Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to stand here today in the House and speak on the seven environmental bills that are part of the government's environmental reforms: the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025, the National Environmental Protection Agency Bill 2025, the Environment Information Australia Bill 2025 and the four environment protection and biodiversity conservation charge imposition bills. These bills respond to the government's 2022 election commitment to reform Australia's environmental laws. I welcome the introduction of these considerable reforms for debate and the intention to better protect our natural environment.

My electorate of Indi boasts spectacular natural places that locals and visitors alike enjoy visiting. Indi's biodiversity is striking, providing essential habitat for critically endangered swift parrots, barking owls, common bent-wing bats and the vulnerable growling frog. When I was first elected as the member for Indi in 2019, I was given a strong mandate to advocate for nature. My constituents care deeply about nature. Since 2019, I've received more than 25,000 emails, letters and phone calls from my constituents about the environment, overwhelmingly calling for stronger protections. Rural communities are stewards of the land. Farming and tourism industries depend on it. Through this caretaker relationship, regional Australians intimately understand the impacts of climate change. We experience it in hotter summers, increasing bushfire risk, larger floods that push insurance costs beyond reach, and erratic weather patterns that cause unpredictable crop yields.

I have a strong belief that we can deliver better laws for the environment and laws that work for rural communities and for business. But make no mistake: the primary reason for these bills must be to protect the environment. These bills propose significant changes to the EPBC Act, including introducing national environmental standards, stronger penalties for breaking environmental laws, and bioregional planning into our environmental laws, as well as improving public information on the environment, including publishing a state-of-the-environment report every two years, creating Australia's first Environmental Protection Agency and a new framework to impose general, customs, excise and regulation charges. As they currently stand, our environmental laws are fundamentally flawed. They're not protecting our environment, and they're filled with uncertainty for business. Professor Graeme Samuel's 2020 independent review of the EPBC Act laid this bare and called for reform—and I agree.

I have approached this legislation seeking to identify progress to protect the environment and to ensure that regional communities are meaningfully consulted on projects that impact them. There is some real progress to be found within this legislation, particularly in relation to stronger penalties for breaking environmental laws and better information sharing, enabled through Environmental Information Australia. But, despite this progress, there are sweeping issues in this legislation that I feel must be addressed.

Primarily, there are extraordinary powers that give ministerial discretion through this legislation. Ministerial discretion, in a democratically elected government, is not inherently bad. I'm not one of those people who think there shouldn't be any ministerial discretion. But the problem here is that, alongside these discretionary powers, there's little transparency over how the minister uses this discretion or guardrails to ensure that decisions align with the intent of these laws to protect nature. We should get insight into whether the minister sought advice from the EPA CEO, for example, and whether their decision is in contradiction of that advice.

Perhaps most unclear are the minister's broad national interest exemption powers, and I know many people are concerned about this, because they enable the minister to contravene national environmental standards and approve projects that the minister deems to be in the national interest. And there's no clarity about what can be defined as being in the national interest or not. Our laws and the protections they give to the environment must be free from vested political interests, now and in the future. Secretive ministerial discretion in decision-making simply doesn't foster the trust that we need.

The objective of the national EPA is to deliver focused and transparent environmental regulatory decision-making. To achieve this, the agency must be free from influence and equipped with strong regulatory powers to enforce laws. And while the government says that this body is independent, I do have some significant concerns about its governance. There's no provision for the CEO to be appointed through a transparent and merit based assessment process and no governance board to ensure that the CEO performs their functions consistent with the act. Ministerial influence over the EPA fundamentally undermines the objective of this agency and diminishes trust in the whole EPBC Act. We need to get this right.

Critical to Graeme Samuel's environmental reforms were robust, legally enforceable national environmental standards, outlining the environmental objectives of the EPBC Act. National standards are necessary for effective, clear and consistent environmental decision-making. A key criticism I had of the former stage 2 nature-positive reforms was indeed that these standards were missing. I'm pleased that the government has listened and has included a provision for the minister to create national environmental standards in regulation. I also welcome the 'no regression' principle applied to these standards, noting that this does not apply until after the first 18-month review.

The government has flagged its intention to create national standards relating to matters of national environmental significance, offsets, data and environmental information, and First Nations engagement. I welcome those. I am, however, disappointed that the minister is yet to commit to a national standard for community engagement and consultation, because communities are absolutely critical stakeholders. Our Farmers for Climate Action survey found 76 per cent of regional Australians believe that early and genuine community consultation for renewable energy projects helps build community trust, and, if we have community trust, we can get approvals through in a much, much better way. Under the legislation we're debating today, there are no requirements for community consultation on projects approved under the EPBC Act, and, in my mind, that's completely unacceptable. A national standard for community engagement and consultation would improve certainty for developers and regional communities alike, giving clear expectations that, for any project seeking approval under the EPBC Act, proponents must adhere to best-practice community engagement. That can only be a good thing. So I will be moving an amendment requiring the government to develop a national environmental standard for community engagement and consultation. This standard, as I said, must be applied to all projects, but it's particularly vital for fast-tracked approvals and for priority action projects in declared development zones within bioregional plans.

I've consistently called for regional mapping that clearly identifies areas that are not suitable for project development. In fact, this was my No. 1 recommendation to the community engagement review undertaken by the then energy infrastructure commissioner, Professor Andrew Dyer. I'm pleased to see bioregional planning included in this legislation. I genuinely am. This is a commonsense solution that gives project developers certainty over where they will get a quick 'no' on a project, and hopefully reduces unnecessary stress on regional communities. This legislation also identifies development zones, which means certain types of projects most appropriate for an area can be given faster approval.

The government has a difficult role in managing competing land-use priorities. Done right, bioregional mapping can ensure our land is most appropriately and effectively used for environmental protection and regeneration, for farming the food and fibre we rely on and for the renewable energy to meet our energy needs. This planning needs to be done at a regional and a national level to ensure that we are being strategic, and it must be consistent with other national land-use policies. The government is currently creating a national food security strategy to ensure we can meet our domestic food needs and international obligations and to ensure our food production is better protected against climate change. Bioregional planning under the EPBC Act must link with this strategy to identify the areas of high-value agricultural land most essential to protecting our food security and to identify where land is better and more economically suited to environmental regeneration or, indeed, to renewable energy projects. This is the opportunity to get this right.

Let me be clear: I am not saying that renewable energy projects should not be placed on farming land, because many farmers welcome this. It's an additional form of diversification in their income. It protects them in times of drought or other difficult periods. But what I am saying is that we must be strategic about this. We must ensure that high-value agricultural land is preserved and farmers and communities can host renewable infrastructure and receive long-term economic benefits. I believe we can do both. But we can only do both if we consult with our communities, if we get the bioregional planning right and if we really link all of our national and our regional planning in a sensible and well considered way.

I will be moving amendments to ensure areas of high-value agricultural land and drinking water catchments are considered when defining the boundary of a development zone within a bioregional plan. This is critical. High-value agricultural land and drinking water catchments are critical areas of our natural environment. I will also move amendments to increase the consultation timeframes for communities back out to 60 days. Shutting community out of environmental decision-making is bad for regional communities, bad for social licence and ultimately bad for project outcomes.

Another disappointing loophole to see in the Environmental Protection Regulation Bill is a very quiet carve-out exemption from penalties for minor and preparatory works. Under the EPBC Act 1999, it is an offence for a proponent to undertake work on a project deemed a controlled action before it has been approved by the minister. The government's amendment in the Environment Protection Reform Bill opens an exemption under this rule allowing the minister to authorise minor and preparatory works to start before the minister has made an assessment. If a project is on a site with concerns significant enough to be referred to the minister for a controlled action decision, how can it be acceptable for that project to start works? This power poses multiple risks to communities, the environment, and the quality and integrity in environmental assessment under the EPBC Act. I will be moving an amendment to repeal this section of the legislation.

In closing, I really believe this legislation represents the biggest change to our national environment laws in 25 years. It presents an enormous opportunity. It is extremely complex. Let's make no mistake. I welcome the Senate inquiry into this suite of bills to provide fulsome scrutiny of legislation. It's a vital opportunity for stakeholders and communities to contribute their views. I acknowledge that reforming the EPBC Act is a large and challenging task. I don't underestimate that. There are truly some positives in this legislation. But I believe more needs to be done to ensure that it is fit for purpose to protect our environment into the future, so I call on the government to back my amendments. They are in good faith and address issues that disproportionately impact rural communities, issues that people in my electorate of Indi care so deeply about. Our environmental laws are currently failing the environment. We can't afford to wait another 25 years, but we also can't afford not to get it right this time.

See this speech in context