30 MAY 2024
Topics: Federal EPA, net zero transition, climate trigger and environmental approval laws
E&OE
BILL MCDONALD:
The Labor government introduced its Environment Protection Australia, the EPA legislation, into Federal Parliament yesterday. Basically, it rubber stamped the creation of two new agencies; Environment Protection Australia and Environment Information Australia. Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek says the EPA is going to examine illegal land clearing in one of its first priorities. And the legislation will also set up the Head of Environment Information Australia, which is an independent position required to provide environmental data to the public. Sounds like more layers of bureaucracy to me, but I could be wrong. The EIA will release State of the Environment reports every two years instead of five. The responses are being mixed to say the least. The moves have drawn predictable criticism from across the chamber. Critics have said it looks like the pre-election promises Labor made almost two years ago have been well and truly put aside for the formation of these bodies. EPAs already operate in nearly every State and Territory. Is this simply the case of more and expensive layers of bureaucracy in lieu of new and effective laws? I will throw that out to Shadow Minister for the Environment Jonno Duniam, the Senator from Tasmania, who joins us now. Good morning to you.
JONNO DUNIAM:
Good morning, Bill. Good to be with you.
BILL MCDONALD:
Good to talk to you again. Now you’re a critic, I’d imagine, of this new EPA legislation. Tell us a bit about why and what it all means.
JONNO DUNIAM:
Yes, I am a critic. I did give the government the benefit of the doubt here. They did make a promise that two years ago we would have new laws to replace the broken federal environmental approval laws. And that’s a good move to have sought to fix something that is broken. It needed it. They were laws we tried to fix as well and were not able to do and it was important to do that because when you’ve got projects taking three years plus to get approval, it is taking too long. People are making business decisions to take their money elsewhere and of course that means jobs go elsewhere as well. So instead of actually honouring the promise to have those laws in Parliament by the end of 2023, that was the promise, they’ve abandoned that and they’ve now said they won’t introduce those laws to fix the broken laws by the time the election rolls around. They have, as I think many have said, established a new bureaucracy. Frankly, what they’ve got is this new bureaucracy administering the same broken laws which will not make a jot of difference when it comes to protecting the environment. They certainly will guarantee one thing, and that is, it will be harder and take longer to get projects approved under this new EPA. It is a bad move and something we are very concerned about.
BILL MCDONALD:
So it includes Environment Protection orders, am I right? So, what are the other implications for business from that?
JONNO DUNIAM:
Yes, this EPA, first of all, is completely detached from government. There is no ministerial call in power. So you’ll have an unelected, unaccountable bureaucrat making decisions about the future of projects and therefore communities and jobs right across the country based in Canberra and there will be no recourse for the Minister to do anything about controlling this individual in the interests of the community. They will not take into account economic and social considerations in their decision making. They can impose fines in the hundreds of millions, nearly a billion dollars in the worst case, which I think is disproportionate to some of the issues we’re looking at here. These Environment Protection orders I’m certain will be draconian and as I say, all of this is going to be done in a black box out of Canberra by someone and their staff who are not accountable to the people of Australia. These decisions should rest with the Minister. Now, Ministers get it wrong. I’m sure if I ever have the chance to be a Minister, there’ll be people calling me after doing things that could have been done better. But at the end of the day, at least the people of Australia had a say and can boot me from office as a result of getting those things wrong. With the bureaucrat like this, you’ve got no chance of that at all.
BILL MCDONALD:
So, there will be really no accountability to this new EPA, given the power they’re given. They’ll be untouchable almost. Is this going to hold things up? And it sounds like it will open up a whole can of worms.
JONNO DUNIAM:
You said at the beginning of the interview Bill, in every State and Territory there is an EPA already. We do not need another layer of bureaucracy for projects to go through. If you’ve got a project in NSW or Queensland, you go through your State approval processes and you should only have to deal with the Commonwealth if there is a matter of national environmental significance. Labor is extending the remit of Federal government approvals right across things we shouldn’t be involved in. It is making it more costly, and inevitably there’ll be more delays. That lack of accountability; these people are going to get paid fortnightly no matter what they do, what they decide, how many jobs they cost, how many projects they stop or delay. That will not be of concern to them. And it is in the title of the organisation that you can get a sense of what their one aim is – Environment Protection Australia. They will protect the environment no matter what the cost. We all know that mines have an impact on the environment. It’s good to minimise that impact, but at the end of the day, we need those things happening to actually have a functioning economy. For this government to be setting up an entity which will be run by unelected, unaccountable people, but will be making decisions, looking up one aspect of these projects, and that is whether or not they do damage to the environment, I think your listeners can guess how many approvals are going to get through that entity.
BILL MCDONALD:
Exactly. You could have a flea on a leaf somewhere and all of a sudden they’ve raised the red flag and bang, no development for you.
JONNO DUNIAM:
Spot on, and that’s the problem, right? It’s bad enough now and I do support what the government was doing originally, which was to reform these laws. It is a once in a generation opportunity to get it right. Peter Dutton has outlined what we would do and that is we would actually legislate to halve approval time for projects that go through federal environmental approval. There is no reason it should take years and years and bureaucrats in Canberra stopping the clock on these assessments as it’s known; to go away and get a bit more information and think about things, that’s not ok. We need to rein in this process, provide certainty to both industries or making investment decisions and creating jobs, but also the community that are concerned about the environment. Restricting the time frames these things take should be the first job of the Government in reforming these laws. It’s a basic step and I would have thought they could do it pretty quickly. But instead, we’ve got a new bureaucracy which will do nothing of the sort.
BILL MCDONALD:
Yes, I’ve got to agree. Australia’s biggest employers are obviously concerned about that the Government is going to break an iron-clad guarantee and apply a climate trigger to environmental approvals as well. Could this actually have the reverse effect and put the transition to net zero at risk? Because this is only going to add a spanner in the works, isn’t it? If you’re trying to put, you know wind farms all over the country and then other renewable projects; solar farms.
JONNO DUNIAM:
Yes, and then the transmission networks, up to 28,000 kilometres of transmission networks, which aren’t going to be running through deserts, they’re going to be going through forests and farmland, and it’ll be huge amounts of steel and concrete going into these areas. Look, this idea of a climate trigger is the one way we can price Australia out of the market on any front. You will never be able to do anything here in Australia. We will not have manufacturing returning to our shores. And of course it will mean, this climate trigger as already cited, it will mean that we will not be able to go through Labor’s renewable transition. They will not be able to erect solar panels and wind farms and transmission networks to generate the power we have. A climate trigger is one of the worst ideas when it comes to federal environmental or climate policy and it will kill any investment in this country. Countries that have gone down that pathway have suffered and you find people breaking the law to try and get around it. But we want to do things properly and practically. A climate trigger will not improve environmental outcomes, but it will guarantee one thing; it will kill investment. And frankly, if Labor are looking at signing up to this, having made a promise to the business community they wouldn’t, then we are in more trouble than the early settlers, I’ve got to tell you when it comes to jobs and economy.
BILL MCDONALD:
I have to agree. So just quickly again, I know they’re saying, trying to create a bit of fear, that “oh look, the LNP will wind back environmental laws if you get into power the next election”, but as you’ve said, that’s not the case.
JONNO DUNIAM:
We will make sure these laws do what they’re supposed to do and that is get the balance right between protecting the environment and ensuring we have economic activity. No one wants to trash the environment. We have passed those days. They don’t open up mines without regard to the environment anymore. There are stringent laws in place for that. There is no reason it should take up to 16 years, as it has been in some cases, to approve a mine. 16 years! You’re almost an adult from birth at that point as a human being. It should not take that long to get an approval for a mine. We should be able to do these things quicker. That does not remove protection for the environment. We can do things in this country quicker and I’m just disappointed that the only people who are criticising the idea of doing things quicker are either Labor Party people like Murray Watt or Tanya Plibersek, or the bureaucrats in Canberra who like to do things between the hours of nine to five on Monday to Friday, but we know the world doesn’t stop outside of bureaucratic hours. We’ve got to keep ticking over and that’s why we think these laws need to change in the way I’ve described.
BILL MCDONALD:
Thanks for joining us this morning. Good to get your views on this one.
JONNO DUNIAM:
Thanks Bill. Take care.
BILL MCDONALD:
You too. Shadow Minister for the Environment, Jonno Duniam, Senator for Tasmania. He makes a lot of sense.