17 April 2024
Ben Fordham:
Now we warned you about this. More green tape is on the way. The Federal Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek, has unveiled the new environmental watchdog. The Albanese Government will introduce plans for a federal Environmental Protection Agency, and the Federal EPA will act as an independent arm to enforce decisions about environmental laws. They’ll be able to issue stop work notices and ordered businesses and it’s understood the federal EPA will have the power to issue stop work orders even if they suspect someone has broken the law. So businesses can be held up even if it hasn’t been proven that they’ve done something wrong. They’ll be able to hand out fines of $780 million. Senator Jonno Duniam, the Shadow Environment Minister, says the green reforms are a ticking time bomb and he joins us on the line right now. Jonno, good morning to you.
Senator Duniam:
Good morning, Ben. Good to be with you.
Ben Fordham:
So we’ve been warning about this legislation covering the nature positive plan or nature positive act. This is part of it, right, and we’re starting to get the details.
Senator Duniam:
We are starting to get the details, you’re right, but I mean, it’s been two years that Tanya Plibersek’s been talking about their Green New World and their new approach they’re going to take to fix all of the problems in environmental law reform. Well, there’s been two years, four promises were made; one, that their laws would be better for the business community; two, that it’d be better for the environment; that we’d have, three, an extensive public consultation on these laws; and four, that they’d be in Parliament by the end of last year. Well, all we had yesterday was this new bureaucracy that you’ve talked about which is actually going to kill investment in this country and not a scrap of law with it. I mean, this is not going to improve anything for our economy, for those seeking to invest here to bring on new energy generation projects or anything like that. It is just going to slow everything down and she has failed on every count.
Ben Fordham:
It sounds a bit like an environmental union. They’ll have access to work sites, yhey’ll be able to issue stop work notices, you name it, they can do it.
Senator Duniam:
Yeah, all on a suspicion. I mean, this is madness. We should all feel so much better that we have a new bureaucracy which is going to be based out of Canberra, that you and your listeners are going to be paying for, making decisions on a whim. That will shut down massive investments and frankly, it will cost jobs. We rely on the prosperity of states like Western Australia, Queensland, where you have massive resources projects. Well, if someone in Canberra doesn’t think something’s going the right way, well they can tick a box and the project can shut down. This is very, very bad news and I’ll tell you what, it breaks another one of those promises, which is it will be better for business in this country. It won’t.
Ben Fordham:
Yeah, and there there’s more pain to come, Jonno, as you know, as the details filter through as we make our way into the second half of the year, because we’ve been warning everyone that businesses are going to have to count their emissions, and this even includes things like air conditioners and computers and heaters in the office.
Senator Duniam:
Yeah. And you know what, though, these businesses are eventually going to get jack of this and shut up shop. This is what happens when things get too difficult and we wrap businesses up in green tape. They will shut up shop here in Australia and they will move somewhere else. They will take their investment, they will take their jobs and productivity to another country where they don’t care about the environment. So, globally it is a loss for the environment because they will do it in a country where there will be damage. This is the madness of the whole lot and the worst part is, we don’t know what the new laws will be like. So, we’ve got this new bureaucracy in applying these new laws but, what are they? We don’t know what they are yet and it’s all been done in secret with a group of select people behind closed doors in Canberra. I think Australians still should be very, very worried about where this is going from this point on.
Ben Fordham:
Thanks for jumping on the line nice and early.
Senator Duniam:
Thanks Ben. Take care.