Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for the issues that have been raised. The government will not be supporting this amendment. Thousands of decisions are made under the EPBC Act every year, including things like issuing permits. Many decisions that would be published in the register are routine. Therefore, it would be undue administrative burden to require reasons to be published in every single circumstance. The current reforms, and specifically section 232 of the bill, provide that recommendation reports for approval decisions are published. This is an improvement on the current process that we have, where interested parties need to apply for a statement of reasons.

See this speech in context