Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I know it is a consent order. But it was a court order, based on consent, that the minister had made an error—and not just a technical error; he had failed to take into account, in making a judgement on granting an environmental approval under the EPBC Act, that there were various endangered species. He had not taken those into account in coming to his decision. It was an error made by the minister, an acknowledged error in his process, and I think his explanation was that the advice that was given to him by the department was not with the materials he used to make the assessment. So, a minister makes a mistake, a project is put on hold and the minister thrashes around like a snake with his back broken and decides: 'It's a problem with the activists. It's a problem with the people who drew the court's attention to my error. I made the mistake, but it's the fault of those people who took this to the court and then pointed it out, so we're going to have to change the legislation to prevent people like that whistleblowing on ministers who get it wrong.'

It is an extraordinary proposition. I think it is very much in the same league as the proposal to amend section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. And their mate Andrew Bolt goes out and publishes an article that names various Aboriginal people and accuses them of inappropriately and disingenuously claiming identification with their Aboriginal heritage without ever seeking comment from them. On those very limited grounds, Andrew Bolt was found to have defamed these individuals. So, we can't have that! We have to go and change the legislation, because this is not right! Of course, that legislation foundered on strong community sentiment. People actually understood that what was being proposed was most unfair and that it would be sending out a very dangerous signal to the people of our country that somehow or other a speech that was disrespectful of people on the basis of their race was acceptable. Now we have the same thing here. We have a complete and utter overreaction to a ministerial error. Just look at the facts. During the period of the Labor government, during the entire time that this legislation was in place, we saw $280 billion worth of projects in the resource area approved.

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