Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Hansard source

It will do your reputation no good, I realise, Senator Cameron. But Senator Cameron rightly said that he believes every senator in this place cares about environmental protection. I believe Senator Cameron is right in that regard. Of course there are differences of opinion that exist right around the chamber, not only between parties but, I have no doubt, within parties as well, as to the extent of the types of protections that are required, as to the priorities of what needs to be protected, and as to the approaches of how the environment should be protected. But there is a consensus and a broad understanding and support that transcends across governments, that sees support across the board for environmental protection.

Indeed, as Senator Cameron rightly highlighted, the substantive act that we are debating today, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, was a reform of the Howard government, implemented and delivered by my former employer and a great senator in this place for a long period of time, former Senator Robert Hill. It is one of the great legacies of the Howard government that we implemented this reform and provided for effective national standards around environmental management.

The bill before us today, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Retaining Federal Approval Powers)Bill 2012, seeks to remove some of the original provisions from that 1999 act. Let me be very clear: the coalition's position as we come to this debate today is consistent, as it was when that act was passed in 1999. The bill that the Greens propose today seeks to remove provisions for which there is absolutely no evidence that those provisions have been abused; no evidence that those provisions have been misused. In fact, those provisions have barely been used. They have been used on just one occasion in the history of this act.

Senator Waters interjecting—

Senator Waters says, 'Exactly!' Well, exactly, Senator Waters, you are seeking to strip something from the act that, to date, no government has managed to find an effective way to make work. That does not mean that a government in future could not find an effective way to make these provisions work. Senator Waters wants to take out a flexible approach, a capacity to try to get some efficiency in the operation of the EPBC act, even though there is no evidence to say that there have been problems under such an approach, because she believes there might be problems under such an approach in future. The Greens, of course, in this sense, are equally being consistent in wanting to see the greatest level of bureaucracy, the greatest level of regulation, the greatest level of red tape and the greatest duplication across local, state and federal governments of assessment processes—all of which, of course, add to the costs in the economy and the costs of doing business and are to the detriment of the growth of business, economic activity and jobs in Australia.

The coalition's position as we come to this is very consistent. We support the provisions of the act that we were proud to pass when in government in 1999. We support key recommendations within the Hawke review, a substantive body of work that looked at and analysed the entire operation of the EPBC Act and tried to recommend improvements to it, which I will come back to shortly. We support our policy, announced during the term of this parliament, to implement a one-stop-shop approach that attempts to streamline environmental approvals processes without in any way undermining the standards of environmental assessments.

There is an important point to make here: that the types of reforms we are advocating and the types of reforms the government briefly stood for are reforms to try to get greater efficiency in our approvals processes but maintain the same level of standards.