Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

I apologise; I didn't hear your question the first time you asked it. Your question goes to the point around standing to sue, essentially, and there are no changes and no expansions of standing to sue in this legislation. In fact, I think I'm right in saying that Professor Samuel's review did not recommend an expansion of standing to sue. That is the key reason why we haven't done so. There's no extension of standing to sue. This is not a point around standing, but, on the general topic around the ability to appeal decisions under the EPBC, one change that we have made—I doubt that this is relevant to regional forest agreements—as you may be aware, is that under the act there's the ability for certain parties and certain individuals to seek a reconsideration of a decision as to whether a project is a controlled action or not. Currently, under the existing law, those sorts of applications for a reconsideration decision can be made in perpetuity. It's not uncommon for us to see applications seeking reconsiderations of much earlier decisions—that a project was not a controlled action. In fact, you will remember the Macquarie Harbour situation, where that's exactly what occurred.