Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank all senators for their contribution to the debate on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Bilateral Agreement Implementation) Bill. This bill demonstrates the government's election commitment to implement a one-stop shop for environmental approvals. This will deliver a more effective and efficient regulatory system for Australian businesses, while maintaining the highest environmental standards. This bill will ensure that the one-stop shop can operate effectively and efficiently, providing certainty for business and the environment.

Let us be clear: this reform is central to delivering more than $400 million of annual savings to Australian business. It is essential to ensure we remove unnecessary red tape and regulation and create an environment in which Australian business can operate as efficiently and effectively and at as low a cost as possible. But at the same time it is about improving environmental standards and ensuring they operate as efficiently and effectively as possible. Put together, this legislation is fundamentally about better regulation—regulation that comes at the lowest cost yet delivers the optimal outcomes.

As a government, we have already made enormous progress since our election on delivering our commitment to the one-stop shop reform around environmental approvals and assessments, a reform that will ensure that Australian businesses seeking and requiring environmental approvals need not work in a cumbersome way through multiple layers of government but are well placed and well positioned to work through one level of government in a process that ensures they are assessed against and ultimately approved against all of the standards of all levels of government in a singular arrangement.

We have assessment bilaterals in place and operating now with all Australian states and territories, thanks to the hard work of environment minister Greg Hunt. These agreements were already delivering savings for businesses. We have also published draft approval bilateral agreements with New South Wales, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory. The passage of this bill will allow us to sign and implement these agreements. It will ensure, in those jurisdictions where governments are willing to take on the responsibility of not only assessing but also approving environmental applications under the EPBC Act, that that can occur. Let us have a look for a second at those jurisdictions. They include South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory—two Labor states who are willing to work with us and are eager to ensure that the one-stop shop reform is delivered to help with the efficiency and effectiveness of environmental laws in their states, working hand in hand with environmental laws federally. I also note that we saw support for that change elsewhere across the political divide, from the Tasmanian government. We have that bipartisan support in a number of jurisdictions for this legislation and for having a one-stop shop process in place. Unfortunately, those opposite in the Labor Party are determined to stand in the way of having an effective arrangement for Australian business. They are determined to have a situation where Australian businesses continue to face unnecessarily high costs when there is a more efficient way of doing it, when there is a possibility of setting in place an arrangement where we have one process that provides assessments and approvals against the standards of both the states and the Commonwealth.

Let me reiterate to all senators before they come in and vote on this matter that this reform in no way undermines or changes the high standards of assessment that projects that are deemed to be controlled actions under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act will face. It in no way changes the matters of national environmental significance that these projects will have to be assessed against. It simply makes sure that when they are being assessed we are in the best possible position to have them assessed and approved through one process and to save businesses the millions of dollars in unnecessary costs, duplication and unnecessary red tape that having multiple layers of approvals involves.

We will be bringing to the chamber some amendments to this legislation. I will touch on those—firstly, the water trigger amendments. With regard to our precious water resources, the government appreciates that there is significant community concern around coal seam gas and large coalmining development. We have heard these concerns so, whilst we remain committed to a one-stop shop, we have determined that the Commonwealth will retain responsibility for approving coal seam gas and large coal projects in relation to impacts on water resources. The so-called water trigger is of course the most recent addition to the matters of environmental significance in the EPBC Act, having been added during the life of the last parliament. On balance, having heard the concerns and arguments that have been put, we think it is appropriate to maintain Commonwealth oversight of that particular trigger, which has not been operating for as long as some of the other triggers. We have also strengthened the role of the Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development to provide advice to state and territory governments on water issues. This will provide the community with greater assurance that decisions are informed by the best available science.

On behalf of Mr Hunt, I want to particularly thank our coalition colleagues in the National Party for helping to reach this agreement to ensure that we have a sensible balance that protects the water resources of Australia and ensures that appropriate assessments occur in relation to coal seam gas and large coalmining developments but also allows us to progress this important reform and achieve the overwhelming majority of the savings to business and greater efficiency across the economy that we seek to secure. On behalf of Mr Hunt I would also very much like to thank Senators Madigan, Muir and Dio Wang, in particular, for their constructive engagement on this issue and the sensible way that they have approached it, as they so frequently do in discussions in relation to environmental legislation. I welcome the fact that they are ensuring and helping us to achieve an outcome for the good of the environment and for the good of the Australian economy.

The government will also be proposing amendments to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act which will allow farmers in Tasmania to trial the use of bumblebees to pollinate crops. There is substantial evidence that suggests the use of bumblebees could provide substantial benefits to the Tasmanian horticultural industry. The amendments will create a mechanism for the Australian Minister for the Environment to issue a permit to trial the use of bumblebees for up to two years. This permit would only be issued after a robust and scientific assessment of the potential risks to the environment. Any applicant would be required to demonstrate that the use of bumblebees for this crop pollination purpose will not, firstly, threatened species or biodiversity in Australia and, secondly, will not spread bumblebees further. The Tasmanian government will also be required to consent to the permit. The amendments also allow for the minister to approve permanent use of bumblebees should the trial be successful and should strict environmental criteria be met.

Again, on behalf of Mr Hunt, I want to particularly thank Senator Lambie for her central in constructive role in supporting this amendment; similarly, for the roles played by my colleagues, Senators Abetz and Colbeck, in particular; and members from the other place, notably Mr Hutchinson, Mr Whiteley and Mr Nikolic. They have all been critical to ensuring passage of this important amendment, which once again demonstrates a practical approach to environmental management. It is a practical, common-sense approach, whereby we seek to facilitate potential for economic development and the potential to create more jobs, to grow more opportunities in Australia and, in doing so, to maintain strong protections for the environment and strong protections for our threatened species and biodiversity. These are strong protections that ensure that Australia enjoys and continues to enjoy world-class environmental standards well into the future.

We will also present a number of other technical amendments to provide certainty about the operation of bilateral agreements under the EPBC Act. These amendments will ensure that bilateral approval agreements are robust, durable and provide long-term certainty for business and for the Australian community. None of the amendments change or reduce the standards that state and territory processes must meet in order to be accredited under bilateral agreements.

I do want to step back a little and discuss the environment in which we present this bill. The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act was first enacted 1999. That act did provide the capacity not just for bilateral agreements around assessments to be made with the states and territories but also for bilateral agreements in relation to environmental approvals. What we are simply seeking to do today is to clarify and confirm the Commonwealth's potential to have those types of bilateral agreements in place and to ensure that, by having them in place, they will work efficiently and effectively for the good of the economy and the good of the environment.

I again stress to the chamber that none of the amendments have the effect of changing or reducing the standards that state and territory processes must meet in order to be accredited under bilateral agreements. The bill simply brings together our desire for the best of environmental standards—as are outlined already in the EPBC Act—to work in the most efficient way via them being assessed, upheld and approved in tandem with assessments against state-based projects and state-based environmental conditions and approvals.

It was a key part of our election agenda and it is a policy. We have stood fighting for it for a long period of time now. We have argued this policy because we, as a government, are committed to driving down red tape, to driving down regulation and to ensuring that Australian business can be as competitive on the world stage as possible. Let us be under no illusions that the cost of complying with environmental assessment and approval processes—not only the cost in financial terms of doing so but also the cost of delays due to having to do so through multiple layers of government—has a real effect on Australia's competitiveness when you compare it with the rest of the world.

So what we want to do out of this is to ensure that Australian businesses pay as little as is required in terms of compliance costs to meet both Commonwealth and state environmental standards and simultaneously to ensure that the time required for those approvals is as speedy as it can be without taking any shortcuts in terms of the calibre and quality of those approvals. This is critical in a world were global capital moves from country to country quite rapidly and in a world where we actually have companies, especially large resources companies and energy companies, making decisions about whether a project should go ahead in Australia or a project should go ahead in Brazil. They make those assessments based on how quickly they think they will be able to move through all of the processes and what will deliver them the best return on investment.

That in no way suggests that we should undercut or undermine the calibre of the environmental standards and approvals that we already have. We are certainly not doing that, but it does mean we have a responsibility to Australian industry and to the maintenance and growth of jobs in Australia to make those processes as efficient and as effective as possible. It is a responsibility that we, as a government, take very seriously right across the spectrum in terms of what we seek to achieve and do as a government. We have already delivered reforms that have reduced the red tape and regulatory burden to Australian businesses in the order of some $2 billion thanks to the repeal days we have had and the work that has been done to remove unnecessary legislation, to remove unnecessary regulations and to ensure that the practices of government are as efficient as possible.

All of this work has stripped $2 billion out of red tape and regulatory compliance costs for Australian businesses. That is $2 billion that Australian businesses can invest in innovation. It is $2 billion that they can invest in expanding their business operations. It is $2 billion that they can invest in opening up new export markets that are becoming ever more accessible to them under the free trade agreements this government has signed with China, Japan and South Korea and the one it will sign with India, hopefully by the end of the year. It is $2 billion that can be returned to their shareholders. It is $2 billion that can go into the superannuation funds of Australians. It is $2 billion that can go towards conditions for their employees. All of that is funding that can help Australia's economy. It can help us to create and generate more investment in Australia so that we are as attractive as possible for that global capital to flow into Australia. By doing that, we will continue our strong record as a government of creating jobs and growing opportunities for more Australians.

This bill can make a very substantial contribution in addition to those $2 billion of savings. Alongside the $2 billion of savings, this bill will deliver around $400 million in annual savings to Australian business. That is $400 million that businesses will not face in terms of regulatory hurdles, red-tape costs and business delays. That is $400 million that Australian business will be able to better use to develop their businesses and pursue new opportunities into the future.

The one-stop shop will achieve major economic benefits in making Australia more competitive. It will provide a simpler, faster assessment and approval process for businesses where they do not have to go through multiple layers of government bureaucracy at a state and federal level but can work through a single one-stop-shopper process that is accredited by the federal government and meets our very high standards. It will also ensure certainty for investors by reducing costs, eliminating or reducing delays, boosting productivity and creating new jobs.

The majority of the savings that will come from the one-stop-shop legislation relate to the reduced approval delays, because reducing those delays of approval will allow for early investment certainty for business and earlier realisation of a project's full value. The Minerals Council of Australia has released modelling that shows that reducing approval delays by one year would result in a higher rate of economic growth and that the present value of these cumulative gains between 2015 and 2025 could be in the order of $120 billion.

I emphasise again to the chamber that this legislation, which will allow us to strike the one-stop-shop deals with both Labor and coalition states, who are all on board to do so, will maintain the highest of environmental standards but will allow the Australian economy to realise savings as a result of more efficient bureaucratic practices and ensure that, through those more efficient practices, we have a situation where Australia is as competitive as it possibly can be. I close my remarks by advocating and arguing for all senators to support this bill on its second reading.

Debate adjourned.