David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Minister, I've got a few questions about unacceptable impacts, and this was something that came up in the Senate committee process, and I think there were some questions on notice to a few of the witnesses. Could you confirm that the precautionary principle will apply to the interpretation of the new 'unacceptable impacts' test being introduced in the act? In other words, where there's credible evidence that a proposed action may cause serious or irreversible harm to matters of national environmental significance, but there's scientific uncertainty, will the government ensure decision-makers are required to err on the side of environmental protection rather than wait for absolute proof of damage?

If something is likely to increase the risk of extinction, but we just don't have the data on that—noting that one of the big challenges in Australia is that we haven't put enough resources over decades into monitoring. Here in the ACT, we've been doing once-a-decade small mammal surveys. If you look at the surveys, there were antechinus and dunnarts and all these small marsupials in 1985, but when we did the surveys in 1994, they were gone. We have no idea what happened there. There is not enough data to be able to make good projections. So I'm interested if you can confirm whether the precautionary principle will apply.