Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you. I am pleased to hear that there is perhaps some wriggle room in the nature of those amendments. The national partnership agreement terminology is that the states need to amend their laws in order to 'take account of' this committee's advice. I have some very firm views on how that term has been interpreted in other environmental laws, but this is obviously just a partnership agreement and not a law. Can the parliamentary secretary shed any light on his understanding of whether 'take account of' means 'comply with' or whether it simply means 'read and then shred if inconvenient'?