Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I don't accept anything in terms of the approach there that Senator Rice has said. The government are by no means taking a chainsaw to any environmental regulation or protection, but we certainly are going to do our best to take a chainsaw to delays and to red tape and to additional costs, and we're going to make sure that, when environmental regulation is applied in Australia, it is applied for the protection of the environment, not for the delay, the deferral or the applying of additional costs to viable economic activity and business activity. We want to see projects that can coexist with the environment go ahead without spending years in multiple duplicative approval processes. We want to make sure that those sorts of projects can actually happen and employ and create jobs for Australians without facing undue costs, unnecessary impositions, and that's why we'll work with states to do just that. (Time expired)