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

Minister, I will put two questions to you. The first one is on recovery plans. As I understand it, looking at the legislation, recovery plans can now be overridden by protection statements. I'm interested in what is behind the desire to undermine recovery plans. As I understand it, recovery plans are the most robust document for helping a threatened species to recover.

Secondly, maybe just to assist the committee—I know Senator McKim would like to make a second reading debate speech—on no controlled action decisions, the reforms shorten the time frame for public interest consideration of no controlled action decisions to 28 days. Given we know that science is constantly changing and our understanding of ecosystems is constantly changing, does this 28 days not prevent the minister from considering good science after that period?