Varun Ghosh (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Climate Trigger) Bill 2022 and to speak against it on the basis that it's an ineffective method of achieving emissions reduction in Australia, it duplicates existing legislation and it ignores the substantive process of environmental law reform that the government's currently undertaking. The goal of that law reform is to improve the approvals processes, reduce Australia's emissions and guide this country through an energy transition—a complicated and difficult process.

The work of reforming the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act is underway. The work of the energy transition and emissions reduction is underway, and the size and significance of that task should not be underestimated. Dr Henry, addressing the National Press Club last week, stated what is, in some ways, the obvious: 'Clearly, this is not a small task. There have been three failed attempts in the past 15 years to get this reform done. But reform is essential. And it is time to get it done.' That is what the government is committed to. It is unlikely to be done, however, given the scope of the challenge and the significance of the consequences, through simplistic approaches. It is unlikely to be helped by this private senator's bill.

What are we really talking about here? At the core of it, of course we should consider climate impacts and of course legislation should address the problems of climate change, and it does—including the government's safeguard mechanism. Indeed, Graeme Samuel's review of these laws—I'm referring specifically to recommendation 2—suggested that national environmental standards should require development proposals to 'explicitly consider the likely effectiveness of avoidance or mitigation measures on nationally protected matters under specified climate change scenarios' and 'transparently disclose the full emissions of the development'. That seems sensible. But the process proposed under this bill creates two thresholds. It creates a threshold based on a significant emissions impact that kicks in at 25 kilotonnes across 12 months and a prohibited emissions impact which kicks in at 100 kilotonnes across 12 months. It then imposes penalties, including criminal sanctions, for taking actions in the absence of approvals in certain circumstances. That mechanism, in the way it's been proposed, is what we have a fundamental issue with here because it's unlikely to be effective as a part of environmental law reform in Australia.

Professor Samuel, in his review of the EPBC Act, noted that it's a complex and outdated piece of legislation and it 'does not meet best practice for modern regulation', and one of the reasons it doesn't do so is the level of complexity involved. It's difficult, time consuming and expensive for people to understand their legal rights and obligations. This leads to confusion and inconsistent decision-making, which creates unnecessary regulatory burdens for businesses and restricts access to justice. Professor Samuel said:

The policy areas covered by the EPBC Act are inherently complex. The way the different areas of the Act work together to deliver environmental outcomes is not always clear, and many areas operate in a siloed way.

That, I think, is at the heart of our opposition to this private senator's bill. It is not an attempt to substantially reform Australia's environmental laws; it is a proposal for the addition of a climate trigger and criminal offences into a piece of legislation that is already complex and cumbersome to apply. It appears to have given little thought to how businesses or regulators would actually seek to implement these reforms and enforce compliance other than the penalties proposed.

I come back to Dr Henry's speech at the National Press Club last week. I note that he observed:

Report after report tells the same story. The environment is not being protected. Biodiversity is not being conserved. Nature is in systemic decline.

The government seeks to address this, but the observation made by Dr Henry after that is important to consider when examining the mechanism by which we achieve that goal. Dr Henry said:

We simply cannot afford slow, opaque, duplicative and contested environmental planning decisions based on poor information mired in administrative complexity.

This bill would add to the administrative complexity of an already complex and cumbersome act. It would not make the process of environmental protection in Australia either more effective or easier. That approvals process hurts in perverse ways as well. Approvals and the lack of efficiency around approvals under this legislation also prevent environmentally beneficial projects coming online. Dr Henry observed that the average time for an EPBC assessment and approval of a wind farm or a solar farm blew out from 505 days in 2018 to 831 days in 2021.

For the goals that we're trying to achieve, we need to reform this act to make it easier to use, to make it more efficient and to make the approvals process something that can be negotiated quickly and easily, where we can get decisions on both projects that the economy requires and projects that will help our environmental transition and our transition to clean energy. According to the Clean Energy Investor Group, between 2018 and 2024, of renewables projects in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria that required assessment under the EPBC Act, only 28 were actually approved or rejected. There's a broken system here. As Professor Samuel observed in his review, the current act adds costs to business, often with little benefit to the environment. That, we say, is a problem that would be worsened by this private senator's bill.

The second point I'd really like to address is the duplication of the emissions regulation framework that is contemplated under this legislation. One of the observations that Samuel made in his review was:

While climate change is a significant and increasing threat to Australia's environment, successive Commonwealth Governments have elected to adopt specific mechanisms and laws to implement their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The EPBC Act should not duplicate the Commonwealth's framework for regulating emissions.

This bill would duplicate the Commonwealth's framework for regulating emissions. In 2023, the safeguard mechanism was reformed by this government to require facilities to reduce their emissions in line with Australia's climate targets. These reforms applied a nearly five per cent annual decline rate to facilities baselines so that they are reduced predictably and gradually over time on a trajectory consistent with achieving Australia's emissions reduction targets—43 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and net zero by 2050. The baselines for these new facilities will then decline over time at the same rate as other facilities. That mechanism came into place on 1 July 2023.

There is a real risk with legislation that's proposed in the form that it is currently in before us. You would have different emissions thresholds applying to enliven climate triggers than the safeguard mechanism. I outlined those standards before but, from a practical perspective in terms of ensuring compliance with this legislation to actually get the outcomes we need, if you have pieces of legislation that say two different things, it creates a kind of chaos. It creates a kind of administrative complexity for those people who have to try and comply with that legislation and those people who have to try and enforce that legislation, and this is something we cannot afford in environmental regulation. We need it to be simpler and more effective, not more complicated and potentially inconsistent. It's a recipe for confusion and it undermines our goals of ultimately reducing emissions in the long term, goals that this government has taken a number of steps in the right direction on.

There is a difference in this space between moral outrage and real work, and I commend my colleague Senator Grogan for her observations earlier in this respect. This government has undertaken the most significant emissions reduction measures in Australia's history. The examples include renewable energy targets, the Capacity Investment Scheme, the new vehicle efficiency standard and, very importantly, the safeguard mechanism. Since 2022, more than 90 renewable energy generation projects have come online, and that's enough to power 11 million homes. Australia's 2024 emissions projections show that the policies that have been put in place show Australia on track to reach 42.7 per cent below 2005 emissions levels by 2030. It's just shy of the target of 43 per cent, and the net zero plan remains on track.

I turn now to the government's environmental reforms. The reform of Australia's environmental laws—substantively, in the form of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act at the moment—is an important national priority for the government. The current legislation, as described earlier, simply doesn't work, but this bill doesn't assist it either. What's really very clear, not least of which because it's been an energetic and very public effort, is that the current environment minister is in the process of consulting with a broad range of stakeholders to ensure we get this policy right and we take the community with us. In relation to some of the early outcomes of those consultations, we've already heard that what's important to people is stronger environmental protection and restoration; more efficient and robust project assessments; greater accountability; and transparency in decision-making. Key elements of such reforms will also include the content of national environmental standards, streamlined approval processes, regional planning, more robust offset regimes and monitoring and better data on environmental impacts.

I am hesitant to compliment him too much, but I think the minister really hit the nail on the head when he said it's important to get a broad range of people together with different perspectives on these issues because the truth is we're only going to pass these reforms and solve these challenges by working together. Real reform of this size and significance in this country requires the country to commit, because it comes with not only benefits but also costs.

It's also important that we get this right. The area is complex, and the consequences are severe, as I've said. We need to get these reforms done at the appropriate level of care and rigour to ensure that they can stay in place. This is work that must stand for a long time. It must protect Australia's environment for generations. That was one of the final conclusions of Dr Henry's speech to the National Press Club last week. The consequences of this are significant. If we breach too many of these laws, he said, then humanity ceases to exist, and that's a bleak message. The good news, according to Dr Henry, is that we still have time to get this right. We can't have another failed attempt at reforming these laws. That's why the approach taken by the government is the responsible one. Dr Henry observed that we should choose to do so—that is, tackle the task of reform—