Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

Yes—what’s new? It is an appalling abuse of process and just shows the arrogance of this government. So I want to begin my analysis by saying that the government has to be condemned for pushing this bill through both houses without a proper time frame for consideration or without proper public consultation processes.

I want to go back to the argument about how these proposals are being driven very largely by commercial imperatives. I will quote the parliamentary secretary in his second reading speech. He said:

… the operation of the EPBC Act can be improved, particularly for those who make applications or nominations under the act. Operational improvements can be achieved by reducing processing time and decision points affecting the environmental assessment and approval of proposed developments, using more strategic approaches, and providing greater incentive for development interests, the states and territories, and local government to engage with the act earlier in their planning cycles.

He goes on:

The proposed changes will include greater capacity to reduce processing time for assessments and approvals of developments referred under the act by reducing the number of mandatory steps taken by applicants and enabling the Australian government to make decisions on different act approval stages simultaneously. A new process will be introduced to enable the government to make quicker decisions on more straightforward proposals.

But when you look at the detail—and the devil is often in the detail of the bills that we debate, and I again commend the member for Calare for taking the time to analyse the 409 pages of very technical amendments—you already hear the alarm bells ringing. Even a cursory first examination of the detail shows this to be the case—that the amendments will curtail third-party appeal rights, the amendments will undermine public consultation processes and the amendments will allow the further politicisation of decision-making processes on very important matters relating to the protection of our heritage and our environment. Not surprisingly, but much to the shame of the government, in a major rewriting of the premier environmental act this government fails to deal with the major environmental issues that are facing our nation: climate change and the water crisis that is facing communities across the length and breadth of our nation.

This morning I also want to draw attention to the scathing comments made by members of the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills, whose report was tabled yesterday in the Senate. Senator Ray quite rightly draws attention to the expansion of the range of enforcement powers and penalties, which he argues are proposed without justification and appropriate safeguards. Even more significantly, in speaking to Senator Ray’s motion, a Liberal senator and member of this government from Western Australia, Senator Johnston, had this to say about the explanatory memorandum—the one that comes with the bill in the absence of an independent voice from the Parliamentary Library through the Bills Digest:

This explanatory memorandum is probably one of the most appalling I have ever seen in the short time I have been in the Senate. It discloses no motivation, no reasoning and no justification for some of the most draconian powers that this parliament can conceivably and possibly enact: rights of search and seizure without warrant, rights of personal frisking without warrant. This is under the umbrella of a piece of environmental protection legislation … The draftsman discloses an obliviousness to the conventions, formalities, reports and guidelines that have been laid down over a long period of time with respect to the propriety of the administration of powers and penalties … Again, under the umbrella of an environmental protection act, I find that very interesting, particularly in the face of the explanatory memorandum disclosing no real reason or explanation for that.

He concludes his commentary by saying:

... I think this legislation should go back to the drawing board.

Full marks to the senator. Full marks to a member of the Senate, a member of this government, who is so damning and scathing in his criticisms of this legislation as to conclude his remarks by saying ‘I think this legislation should go back to the drawing board’. Unfortunately, the Minister for the Environment and Heritage is in China. It is a shame that he is not here to hear what the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills unanimously concluded yesterday.

The parliamentary secretary, with a degree of obfuscation about the commercial imperatives that are driving this bill, pretends that the bill before us is also to do with meeting the emerging environmental issues of the 21st century. He says:

One of the major changes proposed by the bill is a practical proposal to put in place a strategic framework that will allow the Australian government greater flexibility and capacity to deal with the emerging environmental issues of the 21st century.

That sounds fine, doesn’t it, but amazingly the most serious global issue, that of global warming and climate change, is not even dealt with in this bill. It is quite pathetic. The government’s major piece of environment legislation and the 409 pages of amendments that we are discussing today do not even deal with the most serious issue confronting the globe. The inconvenient truth continues to be too inconvenient for this government, but the community at large is understanding the need for this government to take decisive action to deal with this most fundamental issue. One would have thought that in the bill we are debating today that issue would at least get some attention. That is sadly missing and that really important issue has been left to be picked up in the amendment moved on behalf of this side of the chamber by our shadow minister for the environment.

There is no doubt that the Howard government have left us unprepared for the dramatic challenges that lie ahead. They have no national plan to prepare for the impact of climate change. They have no national plan to cut Australia’s soaring greenhouse pollution. The Howard government seem to be interested in neither prevention nor cure. We desperately need a national climate change adaption strategy and a plan for the future. The consequences of climate change are very real—ask anybody in the community: more severe weather, reduced rainfall, extended droughts. All this, of course, will have an impact in terms of employment and economic growth if left unaddressed.

Climate change is baking our cities and reaping despair in the bush. It is there for all to see. Even the sceptics cannot deny the hard science behind what is happening on a worldwide basis. Global warming and climate change are the greatest challenges of the 21st century and yet this bill is silent on these challenges. Where are the government’s plans to avoid dangerous climate change? Where are the government’s plans to prepare our economy for a carbon constrained world? Where are the government’s plans to get our energy mix right? Where are the government’s plans to seize the opportunities that would come with the ratification of Kyoto and increase the MRET so that we can get really serious about renewable sources of energy?

Getting Australia’s energy mix right is absolutely central to cutting our soaring greenhouse pollution. We need a diverse energy mix—a portfolio of flexible energy strategies that include clean coal technology, solar and wind power and research into hydrogen, wave power and geothermal technology. We need a strong national commitment to energy efficiency. There is not a word on these issues in this bill we are debating. The community well understands that nuclear power will not be a part of the energy mix under a Labor government. Yet, true to form, the Prime Minister has an ideological obsession with nuclear power, and he is now masking that obsession in the pretence of trying to deal with global warming.

I want to quote some comments made by the eminent environmentalist David Suzuki in a television interview yesterday evening. The interviewer said: ‘John Howard says he believes strongly that nuclear power now has to be part of the equation in the search for an answer to climate change.’ Dr Suzuki said:

Well, I find that statement so lacking in credibility. This is a man, for years and years, who has denied the reality of climate change caused by human beings even though his scientific community in Australia has been saying that for more than 15 years, that this is a serious issue and Australia is particularly vulnerable. So for this man, now having denied all these years, to suddenly come out and say nuclear is the only option, I don’t see how he has any credibility on this issue at all. I have no idea why suddenly nuclear’s on the agenda but I would think that anyone would say we have to look at our whole energy policy, look at how it relates to water, how it looks to many other issues—of sea level rise and so on—and then having had a major consideration, come up with a plan that we can commit to.

I agree with David Suzuki. What is lacking in this debate we are having about so-called environmental and heritage protection is the fact that there is not one word about any plans to deal with the challenge of global warming and climate change. We know that the Prime Minister and his government support uranium enrichment. We know from comments made in the last few days that they support nuclear power plants in Australia, even though they know there are no answers to the critical questions of cost, safety, nuclear waste and nuclear proliferation.

It is interesting that in the details of this bill it appears that legal obstacles to the expansion of uranium mining and nuclear waste dumps are to be removed. I quote from a release I saw yesterday from the Australia Institute which says:

The Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill

the one that we are discussing now—

will enable future uranium mines and nuclear waste dumps to bypass environmental assessment processes and public scrutiny.

“The Government is surreptitiously inserting a loophole in the federal environmental laws so that it can avoid the standard environmental assessment procedures in relation to controversial nuclear proposals” ...

“The exemptions would allow new uranium mines and nuclear waste dumps to open without being subject to important assessment and public accountability procedures that are designed to guarantee basic environmental safety standards.

“If the amendments are enacted, the scope for public involvement in nuclear assessment procedures could be significantly reduced” ...

So they claim this legislation is about protecting our environment and heritage and looking after community considerations to do with the major issues facing our globe, yet hidden in the detail of this legislation is the possibility that the nuclear agenda could escape the kind of public scrutiny that should be there.

The bill also provides even further opportunity for the politicisation of issues relating to environmental and heritage protection. We know that the current minister is quite adept at this. We have a number of examples already of this kind of politicisation. Remember the decision to block the Bald Hills wind farm project? That was all about marginal seat politics and not about saving the orange-bellied parrot, despite the protestations of the minister.

In the words of the shadow minister for environment and heritage, even Monty Python could not have scripted Senator Ian Campbell’s decision to protect one theoretical parrot every 1,000 years and use that as a rationalisation to block a major infrastructure project—a renewable energy project. And yet the same minister is in China at the moment opening a wind farm project. You drive out the renewable sector from Australia and you go over to China to preside over the opening of a wind farm!

Regrettably this bill hands even more power to the minister—more power to make the kinds of political decisions we saw in the Bald Hills fiasco. I was really pleased that the minister was humiliated by the decision of the Federal Court that required him to reconsider ‘according to law’ his intervention to block the Bald Hills wind farm in Victoria.

Interestingly enough, that Bald Hills project was supported by the minister’s own department, for environmental and scientific reasons, but we know it was blocked by the minister for blatant political reasons. If the minister is using his powers under current Commonwealth law then you can only hazard a guess as to what will happen in future. The member for Rankin last night ably highlighted the dangers in the proposals that will give this minister, if this bill is passed, the final say on the protection of heritage sites across the length and breadth of our country.

The double standard of the current minister is most evident in his trip to China to officially open an Australian company’s wind farm in China. What hypocrisy. He cannot escape the fact that same company had this to say:

...the current project outlook in Australia is not strong and Roaring 40s—

that is the company—

hopes that, having seen what can be done in China, Minister Campbell will be encouraged to consider policies in Australia to increase the utilisation of our country’s great renewable energy capabilities and resources.

Renewable energy companies are investing in China because China has a renewable energy target of 15 per cent compared to our pathetic two per cent MRET. It has been kept at two per cent because some remaining sceptics unfortunately reside on the government benches. In a recent interview with Laurie Oakes, the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, Ian Macfarlane—who is a great proponent of building nuclear capacity here in Australia—had this to say:

LAURIE OAKES: OK. Climate change, you are a climate change sceptic, aren’t you?

IAN MACFARLANE: Well I am a sceptic of the connection between emissions and climate change...

I suggest to the minister that sitting through An Inconvenient Truth will hopefully convert the last remaining sceptics who happen to be sitting over there on the government benches. The Australian community is no longer sceptical. Just have a look at the Sunrise program’s ‘Cool the Globe’ campaign, which is addressing the issues of climate change and global warming. Last time I looked, more than 45,000 Australians had committed to the ‘Cool the Globe’ campaign. People out there know because they see it every day, but we have sceptics in here who are pushing the nuclear barrow and turning their eyes from the possibilities that we have in this country of really giving a push-start to our renewable energy sector.

The amendment moved by the shadow minister, Mr Albanese, gives the Howard government yet another opportunity to join with Labor in a bipartisan approach in instituting a national plan to deal with a major crisis facing this and other nations across the world. Instead, we have had a bill come before us in unseemly haste without any mention of these major challenges. We again call on the government to ensure that climate change is properly factored into environmental decision making under this act. Specifically, we ask that they support a climate change trigger to ensure large-scale greenhouse polluting projects are properly assessed before approval is given. We will oppose the bill unless the government agrees to Labor’s amendments. (Time expired)

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