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

I think the short answer is that it depends on the situation. We've already acknowledged, and it's inherent in this power, that the type of project we're talking about would not meet national environmental standards, including standards relating to offsets. That's why, as I've said repeatedly, we would expect this power to be used rarely—only where it is in the national interest—with the minister in usual circumstances providing a statement explaining the basis of that decision. Another example of where you might not want to provide that sort of transparent statement might be that you may not want to specify the location of that particular facility for national interest, wartime or national security reasons. But we intend that it be used rarely and only in circumstances where it's clearly in the national interest to do so.