast track arrangements to use state assessment and approval processes by March 2013.

Well, here we are in March 2013, and of course what happened is that at the end of last year the Prime Minister ran away from those comments. Even though the Prime Minister said, 'The removal of these regulations will protect the environment whilst ending the costly delays that result from double handling and duplication,' Senator Cameron claims in relation to issues around duplication and increased business cost that the evidence has not been provided to justify those claims. Senator Cameron comes in here and says—as he did through the committee process and in the committee report—that there is 'just not the evidence' to back up the claims that there are increased costs, that there is duplication and that there is any impediment to business through the operation of the EPBC Act and state environmental approvals processes at present.

Well, Senator Cameron must think that the Prime Minister had the wool pulled over her eyes when she made those statements. Senator Cameron must think that the Hawke review had the wool pulled over its eyes when it supported reform. Senator Cameron must think that Minister Burke, when he supported the recommendations of the Hawke review, had the wool pulled over his eyes. That can be the only explanation for Senator Cameron's views and the views of the Greens in this matter: that they think everybody on the government side was conned into supporting reform and was conned into believing there were higher costs.

The reality is that there was clear evidence. That evidence was supported by the Hawke review. That evidence of higher costs and duplication was supported by Minister Burke when he accepted the recommendations of the Hawke review. And the higher costs, duplication and impact on business were acknowledged by the Prime Minister at the COAG meeting in April last year. But something changed between April last year and December last year, when COAG was expected to sign off on changes that would try to achieve streamlining and greater efficiency. Something changed that caused the Prime Minister to once again backflip on promises made to the electorate, to business and to the Business Advisory Forum of COAG. Something changed that saw the Prime Minister simply walk away from these reforms.

I would love to know what it is that changed. Was it simply pressure from the Greens? Was it fear that the Greens, through this bill and other parts of their campaign, would launch some type of public campaign against the government? Was it fear that preferences might not be forthcoming for the government later on? We now know that since then the Labor-Greens marriage has technically broken down—

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A divorce!

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

that there is a technical divorce apparently occurring—thank you, Senator Williams. But what we see here is that even as the marriage was on the rocks, even as it was heading towards the end of its days, the government was capitulating to the demands of the Greens, despite the government's solemn public promises to the electorate and in particular to the business community to try to get greater efficiencies in place.

So what is the evidence? Amongst the evidence cited is the Deloitte Access Economics report of April 2011, a report provided—albeit late, but nonetheless provided—to the Senate inquiry into this bill. That report found:

There would be benefits to project proponents, Australian, state and territory governments and the economy from reducing delays in the assessment process …

The Deloitte report also found that the estimated benefit from reduced delays was $135.1 million in 2012-13, increasing to $288.4 million in 2020-21. In net present value terms, this represents a total gain to society of $1.19 billion. I repeat: a $1.19 billion potential total gain to society.

There is very clearly potential to improve the efficiency in the operation of the EPBC Act. It is very clear that that can be improved by making assessment processes better, but also by making approvals processes better, and that government should have in its armoury the flexibility to achieve and pursue both of those outcomes. As the Business Council of Australia said in its submission to the Senate inquiry:

The community must be assured that under the approvals system, Australia's unique environment and heritage values will be maintained or enhanced. This can and should be achieved without compromising the competitiveness of project proponents.

Australia's planning and environmental laws, at all levels of government, must facilitate the efficient approval of major capital projects upon which Australia's economic wellbeing is increasingly dependent.

The Australian economy is more reliant on the successful delivery of major capital projects than ever before. Business Council of Australia research indicates that by 2013, expenditure on capital investment is likely to grow to 30 per cent of GDP. A large part of all Australian economic activity will therefore be dependent on the success of major capital projects. Given Australia's increased reliance on major capital projects, it is imperative that all governments configure their environmental approvals processes to ensure decisions are predictable and timely.

It is all we are looking for here: efficient, predictable, timely approvals processes. Instead, we now get from both the government and the Greens a whole lot of furphies run up. We get a tax on the states over their so-called austerity measures—which actually, of course, are just measures to try to balance their budgets, something the Labor Party does not know terribly much about—and it is claimed that this means the states could not possibly be adequate to deal with any increased responsibility or shared responsibility through the use of approvals bilaterals. Well, that is why you put standards in place. That is why the Hawke review recommended that you put standards in place: to make sure that the states have to adhere to those standards, or the bilaterals simply do not take effect. We hear the furphies suggested: what about the states sitting in judgement on their own projects? Nobody is suggesting that they do that. We hear the suggestion made: will the states have too much to gain from economic activity—as if the Commonwealth does not have anything to gain from economic activity! When projects are approved, the Commonwealth benefits from the company tax take and it benefits from the increased income tax take. The Commonwealth has very direct benefit from project approval and economic activity. So all manner of furphies are flown here. In the end, the coalition believes this bill is unnecessary. These provisions that have been in the act since 1999 should be maintained and, indeed, we are committed to using them sensibly, cautiously, but proactively, to try to get the best environmental and economic outcomes for Australia should we be elected later this year.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is great to focus on the benefits to the states and the Commonwealth, Senator Birmingham. We did not hear much there about the risks to the states and the Commonwealth.

My journey to the Senate is very close to the bone on this topic of risks in assessments for large projects between the states and the Commonwealth. My journey really began by jumping a farmer's fence in Tasmania, going surfing—as we often do there—and talking to a few mates about a project that we had heard about: Gunns Limited were going to put a large pulp mill in the Tamar Valley and pump effluent into the ocean in Bass Strait, exactly where we were going surfing. It occurred to me, from chatting to some of the guys, that nobody really knew much about the project. So we wandered down to a place called Cow Head, we jumped into Bass Strait in the frigid winter, and I started thinking about this—what is this stuff that is going to go into the ocean, how much of it is going to be going into the ocean, where is it going to end up and what is it going to do?

When I moved to Tasmania in 2003, I do not think I classified myself as an environmentalist—certainly not as an activist. I went and met with Gunns Limited, I knocked on the door, and I made an appointment for a meeting, and I said to them, 'What's this business about you guys pumping stuff into the ocean?' It was probably too early then for them to give me any substantial detail, but the following nine years was my journey to find out about the risks of this particular project. As it turned out—and I will get to this a bit later in the speech—the only body that was assessing the risks to the ocean and the ocean outfall was the federal body under EPBC law, because it did not fall under state laws. The outfall was just far enough out to sea for it to fall under Commonwealth approval. I spent four years engaging in that process to get some scientific scrutiny on what this ocean outfall would do to a very special part of Bass Strait. I will get back to that in a minute, because it is really critical and it is a really good example of why devolving powers to the states is not the right thing to do. I also believe keeping a strong Commonwealth environmental law in place is the right thing to do not just in terms of the environment and for communities but also for businesses, for profitability and for certainty.

So why are we here debating the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Retaining Federal Approval Powers) Bill 2012 today? What is it that has drawn us to this issue? The answer is pretty simple: it is a big push by the business community to streamline—as Senator Birmingham was discussing—environmental approvals between states and the Commonwealth—quite simply, to facilitate economic development. Now, there is nothing wrong with appropriate economic development, and I have no issues with always searching for better efficiencies in systems and processes, but this system and process that we have in Australia between the states and the Commonwealth has been in place for a long time. A lot of work has gone into improving it and it is not a stationary thing. There are thousands of people employed in this area. I have worked with some of the scientists at the University of Tasmania, for example, who have been doing cutting-edge research on looking at biological offsets under EPBC law. A lot of research is constantly going into this area, to upgrade systems, checks and balances and protocols. So it is not as if the whole system has not changed. It is always a dynamic moving feast with a lot of good people.

The Business Council's central argument for rejecting the bill is that it will inhibit long-term economic development of the Australian economy, and therefore the broader wellbeing of the community. That is fine if you see economic growth and profitability as being the same thing as the broader interests of the community. In my opinion, most of the business community these days has moved beyond that assumption. That assumption is very much a last-century assumption. In fact, business profitability is closely linked to the health of communities and the two cannot operate without working together. They also argue that successful delivery of major capital projects is critically dependent on timely regulatory approvals and well-considered and well-managed regulatory conditions upon approval. If Australia takes too long to deliver approvals or the conditions placed upon approvals are unworkable, major capital projects will not proceed or will not deliver full value to their owners or to the Australian community. It has already been pointed out several times, including by my colleague Senator Waters, that there is no evidence or justification for these assumptions. In fact, even the BCA itself—the Business Council of Australia—admitted that the data to support this was scant. Nevertheless, it felt it was a reasonable basis to proceed with respect to entirely changing our national laws on approving major projects.

The Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee heard a lot of good evidence—I was not a part of that committee, but I have managed to read some of the information—but there was no empirical evidence to suggest that the current EPBC approval process is hampering investment or imposing unreasonable costs on individual projects. In fact, some of the evidence strongly opposed that and provided alternatives.

One submission which certainly caught my interest was from Economists at Large, who are partly commissioned by the Conservation Foundation to actually look into these assumptions of the Business Council of Australia. They came up with the following broad conclusions:

I would like to come back to that one in a moment in relation to the pulp mill. The submission went on:

And further:

Effectiveness is the absolute key point in the submission by Economists at Large. It is not just about business efficiency here; it is about the effectiveness of these approvals—an effective means of delivering social, environmental and business outcomes and not just for the short term but over a long period of time. They also went on to conclude:

I can certainly attest to the following from my own personal experience. The largest commercial project proposed in Tasmania's history, the Gunns Limited pulp mill, started at about a $2 billion capex but, over time, climbed significantly higher than that. It was to be assessed by the Resource Planning and Development Commission in Tasmania, the RPDC. That process took too long for Gunns Limited. The company pulled out of the independent process. Within a few weeks we had legislation before the Tasmanian parliament to fast-track the assessment of this project. We have since found out, through evidence provided by members of the RPDC, that Gunns was critically noncompliant in a number of key areas under the state assessment process.

However, after Don Wing, one of the longer serving upper house members in Tasmania's history, said that it was one of the darkest periods of Tasmanian parliamentary history, this legislation was rammed through both the lower and upper houses of parliament. I know because I was there lobbying as many people as I could to try to get them to see community concerns and not just take evidence from the proponents of this project. The legislation was rammed through parliament and passed into law.

I and a couple of other landowners in the Tamar Valley then challenged this legislation in the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful. The state government even went to the extent of putting privity clauses in place to prevent them ever having to provide reasons for the decisions that they made in relation to the biggest project in Tasmania's history.

That is a good example of a state government in bed with a large corporation, driving a project that was not properly assessed. The majority of assessment topics or points of assessment—such as air quality in the Tamar Valley; concerns that the locals had about odour issues, which are very common with pulp mills, particularly in a valley with an inversion layer; reputational impacts for the large and burgeoning wine industry in the area, which I was also a part of; thousands of truck movements a day, going in and out of this project; and numerous other concerns—were not covered off by the state based process, nor were some of them covered off by the EPBC process, because they did not fall under federal environmental law. I think that has also been missed here. The EPBC Act has very strict conditions in relation to what it can and cannot cover.

Luckily, for the people in the Tamar Valley and for me and my mates who surf in Bass Strait, the area that I mentioned that was covered by EPBC law was the ocean outfall. It is pretty hard to get surfers off their arse to do things, but we managed to get money and a surf rider group together to look into the scientific scrutiny of dumping 30 billion litres of industrial effluent a year, four kilometres offshore, downwind of our surf spot and 11 kilometres from seal colonies in one of the most productive salmon fisheries in Tasmania. We scraped together money. One of my friends paddled a kayak from Byron Bay down to Hobart and raised $60,000, which we used to fund a research report. We got volunteer pulp mill experts from all around the world, including from South America and Canada. We worked our networks as hard as we possibly could. We came up with a 68-page report, which we put to the RPDC, all based on input by some of the best scientists, including the Australian Maritime College, which wrote an entire chapter for us on the potential impact on marine species. This is all from volunteers, in their own time, with families, with jobs, with businesses, having to get this assessment done. Anyway, it went to the RPDC and of course we never got a response, because the RPDC process was cancelled. So we then went to the federal government. We met with then Minister Peter Garrett in his office in Maroubra. We also met with him later in Canberra with, at that stage, the shadow caucus and a large number of people and we lobbied really hard to get some work done on Bass Strait. I would like to put on record that my group at this point had never said they opposed the pulp mill project; they simply wanted the risks to the ocean to be addressed. As it turned out, Minister Garrett agreed with us: the modelling that had been done had not been based on any data collected in the field.

Gunns then had to go away and do the oceanographic studies that would show where this effluent would go. This effluent included dioxins and furans, some of the most toxic substances known to man. It took them three years to actually map how far this effluent would go. At the end of the day, the project then ran into global financial crisis headwinds and it never got off the ground. To this day, we still do not have the evidence back as to the potential impact of this project. It is a really good example of why we need federal environmental laws, because we would not have got that project assessed—just like all the other things that were never assessed.

Companies that just focus on efficiency rather than effectiveness think that that is good for profitability. I would argue that that is not the case. In fact, any financier for a project or any company looking at corporate finance, whether it is for a coal seam gas project, a new coalmine, a pulp mill or a forestry or a fishing operation, has to have a return, and risk is always written into that return. This risk-return relationship is very familiar to most university students or even to most finance students at school. The higher the risk of the project, the higher the required return for it to get financed.

In this day and age—in the information age where everything is online, where citizens are empowered to go onto social media, where messages are relayed very quickly and where blog sites are everywhere discussing these things—information is the key to the future for environmental awareness and education. It cannot be ignored. No matter what project we look at now, it will be scrutinised—if not by state governments, if not by federal powers, the community will scrutinise these projects. I have seen it not just with the pulp mill, where 20,000 people marched and hundreds of people I know gave up their time to make sure everything was scrutinised. Our group split up an 8,000-page environmental impact statement amongst 200 people. Everyone had to read a certain number of pages and report back.

If a community is motivated enough, they will scrutinise a project. It is dangerous for companies to assume that they can go ahead with large projects without that type of scrutiny. In the risk-return relationship, I would argue that not addressing all the risks comprehensively upfront is an enormous opportunity cost for companies and it is an enormous risk for their future projects. If things go wrong or the community are not on side and social licences have not been delivered, my experience is that shareholders will walk away—and shareholders are very easy to lobby these days in the new age of technology—ethical investors will pull their money and it is going to be very difficult for companies to operate in these environments. And, if the externalities that are created by projects are not assessed as well, eventually companies will end up having to pay for those externalities. It is much better for investors to get that information upfront before they proceed with a large project, no matter what it is. It is better for that information to come out upfront in a comprehensive form before they proceed with the project.

As for an extra layer between federal and state assessments increasing inefficiencies in the process and the idea that that is somehow a fillip to increasing sovereign risk of investing in Australia, I again highlight that this was disputed by the Senate inquiry as having no factual basis. Regarding sovereign risk, go and speak to Tom Albanese, the recently departed Rio Tinto CEO, and ask him about sovereign risk. We often hear this throwaway line that a carbon tax, a mining tax or federal approval processes are increasing sovereign risk and that companies are going offshore, that they are taking their money and their investment elsewhere and that this is impacting on jobs. What evidence is there of this occurring?

Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Look at west Africa.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, look at what happened in Mozambique—my point exactly. Mozambique was going to be Rio Tinto's new, big greenfields coal site—one of the biggest coalfields in the world. Look at what happened: $14 billion in write-downs. 'Thank you very much. Thanks for coming. There's the exit, Tom Albanese, see you later.' Just because we have an efficient system in this country for assessing environmental projects on a federal and state basis does not mean that we are a high sovereign risk.

I have here the SmartMoney list of countries for sovereign risk, political risk and country risk. I used to teach this to my students. Australia is in the top 10 and has been for a long time. Mozambique is about No. 48 on a lot of different factors. Go and read that and then tell me that companies are going to leave this country—a stable political environment, English-speaking and with long track records—and take their billions of dollars elsewhere. It is the No. 1 argument that I hear on that side of the room and it is rubbish. Yes, they will diversify their portfolios; they will always look for projects offshore to diversify their earnings—they need to do that from an exchange rate point of view. The idea that they are somehow going to dump Australia is false. We need to maintain our federal environmental powers in balance with the states. That is why this bill needs to be supported.

Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Retaining Federal Approval Powers) Bill and I want to thank Senator Waters for bringing forward this bill on this important issue because I think our environmental regulatory system is certainly one well worthy of discussion in this place. I also want to acknowledge the discussion and the deliberation that has already taken place amongst senators about this bill, both those who participated and are on the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, also the contributions thus far from Senator Cameron, Senator Birmingham, Senator Whish-Wilson and Senator Waters. Also, I would just like to acknowledge the input that has come forward from environmental groups. I have met with many of them such as Birdlife Australia, Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, the Nature Conservation Council of New South Wales, the ACF, the WWF, Environment Tasmania, and there are others of course that have been involved such as Greenpeace and Wilderness Society.

By way of background, I would just like to talk about how this came about from the government's perspective. On 24 August 2011, the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities released the government response to the independent review on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999—also known as the Hawke review—as part of a broad package of reforms for Australia's national environment law. This review was proactively commissioned by Labor in an effort to improve our environmental regulatory system. Indeed, the aims of the review were to promote the sustainability of Australia's economic development, to reduce and simplify the regulatory burden and ensure activities under the act represent the most efficient and effective ways of achieving desired environmental outcomes.

From that, you can see it was very much a broad ranging review looking at environmental law in this country. COAG then agreed on 13 April 2012 that the Australian government would work with state and territory governments to develop bilateral arrangements allowing the Commonwealth to accredit state and territory assessment and approval processes. In particular, it was considered by the government, and by many in the community, that a strong uniform national approach to environmental regulation would enhance proponents' capacity to comply with important environmental conditions and government's capacity to regulate that and facilitate development.

It was claimed that a single system would allow proponents—often dealing with complex projects by businesses that operate across boundaries—to understand the expectations of them more easily when it comes to environmental protection, and that it would help facilitate the aim of the EPBC, which is to provide a coherent national assessment process. However, it must be remembered that turning assessment and approval powers over to states and territories is not, and was not, supposed to be an end in itself. It is a proposal that some may say had merit if it helps strengthen Australia's capacity to provide for environmental protection and conservation. However, it has since become clear that the states and territories take a variety of approaches to environmental assessments, seemingly with some very different motivations, one may say; a different emphasis on different parts of the process and with a wide variety of different capacities to deliver on important environmental regulation.

It is also very concerning that coalition states in particular, do not seem able or willing to properly manage any sort of approval powers that they have at the moment. Indeed, we only have to look back at the Queensland government in particular who, late last year, showed itself to be very much reckless with environmental issues associated with substantial developments, and unwilling to go through a proper assessment process. When I am talking about the Queensland government, I speak in particular of the Alpha coalmine. One only has to think back to that not so long ago. This was a project that ultimately received approval from both levels of government, but the Premier of Queensland, Mr Newman, effectively described the environmental oversight as a stop in the way, asking federal Minister Tony Burke to, 'get out of the way'.

Minister Burke of course was simply doing his job under the Environmental Protection Biodiversity Act, making sure that the development conformed to the best environmental standards, the standards that Queenslanders and all Australians I am sure would expect. Minister Burke said at that time:

If what the Premier of Queensland wants is for me to give approvals without conducting checks, then I will stand in his way.

And I am pleased that the Minister Burke said that. He said:

If he wants us to trash the Great Barrier Reef … we will stand in his way. If he wants to clear-fell every acre of koala habitat in South-East Queensland, we will stand in his way.

Amongst the range of environmental concerns excluded from the assessment were the management of wetlands and the impact of run-off and coal dust on the Great Barrier Reef, among other conditions. From that you can see very much the role that the federal government needed to play in the Alpha coalmine development proposal, and that federal government has always needed to play in a range of environmental assessment projects and proposals.

I want to acknowledge the role that the federal government has always played in environmental protection. In doing that, I have to say that I reject the Greens comments about being the only party which cares for the environment. That is the furthest from the truth. I think the example that I just gave from the minister for the environment, Tony Burke, in relation to the Alpha coalmine very much demonstrates that. We only have to go back a few decades in history, or even less, to look at the role that Labor has played in caring for and protecting our environment, a role that I am incredibly proud of. We can look at the Hawke federal Labor government, for example, that intervened in the case of the Franklin Dam in my home state of Tasmania, a campaign that was very close to my heart. They intervened on the basis of a campaign which was waged by many Tasmanian and national Labor members and friends. In fact, that was one of the reasons, I have to say, why I joined the Labor Party, because of Labor's stand on the Franklin Dam.

While I will acknowledge the role of campaigners like Bob Brown and Christine Milne, equally important to our environment were people like former Tasmanian Treasurer Michael Aird and supporters within the Whitlam and Hawke governments. One member of both of those governments particularly dear to my heart is the former minister Tom Uren. Tom Uren, as many of you would know, turned 90 not long ago, and in the Australia Day honours awards he was given one of the highest honours that Australia can bestow on an individual: the Companion in the General Division of the Order of Australia.

Tom Uren was indeed an incredible champion for the preservation of heritage and areas of environmental significance. He was a champion for the environment long before the Greens party was even a thought. In 1970, Tom Uren spoke out on the environment. He spoke out on a range of environmental issues, including highlighting the devastating fact that the Shell oil refinery at Clyde was blowing 30 tonnes of sulfur dioxide into the air every day and leaking oil into the Duck River, a tributary of the Parramatta River that ran through his electorate. He spoke up again in my home state of Tasmania on the protection of the glacial jewel Lake Pedder and called for a halt to plans to drown Lake Pedder. He also supported the conservation of Sydney's natural and built environment. I have to say that Tom Uren has been a hero to me. He is someone of incredible strength and character and was incredibly deserving of that Order of Australia medal on Australia Day.

Of course, there have been others as well. A number of people in Labor have stood up and championed our environment. It was federal Labor that helped to embed environmental protection into the policy agenda for all Australians and to raise the consciousness of the environment of the Australian people. There are other examples I could share with the Senate. They include the Traveston Dam, the Daintree and Kakadu, a place that Minister Tony Burke only last month finished the job of protecting by moving Koongarra into Kakadu National Park, another iconic decision by a Labor government that has a deep and abiding belief in the protection of our most precious places. So federal Labor has helped to change that culture and to make environmental protection a basic requirement, and I have to say that is a legacy that I am proud of.

The bill before us today has gone through the Senate inquiry process, and the recommendations that have been provided by that committee say that we do actually need to look wider at the range of issues that are involved when we talk about federal environmental protection than those which the Greens have put forward. I think that is the basis of why we are in this voting position on this particular piece of legislation. If we want to talk about the specifics of this legislation, I think we need to look at where we are right now in relation to it. As I said before, we had the COAG process that began in April last year followed up by COAG again meeting in December last year and being advised that negotiations would not be progressed given the significant challenges that emerged in developing agreements. So, as far as any kind of approval of bilateral agreements between federal and state governments, COAG have now moved to a situation of not progressing this issue further. I have to say that, personally, I am pleased with that in the sense that we can now look broadly at the recommendations provided by this inquiry into the bill that Senator Waters has brought forward. We can look at the importance of the federal government in environmental protection in our nation. We can again draw on some of the history that I have traversed thus far. We can also then look at other ways. If we are talking about achieving efficiency, if we are talking about looking at the breadth of the Hawke review, let's look at other ways of achieving efficiency than this approval of bilateral agreements.

And there are other ways to achieve efficiency in environmental law that do not rely on handing federal approval powers to the states. For example, undertaking strategic assessments of developments in a region or urban setting often benefit businesses far more than delegating approval powers to states and will result in avoiding thousands of project assessments. I understand that since August 2011 the government has doubled the number of strategic assessments undertaken. I think we need to pursue what will work and what does not work in looking at efficiencies. What has been made clear—and why COAG had negotiated to the point where they were last December—is that what will not work is approval powers to the states. We have coalition states in this country that are unwilling and unable to get their own houses in order, let alone deal with the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and its details of assessment as well. Queensland is a very poignant example of a state government that either does not care about the environment, has not got the capacity to understand how to deal with the environment or simply has not got the ability and the right people to get that work to happen.

So I am pleased with where COAG has found itself in that regard, but I think we can come together in the sense of looking at other ways we can improve things. I agree that it is a waste of time for both state and federal governments to be doing approvals on the same environmental factor. There should be some diminution of those issues that states look at and federal. But the overarching final say and need for final checks and balances should be done by the federal government. I have always believed that. I believe that what we have seen through this inquiry and its report, which is a good, detailed report into the particular bill that Senator Waters has brought forward, is a whole range of issues that come out of the role of the federal government in its approval process for various developments and the lack of resources and the limitations that state governments have in their approval processes as they currently stand, let alone loading the federal approval processes to them on top of that.

As I said before, I am very proud of the fact that Labor has a good, strong record of standing up for our environment. You only have to look at our introduction of carbon pricing last year, which again adds to ensuring that we care for our environment and for the people living in our environment in Australia for decades to come, doing so at a national level but through that carbon pricing at an international level in leading to an emissions trading scheme that we will trade with other nations on, all in the name of reducing man-made pollution that we continue to contribute into our environment, with the detrimental effect that it is having on our sea-level rises and the ongoing effects that will have in other parts of our environment and on the people that live in it.

The recommendations have made it very clear that any streamlining and strengthening of environmental regulation has to take into account our national and international obligations. We have to look, therefore, way beyond what is currently before us. We have to look at the whole breadth of the issue of environmental law and the whole breadth of the Hawke review when we are talking about any kind of efficiency gains that we may want to achieve through environmental assessment processes. But clearly the approval bilateral agreements process is not one that is currently, as I understand it, on the COAG agenda. We have seen that the states are simply not in a capacity to do that. That should give some comfort to those campaigners, those that appeared before this inquiry, those that have worked in the environment and continue to do so each day, knowing that we are in fact at a point now where states and the federal government will not be reaching any kind of bilateral agreement position.

I am proud of Labor's commitment to working on environmental issues. We need to ensure that we have the best environmental regulations, because you only get really one shot at getting it right when you are talking about the environment. We have learned from the past mistakes that have been made in some areas of our environment when we have unwillingly seen decisions made such as in relation to Lake Pedder, to use my own state example again, which unfortunately was drowned, and I know there are still some campaigners out there who would like to see it drained. We have seen also some really important gains made by federal Labor governments who have a long record of standing up for the environment. That is something that I am very proud to see as we go forward in this century.

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

Liberal and National party governments in Australia have a very proud history of environmental protection. Our contribution is one of the reasons why today our nation is amongst the world's great environmental achievers. The history of the coalition's contribution to Australia's environment goes way back to the Menzies years, and for the Greens to come in here today and say that they are the only party interested in the environment shows what a loony left-wing ratbag mob of people constitute the Greens political party.

As always, and history will show this, the environmental advancements that have been made in our country have been done by Liberal and Liberal-National Party coalition governments. We do not just talk about it, we do not take the sexy, popular, top of the mind issues—we do the serious environmental work. I will go through some history to demonstrate that. But do you ever hear the Greens talk about the weed menace in Australia? You hear them talk about the Barrier Reef because that is popular and they can get a couple of votes out of that. But one of the greatest environmental problems for Australia is weeds. It costs Australia something like $4 billion a year. Do you hear the Greens or the Labor Party ever talk about weeds? No, because that is a rural thing; it is not sexy, it is not front of mind, so they do not care. But the Australian government, I am proud to say, in the time when I was conservation minister, put $40 million over a three-year program to try and make a dint, and it could only be a dint, a start on trying to address Australia's real weed practices.

Like Senator Birmingham, I am a little shocked to be agreeing with Senator Cameron on anything at all, but I do have to say that right up until the last part of the speech I thought it was very good and that Senator Cameron, after three or four years now being the Greens' closest ally in this parliament, has suddenly turned on them with a vengeance, and in that turning Senator Cameron has found truth at last when he talks about the record and the stupidity and the dishonesty of the Labor Party's former very close allies in this parliament. Well, they are still close allies. The Greens will never vote against anything Labor does, but clearly the marriage has soured a little bit in recent times—and Senator Cameron's honesty exemplifies that.

But I go back to the Liberal government of Robert Menzies. The Menzies government was the first to sign the Antarctic Treaty and enacted and presided over the foundation of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, the CSIRO. That in itself in those early days was the foundation upon which environmental policies past and present have been built and continue to be built. The work of the Menzies government continued right through to the Howard government, and I just want to mention some of those achievements of Liberal and National party governments.

Funding for the CSIRO from 1949 to 1966 increased by almost 1,000 per cent—from $4 million to almost $41 million. It was the Menzies government that addressed the rabbit plague. You do not hear about that from the Greens these days, but that was a serious environmental problem for Australia. That was addressed by the Menzies government with, amongst other things, the myxomatosis virus that was introduced. During the time of the Menzies government, Australia was one of the 12 original parties to the Antarctic treaty, which has done so much to protect that southern continent.

Australia's first office of the environment was created under John Gorton's Liberal government. Indeed, the first federal environment minister, Peter Howsen, was an appointment of the McMahon Liberal government. Work on establishing a program to protect the Great Barrier Reef and other national parks commenced in 1972—again in the time of the McMahon Liberal government. You might remember—though it is not talked about much these days—that the Australian and Japanese governments back in those days signed treaties to protect endangered migratory birds. These are just some examples of the work that Liberal and National party governments have carried out since time immemorial in Australia.

It was a Liberal government that attended the Stockholm conference where there was overwhelming approval given for a moratorium on the commercial killing of whales. Indeed, it was the same Australian government that was very much to the fore in the regulation of ocean dumping and the establishment of the World Heritage Trust to preserve wilderness areas. Those of my era at least can remember the trauma over the preservation of Fraser Island, off the Queensland coast. Was that dealt with by a Labor government? No. It was dealt with by a Liberal-National party government, and Fraser Island has been protected. The National Estate was formed by a Liberal government. Uluru National Park was proclaimed under a Liberal and National party government.

Time will not permit me to go through the whole list, but it was Liberal-National party governments that established the first nuclear codes to make sure that radioactive waste was dealt with appropriately. It was Liberal-National party governments that developed stage 1 of the Kakadu National Park. The Wild Protection Act was another initiative of Liberal-National party governments.

The Fraser government nominated three sites in Australia for inclusion on the World Heritage List—the Great Barrier Reef region, Kakadu National Park and Wilandra Lakes. Do you ever hear any acknowledgement from the Greens about the work that Liberal-National party governments have done on the Great Barrier Reef? Indeed, it was Liberal-National party governments that inaugurated the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Act in 1981. In the same year, the Fraser government declared the Cairns section of the Great Barrier Reef as a marine park. It was the Howard government that established the $1 billion trust fund for the protection and rehabilitation of Australia's national environment. Since then, that fund has contributed some $5.1 billion to the protection of Australia's natural assets.

To suggest that the Greens are the only ones in this chamber that care about the environment just shows how illusionary and delusionary are those people who support the Greens. It was the Howard government—and again I am very proud because I had a small part in this—that established the regional forest agreements in Tasmania that led to nearly half of Tasmania's land mass being preserved for forests. The first Australian Greenhouse Office—the first greenhouse office established anywhere in the world—was established by the Howard government. The first National Oceans Office was established by a Howard government. We also launched the first coordinated strategy to protect native species. Salinity and water quality is another one. Remember that? Just a few years ago under the Howard government there was a massive investment in that.

These are genuine, real environmental protections for our country—the sorts of things that have never been replicated by the Labor Party in the years they have been in government and will certainly never be addressed or implemented by the Greens political party. As others have said in this debate, the strongest-ever piece of federal environmental legislation, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, was an initiative of the Liberal-National party government. We designated six wetlands for inclusion on the Ramsar site. One area included in the Ramsar wetlands register is around the Ord River, a man-made lake which has been so successful that it has built one of the great natural reserves for wildlife at the present time.

I could go on, but my time will run out. Suffice it to say that the green zones in the Great Barrier Reef caused us a lot of political difficulty. They caused the taxpayers to fork out something like $200 million in compensation, and it is still going, yet that was done. Not only do we make the right environmental protection but we also make sure that people do not suffer. That is why that adjustment package has helped those who used to rely on those areas to get through that difficult period. But you did not see that with the Labor Party's current proposals for bioregional planning. They just want to lock things up—things that in many instances do not need locking up. They want to destroy businesses and communities and they want to talk about compensation, but mark my words: no Labor government will ever provide compensation for the hurt it has caused in some of the things that have been done. We also committed almost $400 million to protect Australia's fisheries from illegal foreign fishing. It is not sexy anymore—do you ever hear the Greens or the Labor Party talk about that? In fact, the Labor Party have taken away the specific vessel that the Howard government acquired to look after our fisheries protection—it now runs a taxi service off Christmas Island. We have a very proud record.

I turn to the bill before the chamber that the Greens are proposing. The Greens are concerned with preventing the states and the Commonwealth working together in enforcing, planning and implementing all of the environmental regulations and, sometimes, good works that are done by federal and state governments. What the Greens want to do, for some reason that I can never quite understand, is to make it so difficult to get through the green tape and the red tape that people will not bother developing Australia. You will never look after Australia's environment if the country is broke. All the way through, the Liberal-National Party governments have been able to make a real contribution to Australia's environment because we had strong economies. Now we have an economy that is so weak that from an $80 billion surplus under the Howard government we now have a $200 billion deficit that is spiralling downwards. You cannot run a strong country and you cannot look after the environment if you have a poor economy. Thanks to the Greens siding with their mates in the Labor Party the Australian economy continues to fall. The Greens succeed by making things so tough that nobody wants to invest in Australia. Nobody wants to create jobs in Australia any more.

On this particular issue before us of state and Commonwealth approvals for various things, there was an aquaculture prawn farm. One would have thought that even the Greens would have thought that prawn farming was a good idea, but no. I do not want to mention names because it is pretty clear these days that if you cross Labor ministers, particularly Mr Burke, you will be in it in the future. They deliver retribution if you should so much as criticise, so I will not mention names here. A group was wanting to put in a prawn farm near where I come from. They spent literally millions of dollars getting state approval, the most exhaustive process they went through. Having achieved state approval—and this was under a state Labor government—they then had to do the whole process again to satisfy a federal Labor government that the state approvals were in order. Upwards of $15 million was spent on approvals for a prawn farm which under any definition would have been good for the environment, good for the economy, good for Australian jobs and good for trying to give Australians the opportunity of buying Australian produced seafood rather than the 72 per cent of imported seafood that Australia currently has.

The Liberal and National parties, both at state and federal levels, want to reduce the red and green tape compliance burden. That does not mean to say we want to lessen the requirements for proper development or environmentally sustainable development; the rules stay, both state and federal. But let us at least have one group of officials and bureaucrats who can assess all of those things and give a final tick-off or a final rejection to development plans.

My state of Queensland is littered with projects that struggle to get state approval. I must say, with Campbell Newman's government there are at least more resources and some urgency put into dealing with them—not necessarily approving them, but dealing with them and giving people an answer. But then people have to turn around and do the whole process again. There are any number of projects in my state of Queensland that are held up because they simply cannot get a decision from the Commonwealth environment minister. The Commonwealth environment minister, Mr Burke, is that great intellect who as fisheries minister encouraged people to invest in a supertrawler, then became environment minister and, after these people had taken his word and invested their money in this supertrawler to sustainably fish a fishery, axed it. One wonders why Australians and foreign investors are starting to think very seriously about any investment in jobs and development in Australia. If we do not have jobs, if we do not have an increasing gross domestic product, we will never have the money that is needed to address some of the real environmental problems Australia has.

What do the Greens want to do? They want to make it difficult. They want to add to the red tape add to the green tape; they just want to make it so difficult that people will not want to invest in Australia. When that happens Australia loses economically and we are less able to address, with money, the things that only money can address in the environmental world.

I conclude by saying how proud I am to be a member of a party that has done so much for the protection of our environment and heritage in this country, a party that believes that a good economy and a good environment are not mutually exclusive. Most Australians now understand you can get the best of both worlds. You can get a good economy, you can get good jobs and you can look after the environment at the same time, as our history has proved we have done. Therefore, I join my colleagues in rejecting yet another attempt by the Greens political party to make development in our country impossible and therefore robbing Australia of the money that it needs to address the environmental problems that we face.

Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do congratulate Senator Larissa Waters for her strong campaigning for the environment and for bringing to this Parliament this important private member's bill, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Retaining Federal Approval Powers) Bill 2012, about retaining the federal approval powers. It is certainly what is needed and the speeches that we have heard from coalition and Labor senators remind us of how important this legislation is.

It is very interesting to hear how similar those speeches are. When it comes to considering how we strengthen environmental protection we see the coalition and Labor really involved in quite an ugly collaboration. Despite the statements that we have heard from Senators Cameron, Birmingham and Macdonald, we obviously know that there are people from other parties who enjoy the environment. We are not denying that, that is ridiculous, that is a red herring. What is being addressed here is about protecting the environment. Those speakers, Senator Cameron, Senator Birmingham and Senator Macdonald, had a very similar theme to their speeches. They are just avoiding dealing with the all-important issue of how we tighten up the protection. What we have seen under successive federal and state governments is these laws being weakened. That is why Senator Larissa Waters's bill is so important.

The Greens strongly oppose the coalition and the Labor government ganging up to hand over federal responsibility for protecting our national environment to state governments. These state governments are so often pro-mining, pro-logging, pro-shooting in national parks; they do not have the commitment to ensure that the all-important green corridors are there; they do not stand up to the big end of town that so often put their profits before the all-important environmental protection. These state governments are not actually committed to working to get the balance right. When you have governments like that, that just open the door to those companies, it is clearly time to look at the laws closely—and thank heavens we have this bill before us.

We know the current environmental laws are failing us. We have already lost valuable places and endangered wildlife species due to rapid and damaging developments surrounding these precious places. I have seen that up close in New South Wales. Again it was where we saw a very ugly cooperation between Labor and the coalition parties weakening planning laws in New South Wales to allow rampant development, often in areas of important environmental significance.

It is worth putting on the record that one aspect of that planning law that became so notorious in New South Wales was called part 3A. As we would all know in this place, we might be working on legislation but once you are out mixing with the public people rarely know parts of the act. But part 3Abecame very well known amongst the public. People knew what that meant to their local area. It meant community consultation was ended and it gave enormous power to the planning minister of the day, where he or she did not even need to take advice from their own director-general. That was a change to the planning laws brought in under the cooperation of Labor and the coalition. That is a theme of environmental protection in this country in recent times, and in this debate we are seeing the cooperation between these two parties very clearly and very blatantly.

We need to strengthen national environmental protection but, instead, Minister Burke is preparing to hand over his responsibilities to state governments. The minister, under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, has the power to protect places and animals that we know are so important to Australians. People value our wildlife, they love our precious places, our natural environment. We also know that the law that provides protection is already minimal, already provides very little protection. We cannot go backwards. That is what this important bill that we are debating today addresses. Australia faces a biodiversity crisis.

History shows that state governments cannot be trusted to step in, deal with and stem in this crisis. Neither can they be trusted to act in the best interest of protecting our precious places. What we see is that they continue to place commercial interests before the interests of the environment. I obviously acknowledge we have to get the balance right here, but there is not a balance at the moment. Protecting the environment needs to become a priority for government, because we can develop greater jobs growth and greater productivity if we have that environmental protection in place. Otherwise, the damage to our communities becomes so severe that it is all out of balance. Again I would like to look at examples from my own state. Here, national parks are under real threat of losing their conservation status.

The coalition government in New South Wales has decided to open up 79 national parks, nature reserves and conservation areas for recreational shooting and hunting. This has been on the record—but we always need to repeat it because it is, again, an ugly part of how politics is being played in this country—that the Liberals and Nationals in New South Wales have done a very dodgy deal with shooters. They have got some of their legislation through and, in turn, they are giving the shooters what they want. At the moment, what they want is shooting in national parks but they also want to make it easier for young people to shoot. That is something they want to push through.

For the moment, let us look at the environmental issues. We need to remember that Labor also has its fingerprints all over this issue of shooting in pristine environmental areas in New South Wales. It was Labor that started the deals with the Shooters Party. Labor opened up state forests in the first instance to allow hunting in those areas.

We just heard some ridiculous comments from Senator Ian Macdonald that the Greens are not working on feral animal controls. We are very committed to controlling feral animals. We have always said that it needs to be done with an evidence based approach using professionals. Senator Macdonald's party is actually setting back the work to control feral animals because it is being undertaken in a way that is now shown to often result in feral animals proliferating because these recreational hunters are not interested in taking out all the animals. They do not have the expertise to know how to do that, and there have been examples of them leaving some of the stock so that they can come back to continue their hunting expeditions on another weekend.

The New South Wales government is also pushing to develop Newcastle's fourth coal export terminal, called T4. Again, we see collaboration between Labor and the coalition. In the Hunter region, there are already dozens of coal mines with many more proposed. The proposed coal loader is clearly not needed but it is being pushed ahead to help fast-track the opening of new coal mines. The approval process for those coal mines is very much linked to the go-ahead being given to this T4 terminal.

As well as being linked to this new coal infrastructure, if it were built, and as well as being linked to driving a greater health burden on local people from excessive air pollution, we know there would also be enormous damage to the wonderful Hunter estuary to really important homelands for the bird population in those areas. I had the opportunity recently to fly over the area on a helicopter inspection trip. It is really world class. Much of it has been recognised as Ramsar wetlands, but, interestingly, not all of it. That becomes quite worrying because areas—and I have been shown these areas—that should have been included when some were listed as Ramsar wetlands, and therefore required Australia to provide protection under international treaties, were left out. You start to wonder why some of the areas were left out—areas that are now marked for a coal loader. It certainly seems very unusual. It has raised many suspicions amongst local people: was a deal done on this? It is a question that has been put to me.

The New South Wales government is now waiting for the go-ahead from the Commonwealth government, which under the EPBC Act has to assess the impact of T4 on these valuable wetlands. To spell out just how significant these areas are, hundreds of thousands of birds migrate to Australia—even from the Arctic. I find it quite amazing: the very small birds fly so far, have stopovers in Korea and Japan as they fly down, and arrive at the Hunter estuary. They find that much of their habitat has already been covered by other developments and, now, one very important piece of wetland could be destroyed if the T4 project goes ahead.

BirdLife International has designated part of this area as an IBA, which stands for 'important bird area'. The Hunter estuary is widely recognised as the most important migratory shore bird site in New South Wales, and that is despite the enormous development that has occurred in the area. You can imagine what it would have been like originally when it was in a pristine condition. It is still recognised as the most important area for wetland birds along the New South Wales Coast and across New South Wales. As I said, this area is not included in the Ramsar listing and I want to emphasise that. I will return to the area on Saturday. There is a big community protest about the T4 and I know I will be questioned about it. People are quite shocked that an area right beside a habitat that is Ramsar listed—this area is worthy of Ramsar listing although, for some reason, it is not—and people really want answers to that.

If the fourth coal loader, T4, went ahead it would also result in the loss of more feeding and nesting sites for resident shore birds in the Hunter estuary. These are the birds that are not migratory and live there all the time. Again, further very significant impacts will affect the bird life in this area. It is simply unacceptable. The Australian government has contractual obligations with China, Japan and Korea to protect these migratory shore birds and their habitat. That is a wonderful cooperation between countries that are in the flight route of these amazing birds that travel from one end of the world to the other. Yet we might be about to destroy their key areas where they breed and feed to replenish for the long flight back.

We also need to comply with the Bonn Convention for the protection of migratory wild animals, not to mention our own EPBC Act. But what we see here is that the federal government again too often drags the chain. This is where they really do need to do the right thing and reject the destruction of these wetlands. That is just one example. We are hearing from other Greens senators about the problems faced in their states. It is a real reminder of what would happen if the federal government handed over their EPBC responsibilities to state governments who are so cavalier about environmental protection. I have no doubt that we will see more environmentally damaging projects go ahead if that is where this heads.

The New South Wales government have not only failed in terms of developments in the Hunter. We have seen them fail in many other developments, and a real standout is with regard to the habitat of the koala. They have facilitated the destruction of large tracts of valuable koala habitat. We have seen that in the approval of mines, like the Maules Creek coalmine in north-west New South Wales; in massive housing developments; and also in forestry plans that have been allowed to go ahead.

People—again, particularly those from overseas—cannot believe that we do so much damage to the koala's habitat. People know, in this day and age, that species cannot survive without their habitat being intact, without having those corridors so that they can move and the populations can intermingle and you can have a healthy population that is able to expand. But we have environmental laws that do not protect the koala habitat. Now Minister Burke wants to give away his powers to protect koalas and other species to state governments, even though those very governments have already failed to protect koalas. This is a huge issue for us in New South Wales because we have a number of significant koala populations in the south-east, where I was recently. They are actually now thinking there might be a new subspecies of koala in that area that is bigger than other koalas and more furry, and I am very interested to hear more about it. But, again, these people are so shocked to hear that the little protection that is in place could be further wound back.

It is worth remembering the comments back in 1999 of our current Prime Minister, Julia Gillard—obviously before she was Prime Minister and when Labor was in opposition. At that time she opposed passing environmental protection responsibilities to the states, and it is worth remembering her words:

… states with track records of environmental vandalism like Victoria …

She identified that states like that could not be trusted.

But, sadly, Labor has come into power and nothing much has changed. That is really deeply troubling and, again, a reminder of the serious problems that we have because Labor and the coalition are so similar when it comes to dealing with the environment. Getting that protection in place is really hard when they are just so weak on this most critical issue for the 21st century. Protecting the natural environment is vital for the health of our own communities. One goes hand in hand with the other. And, at the moment, we are seeing a failure from this Labor government.

The Greens do strongly oppose the government's plan to pass responsibility for protecting the national natural environment to state governments. And the Australian community is with the Greens on this one. People understand how important this issue is. We cannot afford to let the government get into bed with the coalition and water down environmental laws. This is just too important. We need to act and act together. It is an issue for the environment, for our communities and for the national interest, because if we do not we actually jeopardise the future of our most precious asset, the natural environment. That is something we are all part of.

Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the few minutes available to me I, too, would like to make a contribution to this debate about the private senator's bill we are debating this morning, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Retaining Federal Approval Powers) Bill 2012. As many speakers before me have said, I would like to note that, as usual when it is a Greens private senator's bill, we have been delivered a good dose of sanctimony to start the day off. Anybody would think that the Greens were the only party in this parliament who cared about the environment.

It is interesting again to hear from the fairies at the bottom of the chamber about how they manage the environment and the need for Australia to be a modern, developing economy. We all know in this chamber that there are tensions in this; there are tensions between protecting our environment and ensuring that Australia can continue to develop and grow as it is doing under the Gillard Labor government. There are no simple solutions to that tension.

But the Labor government is very proud of its record in this regard, and the bill that this private senator's bill is seeking to amend is a very important piece of environmental legislation—the premier piece of legislation—and all senators have a big investment in it. It was first introduced into the parliament by the coalition government and many amendments have been made to it over the years since. Mostly those amendments have been with bipartisan support, because we all understand how important this legislation is. But there is not bipartisan support for this proposed amendment in this private senator's bill because the matters that are under discussion between the states and the federal government are important and complex ones and should be rightly discussed at COAG and considered.

I must say that the committee report on this bill has illuminated many of the complexities involved between the states and the Commonwealth government with regard to environmental legislation. The federal government is not about to make rash decisions in this regard.

John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time limit for this debate has come.