Senate debates

Monday, 17 August 2015

Questions without Notice: Take Note of Answers

Coal Industry

3:32 pm

Photo of Larissa WatersLarissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise to take note of the response given to my question by the Attorney-General, Senator Brandis. I asked Senator Brandis why on earth he is contemplating silencing the community's ability to uphold the environmental laws through the courts, when his own government and ministers are prepared to ignore those laws. The Attorney made some very perplexing remarks over the weekend. As I understand it, the Attorney is in fact the first law officer of the nation. I would have thought it was his job to uphold the law. He seems now to have taken it upon himself to, instead, uphold the rights of the coal lobby and silence members of the Australian community who want our laws complied with. It is a very confusing stance taken by a man who otherwise prides himself on being a black-letter lawyer. I asked the Attorney why he was so eager to change the law to silence Australians and to promote the rights of the coal lobby ahead of the rights of the community to see their laws enforced. He, of course, did not really answer that question—it is called question time, not answer time, for a reason. I asked him when the government would start enforcing their own laws so that maybe the community would not have to do their job for them. Sadly, he did not actually respond to that question either, but what he did say was that that kind of public enforcement of our laws, our environmental laws in this particular case, was gaming the system.

Photo of Barry O'SullivanBarry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | | Hansard source

That is exactly what it is.

Photo of Larissa WatersLarissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | | Hansard source

So public enforcement of the law is now gaming the system. Perhaps I am in a parallel universe here—

Photo of Eric AbetzEric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | | Hansard source

Hear, hear!

Photo of Larissa WatersLarissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | | Hansard source

and I am not getting the link. I take those interjections from the charming Senator O'Sullivan and the equally charming Senator Abetz. I put to the Attorney-General: are you really the first Attorney who wants to see laws less enforced? Has there ever been an Attorney-General who has advocated for less enforcement of the law, rather than more? It is a very confusing situation for the Attorney and, indeed, for anyone trying to make sense of his position.

We know that this is the latest in a long line of attacks on dissenting voices against this government and against the environment as well. They have axed the funding for the Environmental Defenders Office. They have launched a witch-hunt going after the tax-deductible donations to environment groups. They have slashed funding to community conservation groups and, of course, they have passed a motion at their party conference to go after environmental boycotts against harmful products like palm oil. Now they have made it clear that they want coal to be above the law.

It was very interesting to hear Senator Brandis describe the laws as poorly drafted when in fact it was his government that drafted them. These are John Howard's environment laws. It worries me greatly when I see the Abbott government now wanting to weaken those already weak laws, which have presided over huge declines in species health. We have lost about 10 per cent of our mammals; in fact, 35 per cent of the world's mammalian extinctions are occurring here in Australia. We know that our environmental laws are already too weak, but now we have the Abbott government saying, 'No, they are not weak enough—we don't want anyone to enforce our law; we'd rather just let the coalminers write their own laws and steamroll ahead,' even though the minister forgot to consider a conservation advice not once but twice. This is the second time this error has been made, and it is the second time it has taken a community group to go to court and say, 'Minister, you forgot about this key consideration again. What are you doing?'

So I welcome the fact that a community group, the Mackay Conservation Group, took that challenge. The minister admitted that he had made a fatal flaw in his decision making, and yet now we see Senator Brandis wanting to further silence the Australian community. I hope that no-one will give him truck in that regard. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.