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

It is with disappointment that I rise to speak to the issue that shamed this Senate yesterday, and that was a grubby deal done by the Palmer United Party, the Labor Party and the Greens, and the victim of it has been, or will be, the government's fantastic initiative to have a one-stop-shop for environmental approvals. It is interesting to reflect that we are actually all sent here from our states and our territories, and this was an initiative of the government that actually had universal support of the very people, the states and the territories, that send us to this place.

But what is so disappointing—particularly in the climate that we are looking at now, with the Australian dollar declining; with the iron ore prices going down, from up around $120 to now less than $80 or $78 a tonne—is that we are seeing a circumstance in which basically every entity that is an employer group in this country or associated with the wellbeing of people in this country is protesting loudly about this ridiculous decision, taken to appease the Greens political party, with the compliance of the Labor Party. So, once again, these groups have shown to us that they do not care about employment in this country. They certainly do not care about agriculture in this country.

What are going to be the costs? BAEconomics have, in the first year of this initiative not being implemented, suggested that some $160 billion of economic benefit will be lost to the nation, with some 70,000 jobs; in the second year, leading up to the cumulation between the first and the second year: $220 billion, with no less than 108,000 jobs lost. In what states are they? My own state of Western Australia—$25.6 billion, at a time when our minerals royalties are dropping dramatically. Why is that important to the rest of Australia? Because for the last six or eight years Australia has ridden on the back of royalties from the iron ore industry which our state has provided to the other states and territories through some $20 billion a year of GST distribution.

In Victoria: $35.5 billion and 15,000 jobs in the first year, leading accumulatively in the second year to nearly $50 billion and 24,000 jobs. In Queensland, where Senator Lazarus comes from—the person who initiated this shameful motion in the first place: $30.5 billion, 13,000 jobs in the first year, leading up to $42 billion and 20,000 jobs. As a Western Australian, I would say to Senator Lazarus that I would not mind the time when Queensland starts sharing its own burden again and stops taking money out of the pockets of Western Australians in the GST distribution. Senator Lambie, always of course very keen to promote Tasmania, as indeed are the Tasmanian senators: $2.5 billion and 1,100 jobs in the first year, cumulatively after two years, $3½ billion dollars. This is a disgrace; it is shameful.

I do want to draw attention to commentary particularly from the Property Council objecting, as they have along with so many others—the Business Council of Australia, APIA, the Productivity Commission and the Urban Development Institute of Australia. What really struck me was the Property Council, which provides for over 200 residential and 100 commercial property developments which have been referred to the Commonwealth in the past 12 months and as a result of the ridiculous environmental legislation that we have at the moment where state is followed eventually by federal government intervention in the process, there is a shortfall of some 230,000 homes around this country at the moment waiting to be built—low socioeconomic, middle socioeconomic, social housing et cetera. The Property Council say that this move is going to be at the expense of tens of thousands of homes that otherwise would have been built. The National Farmers Federation is talking about the added costs and the confusion in farming. The Australian tourism Alliance is talking about what this cost is going to be. As we all know, there can be the difficulty of getting any project approved between local government and various state government departments, and then right towards the end we have the state environmental agencies, only then to be followed by the Commonwealth. This has got to stop. (Time expired)