James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Labor is completely ignoring the fact that the Morrison government has busted congestion in environmental assessments, with 98 per cent of key decisions made on time last quarter. We are implementing the national cabinet decision, agreed with every state and territory, to reduce duplication and move towards single-touch environmental approvals. The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Streamlining Environmental Approvals) Bill 2020 introduced last week is the first step towards a single-touch model. The streamlining environmental approvals bill and single-touch approvals will reduce regulatory burden, accelerate job-creating projects, promote economic activity and create certainty around environmental protections. By reducing duplication, project proponents could save more than $400 million each year in regulatory costs.

These reforms are more important than ever to support our economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. But, more than that, they will help to address the uncertainty created by our current system of environmental regulation. Everyone agrees our environmental laws are in desperate need of reform, and everyone acknowledges the current approvals system leads to duplication and inefficiency due to unnecessary interactions between Commonwealth, state and territory environmental laws. This bill is the first tranche of EPBC Act reforms linked to Professor Samuel's independent statutory review of the act.

Unlike Labor, which sat on its hands, ignoring the need for legislative change identified in the 71 recommendations of the Hawke review of the act a decade ago, we are acting to implement sensible reform. We have begun the process of entering into bilateral approval agreements with the states and territories, beginning with Western Australia. There will be more reforms in the months ahead. We are committed to change that will deliver the best outcomes for the environment and for everyday Australians. The Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment has agreed to implement all eight ANAO recommendations and has already made changes to improve its administration of the EPBC Act. Instead of helping to deliver much-needed reform that has been agreed by national cabinet, Labor is seeking to distract from the environmental debate raging in its divided party room.

On top of the Morrison government's $25 million investment to bust congestion in environmental approvals, we have announced a priority list of 15 major projects to be fast-tracked for approval, involving joint assessment teams with the states to accelerate Commonwealth assessment and approval times. These projects include road infrastructure in Western Australia; Perth airport upgrades in Western Australia; the M12 Motorway link to the Western Sydney international airport in New South Wales; the Sydney Metro rail link to the Western Sydney international airport; the inland freight line from Melbourne to Brisbane; the Coffs Harbour bypass; the emergency town water projects in New South Wales; the Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro expansion; the Narrabri gas project; Woodside's Burrup Hub project in Western Australia; Rio Tinto's iron ore projects in Western Australia; Metronet rail projects in Western Australia; in my home state of South Australia, BHP's Olympic Dam extension; the EnergyConnect high-voltage electricity transmission connection between my home state and New South Wales; and the Marinus Link electricity connection between Tasmania and Victoria. These projects are worth more than $72 billion and are expected to support over 66,000 jobs—important projects aimed at fast-tracking Australia's economic recovery post COVID. By reducing assessment and approval time frames, these major projects will be shovel-ready earlier, helping to create thousands of new jobs and supporting the economy through the COVID-19 crisis.

The Prime Minister has noted that the Commonwealth's ability alone to achieve faster approvals only goes so far and we need to work in partnership with the states. A good example of this is Snowy Hydro 2.0, which underwent a rigorous assessment. By working closely with the New South Wales government a decision was made ahead of statutory timeframes. Partnering with the states and territories is also the approach the Morrison government is taking to much-needed reforms to the EPBC Act. Following the release of the interim review of the EPBC Act by Professor Samuel at the national cabinet meeting of 24 July, all states and territories indicated support for the move to single-touch approvals. We are already talking with the states about entering agreements to progress single-touch approvals, with state and territory processes to be accredited against the standards. We have also introduced a bill to the parliament to amend the EPBC Act to ensure single-touch approvals are efficient and robust.

This bill makes important changes, such as making it clear you don't also need to refer a project to the Commonwealth, if it is going through a state single-touch approval process and providing flexibility so that the state can make minor changes— (Time expired)

See this speech in context