Mary Aldred (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

We've seen too many examples right now of state and federal governments, Labor governments, just riding roughshod over local communities, over regional communities. At the moment, we've got yet another rushed renewable project in West Gippsland, in Darnum. I'm very proud to represent a region that contributes 23 per cent of the nation's milk output and 26 per cent of Victoria's beef. We've got the best soil out of anywhere in Australia. It's prime agricultural farmland, and yet we've got a big battery energy storage project that's just being lumped on paddocks in that community. Lily D'Ambrosio, the Victorian energy minister, has scant regard for the views and other productive activities of regional Victorians. That's an example of where Labor, again, are just riding roughshod over local communities.

I also have real concern about the productivity that this bill will undermine. The government loves to talk about productivity. It had a talkfest—it took the idea from Kevin Rudd's 2020 roundtable—on productivity recently. It certainly talks about productivity, but it's not really serious about implementing steps that are practical and enhance productivity measures. In fact, this bill will take productivity backwards. We've already got a serious productivity problem. We're ranked second last in the OECD, just above Mexico. Australia used to be near the top of the pops on productivity across the OECD, but, under successive Labor governments, we've seen that decline and be whittled away. This bill is just another spoke in the wheels of productivity in this country.

In their first term alone, more than 5,000 new regulations were introduced. I don't think this government has ever met a regulation it didn't like. I talk to a lot of businesses in my electorate that are drowning in a quagmire of green tape. It does not serve the environment, it does not protect regional jobs, and it does not enhance productivity. This is not reform; this is regression. Economists have been tolling the bell on this. They have warned that underinvestment in research and development is already dragging our productivity down. We invest a lot in research, particularly in the agriculture sector, in my region. I'm very proud that Monash hosts the Darnum research facility on dairy. We are trying our best to lift up productivity and kickstart innovation, and this bill really runs counter to all of those principles. Without balanced reform, we're going to risk pushing that investment offshore. That means fewer jobs, less growth and a weaker economy.

Let's not forget Labor's history in this area. Under former minister Plibersek, the government promised a complete EPBC overhaul by the end of 2023. That failed to be delivered. It was a friendless proposal that collapsed under its own weight. Minister Watt, the Prime Minister's so-called Mr Fix It, has inherited a mess, and, to his credit, he's tried to work through that mess. He claims that this new package is 'balanced reform', but stakeholders have been telling the coalition otherwise, and those stakeholders include environment groups and local community groups from metropolitan areas and regional areas like mine. They tell us otherwise. Western Australia's premier even had to step in to stop Labor's last attempt at this bill. That's how bad it was. There are a number of Labor premiers at the moment—from Chris Minns in New South Wales, who's very sensibly had some words to say about excise tax, to the WA Labor premier—who really are running counter views to a number of things that this federal Labor government are trying to achieve. After three years and two ministers, the government has produced a reform that's really worse than the 26-year-old law that it's seeking to replace. The key reasons for that are that it's unworkable and it's massive overreach.

There is a glaring issue, and that is the environment protection authority itself. This government came to its administration saying that it wanted to streamline regulation; that, where possible, it's always preferable to harmonise and streamline regulation; and that, where you're able to meet the intention of an agency, a bill or a piece of regulation, there's no point asking businesses, community groups and environment groups to have to grapple with overlapping state and federal regulatory burdens. That's what we've effectively got with two levels of EPAs at a state level and at a federal level. The Graeme Samuel review, which was commissioned by the coalition, never recommended an EPA, because we've got that state based compliance structure. What it recommended was a compliance commissioner, not an approval authority.

I speak to a whole range of businesses in my electorate, mainly small to medium businesses, from agriculture, meat processing and dairy processing. They are really up against it right now. There's a whole lot of uncertainty in international markets. Productivity is declining, but red tape and green tape are just killing regional businesses. This is going to be another spoke in the wheel for those businesses. There are no clear performance indicators. There's no binding statement of expectations. There's no ministerial accountability for the CEO. So, under the bill, the CEO can be dismissed only by the governor-general, and that's just absurd. Any government body wielding this much power should answer directly to the minister—that is respecting the primacy of that office and the parliament as well as the function and role of the executive.

We also have duplication, and that really is a huge point of frustration for many businesses that I speak to. The bill needlessly repeats existing scopes 1 and 2 emissions reporting requirements, and that's already covered under the Safeguard Mechanism. Labor claims to be cutting red and green tape, but this bill is creating more of both. It also contains 37 separate definitions of unacceptable impacts. How can a business possibly operate under that kind of confusion? I address my remarks particularly to small- and medium-business operators because, unlike big corporations, they don't have a whole compliance department. They don't have a whole HR department. If you're a small-business owner, you're the compliance officer, you're the HR officer and you're the marketing manager, and you've got to find time at the end of the day to be able to for your customers. With respect, I just don't think that's a concept Labor understands, respects or can relate to.

I've got a number of issues with this bill. I do not think that it in any way meets those ambitions of protecting the environment or addressing productivity issues that we have in this country in a really reasonable way. I was quite pleased to listen to the previous contribution respectfully, and I'd encourage others to perhaps reflect on doing the same.

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