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

That's right! Now we have $280 billion worth of projects. My friend and colleague Gary Gray just reminded me that the scale of those projects, which included much of the investment in the gas fields of Australia, is larger than the entire Marshall Plan, which transformed Western Europe after the Second World War.

We have seen under this regime that, far from us being unable to progress projects, when we have had confident ministers and when we have had ministers who did not lose bits of paper and who did get all of their documentation together before they made a decision we were able to live with this piece of legislation. We were able to live with a limited right of third-party appeals. It is only a limited right of third-party appeals and it is quite clear, as my colleagues who have spoken before me have set out time and time again, that only 0.4 per cent of these referrals under this legislation have ever been taken to court. It is a very restricted right to a judicial review.

I think it is quite appalling that we should say that this is inappropriate and that we want to peel back that jurisdiction. Much is made of the fact that the Environmental Defenders Office NSW was involved in this but, as has been pointed out, it was in fact the Mackay Conservation Group who were indeed the applicants. Of course you cannot expect that a group like that would have the legal skills or the financial resources to take on such a project. So of course they will go to an NGO that has the capacity to take this matter forward. I do not think anybody reflected negatively on the fact that the lawyers who were used by Adani in this matter did not come from the Galilee Basin. You go where the expertise is, so it is a fairly puerile point

It caused a little flutter, for some unknown reason, in question time today that I was reading this fabulous book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, which is a book I have been delving into not just over the last six months but indeed over the last year. It is really showing us what is going on in society. Basically, there was a major reset of our economies and the distribution of wealth after the First World War. Between the First World War and probably the end of the 1970s, there was an increasing equalisation of the spread of wealth and income within the community. But from that time on, basically from the early eighties to now, that whole process has reversed and we are now back to the same record levels of inequality of power, influence and capital that we saw during the Belle Epoch in the 1890s.

So we do know that money and capital, and with that, power and influence are concentrating more and more into the hands of fewer and fewer. So the gap not only in wealth but also in influence and power is growing. For us to be looking at this David and Goliath situation, where this poor little Mackay Conservation Group—

Mr Nikolic interjecting—

is up against, as you said, one of the biggest coal companies in India, and is somehow unfair—somehow it has to be stopped. They have to be crushed; they have to be moved out of the way. As I said, let us get back to the heart of what the problem was here. The problem was that the minister made a mistake. The minister did not have the documents before him. He did not take into account all of the things that he was required to do by law. He did not examine critical material that he should have taken into account in making his decision. If it had not been for this courageous and vigilant group, that error of law would never have been brought to our attention.

This is very important. It is very important that we have environmental laws—and everyone has acknowledged that in this place. But these laws are worth nothing if there is no mechanisms by which they can be tested. Seeking to move these groups out and seeking to reduce and diminish the standing provisions, or strengthen the standing provisions, to make it harder and harder for these groups to ensure that proper legal process has been followed by the minister in making those approvals, is incredibly unfortunate. This is truly a David and Goliath situation, and the government are reacting in a completely inappropriate way. Instead of being prepared to say, 'Oh, I'm very sorry; the minister made a mistake,' they say: 'We've got to change this legislation, because this is really embarrassing. The minister has made a mistake. That's embarrassing, so let's pretend that the problem is the law.' We know the problem is not the law. I go back to that fact: $280 billion worth of projects were approved in one sector of the economy, the resource sector, under Labor's watch, without any problem from this provision. We were able to work with this provision.

I have been a minister building things—a Minister for Planning and Infrastructure. I was building railways and roads, and there was one little orchid that used to always pop up whenever I had a project. I always thought the Caladenia huegelii was the bane of my life. Wherever I wanted to build something, there it was. It would pop up every spring. It would be found, and we had to work around that. We had to redesign projects. We had to make environmental offsets. I know it is frustrating, but you have to do it. You work within the law. It is very important that we have these environmental protections, and it is very important that we ensure that those environmental groups are empowered to be the watchdogs to ensure that this legislation is honoured not just in the spirit but in the letter.

I am very confident that this piece of legislation will founder in the Senate. It certainly will founder in the forum of public opinion. I say to the people of Canning: next Saturday, you have an opportunity to show Mr Abbott that you do not like the direction he is taking the country in and to show the Liberal Party that you do not like the person they have as their leader or the far right agenda that has been prosecuted. Vote for Matt Keogh and ensure that we do not have ridiculous pieces of legislation like this coming before this parliament again.

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