House debates

Tuesday, 22 June 2021

Bills

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Standards and Assurance) Bill 2021; Second Reading

12:13 pm

Photo of Tim WilsonTim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's a great privilege to get up and speak on the bill before this chamber, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Standards and Assurance) Bill 2021, because, as you know, Speaker, at the heart of liberal ideals and liberal values that I as well as many other members bring to this chamber is a commitment to environmental stewardship and making sure that we define laws that protect the health and wellbeing of our nation. But it runs with other competing principles around economic progress, social inclusion and advancement, and making sure that we have a competitive federal environment so that we do not have monopoly Canberra dictating to people in their communities across the country how laws should be interpreted.

This reform comes off the back, as you know, Speaker, of the review that was completed by a fine, upstanding Goldstein constituent—the former chair of the ACCC, Graeme Samuel—who looked at the EPBC Act and its sustainability, and the extent to which it needed to be modernised. Mr Samuel came back and rightly identified that the EPBC Act was outdated and no longer fit for purpose for advancement of environmental protection in Australia, particularly when compared against state legislation and the mounted inconsistencies that it was not serving Australia's best interests and that we needed reform. One of the critical things that Mr Samuel outlined, correctly, was the need to keep implementing reform and to do it across stages so that we got the best outcome for environmental conservation and wellbeing while also making sure that industries like agriculture, fisheries, forestry, tourism and manufacturing received the benefits and what they needed from the EPBC Act to advance it and to drive improvements in legislation in this country.

Of course, there is a binary contest in environmental conservation. We hear this all the time, as though it's simply a choice between red tape and green tape—which is good if it's around the environment versus the trade-off that comes as a consequence. One of the most important roles of responsible legislators is not just to look at different types of regulation and their benefits but also their costs. People want to throw everything into a prosperity-versus-protection, conservation-versus-commerce framework. Frankly, that's naive and it's arrogant because it fundamentally misunderstands the trade-offs that we face in this chamber every day around getting the laws right to conserve the best interests for the environment for our country. We want to achieve prosperity and protection, not versus. We want conservation and commerce, not to set them up in a binary contest against each other.

This is for no other reason other than we're aware of the benefits of environmental conservation but also its utilisation to advance the interests of the environmental stewardship of our great country. There's an old saying, and the National Party members in this chamber are familiar with it and fond of saying it: if you don't grow it, you dig it. The reality is that a lot of renewable technologies, which members of the opposition and the Greens are fans of, require digging out of the ground. We don't just create concrete out of nothing, or silicon out of nothing or semiconductors, lithium ion or the like out of nothing. They have to come from extractive industries. We need extractive industries for these sorts of technologies to build a cleaner economic future for this country, and to simply set a contest up between prosperity and protection, or conservation versus commerce, then you're deceiving and misleading the people on the nature of the challenge that we face because you're becoming the greatest barrier to environmental stewardship as well as to economic stewardship and progress.

That's one of the great frustrations, frankly, on this side of the chamber: the binary nature in which members, particularly in the Australian Greens but also in the Australian Labor Party and other parties, conduct themselves. They try to set things up as a simple binary contest when they're not so simple or straightforward, and the damage is actually done to our environment, not to its enhancement. That's why we understand the importance of implementing legislation.

The other reason is because we actually want high standards. I recently had a group from a community-based organisation that came to see me about EPBC Act reform. I don't take away their good intentions, but they wanted a very singular national approach, with national standards that imposed from Canberra a monopoly world view about environmental conservation. I outlined not only the limitations around the federalist framework which we have—where we, justly, have states establishing laws—but why we actually want states to have laws. If we don't, we get monopoly outcomes which invariably race to the bottom and the lowest common denominator. They don't find smarter, better and more innovative ways to deliver outcomes with fewer burdens and less cost. This is the basis on which we have this legislation: the recognition of states seeking to improve their outcomes while removing obligations so that the nation benefits and the environment benefits, despite the rigidity that some people would wish on our environmental conservation through a monopoly outcome.

I make no apologies about my commitment to competitive federalism because on so many occasions I have seen that when we try to take power away from citizens to community organisations, from community organisations to state capitals and from state capitals to Canberra we get broader standards—sure—but they become harder to change. In order to get agreement you have to lower them and you get worse outcomes. It's a simple proposition: is it harder to change the outcomes in your own family circumstances around the kitchen table versus the decisions of a state government? The answer is self-evident.

If you lift it even further, up to the national level, you don't get a better outcome; you just get one that's lower and harder to change. We want competitive federalism. We want a system that drives standards, improvements and outcomes up. We want a system that enables environmental conservation to be dealt with in a way where we're actually advancing the environmental and the economic interests of the country, and breaking down the foolish, dismissive and disingenuous binary nature of so much of the environmental discussion in this country. As I said before, we seek prosperity and protection, conservation and commerce. We do not simply pit them against each other.

That is what phase 1 of the reforms to the EPBC Act is designed to achieve. Consistent with the Samuel review, it very much works with the states to improve outcomes and have cross-referencing between their different regulatory standards in the hope that that will improve environmental outcomes for the nation while removing needless, pointless and arbitrary red and green tape which don't actually improve environmental outcomes; they simply impose costs for no benefit. This approach is completely consistent with the decisions of the national cabinet. As members would remember, it is a process that was established in the context of COVID-19, to enable state premiers and territory leaders to buy into the process to improve governance across this country. But, again, I stress that it should be done in the context of a competitive federalist framework. Whether it will achieve that or not is a different matter, but we will leave that discussion for another day.

The bill seeks not only to modernise the EPBC Act but to remove unnecessary duplication of red and green tape. Duplication serves no real purpose except for ticking boxes on bureaucratic forms. It doesn't actually improve environmental outcomes. We should want environmental assessments to be streamlined, efficient and outcomes driven, because, again, it isn't a contest between protection and prosperity; they work hand in hand with good law. We want to improve efficiency for business and have projects assessed to deliver more jobs and a stronger economy. We want to make sure that decisions are made swiftly so that people can repurpose capital and get on with the job, as is appropriate and consistent with environmental conservation. It will also include greater certainty for community groups and communities who are affected by environmental approvals. Of course, principally, the bill's objective is to deliver better environmental outcomes. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get these laws right, and my hope is that the Labor Party will support this bill's passage through the parliament this week.

As I understand it, there hasn't been as much conversation about this in the great state of Victoria as there has in the great state of Western Australia. I understand that within the Australian Labor Party at the moment there's a significant fight, a war going on, between members about their commitment to this bill, which is dependent on whether you understand the actual wealth-creation basis of our economy, as members on this side of the chamber do—and a select number on the other side of the chamber do as well—or hold the modern progressive world view that seems to be completely disconnected from any reality or understanding about how wealth is created and the opportunities and jobs that flow from it. It's one of the reasons the Labor Party should rename itself, because it has not been a 'labour' party for a very long time. Today, if anything, it should be recognised as the 'Party of Organised Workers'. Really, it is the 'Party of Organised Capital'. They see wealth creation in this country coming not from growth in jobs and industries that improve the health and welfare of the Australian people; they see it from the perspective of financiers and from the perspective of urban capital rather than rural and regional communities where primary industries are heavily based. But that is their cross to bear and their issue to resolve.

The choice the Labor Party need to face this week is whether they're going to support passing this legislation, because there are very real consequences. Significant environmental and economic opportunities exist in Western Australia—and I see the member for Fremantle coming in; I understand he is one of the great advocates against improvements to the EPBC Act, but that, of course, is his choice. There are other Western Australian colleagues who are more supportive of reforms to improve economic and environmental outcomes.

The opportunity in this update of this legislation to improve the EPBC Act is to get projects advanced across the country to improve economic and environmental outcomes and to deliver prosperity and protection, conservation and commerce. That's the basis on which this legislation is introduced. That is the basis of the way in which we approach the environment. We ask: what do we need to do to conserve its health while recognising its potential not just to improve the economic and social welfare of Australia, though that is of critical importance, but also to create the jobs and opportunities and innovation for new industries that will help improve the future of the country? Again, you can't have many sectors in a more environmentally sensitive economy without a recognition that they are built on older industries, particularly extractive industry. We look at what we can do to make them clean and green to improve the health and welfare of the whole of the community. That's the basis on which I support this legislation. That's the basis on which I'm sure that most members, at least on this side of the chamber, support this legislation.

It is now up to Labor to show their cards. It is now up to Labor to say who they back—the economy and the environment, or the environment and the economy, whichever way they wish to put it, conservation and commerce, prosperity and protection—or are they simply going to indulge in their own internal fights because they don't actually know who they stand for or what they stand for, or what they're prepared to trade off. I know there are some state premiers that are looking at this parliament as we debate this legislation. Mark McGowan, in particular at the moment, is no doubt, despite his rhetoric, looking at this nation's parliament and saying, 'Are the Labor members of this chamber going to vote to advance their state, or are they going to draw a line in the sand and put their ideology ahead of the interests of the Western Australian people?' I know where we stand. My hope is that they do the right thing, and I see the member for Fremantle has walked in. He is, of course, a very, very distant cousin, a fellow Wilson. He's probably related to Geoff Wilson as well. I call on those opposite to do the right thing and to stand up for the best interests of this country.

On that basis, and on the hopeful commitment of the member for Fremantle and others, I call on those opposite to stand up for the best interests of this country, rather than moving what we might call pious amendments and virtue signalling—actually, virtue signalling implies that virtue is behind it; it's just elite signalling. I hope that they will stand up and do the right thing to improve the environmental protection of this country and stand up for what we know to be true and just, so that the next generation of Australians can look to environmental conservation and say that this parliament has its back with sound and proper laws that create the opportunity for environmental conservation to create the jobs that the next generation of Australians need and, of course, will put them in a better position not just to have jobs based on a framework for environmental conservation with more stewardship but to create the bounty, wealth and prosperity for future generations to invest in cleaning up the legacy of environmental degradation that preceded us. That's what stewardship is about. It's about handing over to the next generation something better than we inherited.

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