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

a 1,459-page legislative package, and it's expecting industry, stakeholders and parliamentarians to digest it in just three weeks. That's not consultation; that is chaos. We've seen far too many examples of that recently. We've seen the rushed approach to the FOI legislation. We've seen the underresourcing, for example, or cutting of opposition staff members, who play a really important role, I think, in making sure we can respectfully and robustly have a contest of ideas in this place that lands somewhere on balanced, reasonable legislation.

Even the minister himself has, at one point, said that these reforms would take 12 to 18 months to finalise. That's a pretty reasonable approach, to take a considered, methodical way forward. I have to ask: why the rush before Christmas? Why force through some of the most significant environmental reform in an entire generation with barely enough time to read through it? I don't think that that's good for the democratic process. I don't think that that helps us mould a better legislative and regulatory reform process. And I really don't think that's doing justice to Australians, to regional Australians, who I represent, and to the environment. Stakeholders have been pretty clear on this. This legislation, in its current form, is completely unworkable. Business groups, environment groups and local communities are all saying the same thing. This process is rushed, it is inconsistent, and it is overly complex.

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