Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution to the debate on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Bilateral Agreement Implementation) Bill 2014, which, as Senator Waters and Senator Mills have articulated very clearly, we do not support. I will give some examples showing why it is so important that we do not hand off all of these powers. I would also like to address some of the points that Senator Back brought up, because I was involved in a number of the debates over the particular projects that Senator Back cites as examples of why powers should be handed off. I will address those first.

With Mangles Bay and its seagrass beds, the company and the people that have repeatedly impacted on seagrass beds in that area of Cockburn Sound had not been able to demonstrate that they could, in fact, restore those particular types of seagrass beds—that they could grow them and sustain them. They made claims at the time that they would be restoring two or three times more seagrass than they destroyed; however, they could not prove that it could be grown. They also consistently failed to take into account cumulative impacts. It is the same repeatedly across Australia—companies are saying, 'We can manage the impacts, there will only be a small impact,' but fail to take into account that we are not dealing with pristine environments anymore. We have, as a country, significantly damaged large areas of Australia. So you cannot consider a project in isolation.

I would like to give three examples of why this particular piece of legislation will be a disaster for situations in Western Australia. Each of the examples I use here have the common factor of the state government being the proponents. First I would like to go to the great white sharks and the culling of sharks in Western Australia. It is the state government that are the proponents. What you are saying is the state government should now be doing their own assessment of their own project. Guess what. I give you 99.9 per cent certainty that they are going to say, 'This is a fantastic idea.' They are failing to tell us information about the sharks.

The government on no scientific basis are ignoring 300 marine scientists and ecologists—who know a little bit about what they are talking about—saying this is a bad idea. They are failing to tell the community and the EPA that in fact there had been some surveys done of what the community thinks. This goes to the point that Senator Back made about how, if projects are not acceptable to the community, that is one of the indicators that it is not very good and would be unlikely to get up. The community in Western Australia overwhelmingly does not support the shark cull, which fortunately now is being subject to federal assessment.

The recent research paper, which was, we are told, commissioned by the state government, was not previously released to the WA community, and the findings showed that the majority of respondents surveyed do not support the killing of sharks off the coast in an effort to reduce the risk of shark incidents. It also provided insight into what Western Australians thought about the risks posed by sharks and how they should be dealt with. Fairfax Media obtained a copy of the research, which was compiled by Marketforce and based its findings on the responses of 768 Western Australians. Fewer than 20 per cent of respondents said they agreed with culling sharks that came near the coast of Western Australia. More than 50 per cent of respondents said that, although more needed to be done about sharks, culling was not the answer. The survey also showed that most respondents did not believe there was anything that could be done to increase the safety of water users from sharks. The top response to the question,' What else do you think should be done about sharks off the Western Australian coast?' was 'nothing'. Most respondents believed individuals were responsible for ensuring their own safety about sharks, with the state government the second-most-voted-for option when it came to responsibility for safety. The survey identified increased aerial surveillance as an initiative that made more people inclined to use beaches in the metro area, while in regional areas the corresponding initiative was warnings of the tagged sharks from WA's shark-monitoring network.

This is clearly an issue that the state government should not be let anywhere near approval of, because they are the proponents. This is crazy thinking. It is absolutely crazy that they could ignore the science. It was a knee-jerk reaction built to get a little bit of lift in the polls, but it did not, because most Western Australians do not support it. Why would you think it is appropriate to hand over that decision to the state government on its own project?

Then there is the James Price Point proposal. The state government was the proponent for compulsorily acquiring the land, was pushing the joint ventures to go there and then carried out its own assessment, which was rejected by the court, which said they would have to do it again. Why would you expect that they are going to carry out an unbiased assessment when they are the proponents? Again, it is crazy thinking. It is why you cannot hand off these approval processes.

Another example is the Carnaby's cockatoo. Anybody in Western Australia and particularly Perth knows about Carnaby's cockatoo. You get this most wonderful sense every time you hear them and see them flying near you. BirdLife Australia has been conducting the Great Cocky Count in Western Australia for a significant period of time. I am sure people Australia-wide know the wonderful work they do. They have just released another report in Western Australia on Carnaby's cockatoo. We know they have been declining, but over the last five years the cocky count in Western Australia has documented an annual decline of 15 per cent in Carnaby numbers. This is now sparking very strong fears that the species could be extinct on the Swan Coastal Plain within the next 20 years.

The species has lost considerable habitat; 1,000 hectares of Swan Coastal Plain native vegetation is being cleared every year, and this is critical habitat for the birds. What has been happening is we get this wonderful offsets theory. They allow clearing in the metro area and say it will be offset somewhere else because we will protect a bit of bush elsewhere. That, of course, is not in the metro area, where the cockies are.

The birds, not being able to access the native vegetation, have actually been making the pine plantations just north of Perth their home, and they have done that very effectively. However, the pine plantations are having a negative impact on the groundwater table on which Perth depends and a lot of our ecosystems depends—particularly the species using the Yanchep caves. It is a very complex ecological equation. The new habitat that they have moved into—the pine plantations—are now being cleared out of the Gnangara pine plantation. That is now impacting on the numbers of cockatoos. This is where it gets complicated. As I just said, the pine plantations are having an impact on the water table and on particular species in the Yanchep caves, but the point here is the vegetation is being cleared and not replaced. It is not being staged.

This is a species that is actually listed under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, so it is a trigger for Commonwealth involvement. We think there needs to be an assessment there. Again, here it is the state government that are the proponents of the clearing and very often the people who give permission to clear some of the Banksia woodland, which is particularly important. I note here too that there has been the ongoing issue in Western Australia of clearing the Underwood Avenue bushland, which the University of Western Australia owns. That is critical habitat for Carnaby’s cockatoos. BirdLife Australia's Head of Conservation, Samantha Vine, said:

The Gnangara Plantation is the single most important feeding habitat for the species [on the Swan Coastal Plain]—it sustains thousands of Carnaby’s for several months each year. However, its trees are being harvested and not replaced, taking away a major source of food and important roosting sites.

And she went on to say that there needs to be action taken.

This is another example of where the state government is the proponent. It also has the solution at hand. It could and should be making sure that there is habitat available and plan in advance replacing that pine plantation as it is cleared because it has known for a long time that that is critical habitat for Carnaby's cockatoo. I certainly do not want the situation where metropolitan Perth no longer hears the cries of and sees the magnificent Carnaby's cockatoos.

This is yet another example of where we need the federal government to have environmental powers. The Western Australian state government has demonstrated again and again that we need the federal government to have environmental powers. This is because in some instances it is incapable of making the decision. Sharks is a classic example. I am deeply worried about the future of the Carnaby's cockatoo since to date the state government has shown no ability to plan to make sure this habitat is replaced.

If the company had not pulled out—making the decision somewhat different—the state government would have approved the James Price Point proposal. That is why we need the federal government to have powers and use the powers available under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. It is not good enough to rely just on the state, because they will not do the right thing. They put development ahead of protecting the environment. It was quite obvious in Western Australia that that is exactly what they were doing with James Price Point.

In Western Australia when James Price Point was being assessed they could not find five members of the Environmental Protection Authority to make the decision. Because four of them were conflicted it was left to one person. That is the mob that this federal government wants to hand over the approval powers to. That is not good decision making. That is not protecting the environment. That will not protect the sharks of Western Australia, Carnaby's cockatoos and all the other unique and special environments we have in Western Australia. We do not support handing over these approval powers.

I worked in the environment movement for a very long time before I came to this place. Consistently I would hear, 'The Environmental Protection Act in Western Australia is holding up all these developments.' When the EPA did an assessment of 'holding up all these developments', they found that most of the time it was when they had gone back to the industry and said that they needed clarification of a particular point or had done their bit of the process and were waiting for the proponent to get back to them. It was the proponents themselves who were the blockage.

Some people who want to weaken our Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and want to weaken the state acts as well use the argument of too much red tape and blockages as a way of undermining environmental protection. There is no doubt in my mind that if they had their druthers they would not want any environmental protection legislation at all. They use red and green tape as an excuse when what they really want to do is get rid of environmental laws. Well we are not going to support that. We need a stronger environmental protection act—not a weaker act. We should not hand this power over to the states, who are the proponents of many of the proposals that are getting assessed. We will not be supporting this legislation.