Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is also to the Attorney-General, Senator Brandis, but, unlike the questions from the other side, my question is about jobs. Can the Attorney-General inform the Senate how the government is standing up for Australian jobs and stopping their negation by professional environmental activists?

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

Thank you very much indeed for that question, Senator Canavan. Senator Matt Canavan, who is a Rockhampton based senator, knows better than anybody else in this chamber, I dare say, of the devastating effect on the economy, in Central Queensland in particular, of the latest stunt by radical environmental activists to use the processes of the Federal Court and court processes by conducting vigilante litigation to bring to its knees Australian industry.

Do not just take that from me, Senator Canavan, because I happen to have a document called Stopping the Australian coal export boom, in which an assembly of green activist groups, including Greenpeace, the Graeme Wood Foundation and others, declare a strategy to delay and disrupt key infrastructure projects including ports, rail and mines. They announced their intention to use the courts to mount legal challenges to the approval of several key ports, mines and rail lines and to run legal challenges that delay, limit or stop all of the major infrastructure projects of this country. That is the intention.

The reason they are able to do that is a provision of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, section 487(2), which reverses the traditional common-law position which says that anybody who is affected has a right to approach a court to seek redress but that people who are not affected have no right to use the court to make political points. Section 487(2) reverses that, and this government has decided to repeal it. (Time expired)

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I thank the Attorney-General for his answer. Can the Attorney-General advise the Senate who will be affected by the government's proposed changes?

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

The only people who will be affected by the government's proposed changes are those who would use the courts as a political weapon to game the system to make political points rather than to defend legitimate legal interests, because their capacity to engage in vigilante litigation and to misuse the processes of the courts will be taken away from them. But I will tell you who also will be affected by the government's changes, and they are the thousands upon thousands of Australian workers who will lose their jobs if vigilante green litigants are allowed to continue with their strategy but whom this government's decision to repeal section 487(2) of the EPBC Act will protect.

In Central Queensland, Senator Canavan, as well you know, some 10,000 jobs would be lost if the Adani project is not able to proceed. So talk to the 10,000 workers whose jobs would be lost, but this government is determined to save—

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

Mr President, I rise on a point of order. I believe the Attorney is misleading the chamber. The company themselves have distanced themselves from that figure and have revised it down.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is not a point of order, Senator Waters. There is no point of order.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a final supplementary question. Can the Attorney-General advise the Senate how the government's proposed changes will build certainty for future investment and help create even more jobs?

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

They will build certainty in the most obvious way so that those who decide to invest in major Australian projects know that their investments will be subject to the regular processes of approval by the appropriate authorities, that people potentially affected by those developments will have the same rights as they have always had under our legal system to make appropriate challenges but that political groups seeking to use the courts only for the purpose of the prosecution of political agendas will not be allowed to get away by using this section of the EPBC Act in order to wage political warfare—or as some people have called it, 'lawfare'—against those who are trying to build the Australian economy and bring jobs with them to ordinary hardworking Australians. And it is for the Labor Party to decide: are you on the side of the workers or are you on the side of the Greens?

Honourable Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Both sides.

Senator Cameron interjecting—

Senator Ian Macdonald interjecting—

Senator Cameron and Senator Macdonald.