19 April 2024
Topics: Federal Environment Protection Agency, Tanya Plibersek’s disastrous environmental law changes
E&OE
Matt Doran:
Earlier this week, the Federal Government unveiled some changes to environmental laws and the issue probably didn’t get as much attention as it otherwise would have, given the national focus on the shock and grief flowing from those two Sydney knife attacks. The Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek, revealed plans to create a new agency to enforce environmental laws. But she has delayed broader changes to the national protection framework. For his views on these proposals, the Shadow Environment Minister Jonathon Duniam is in our Hobart studios this Friday afternoon. Senator Duniam, welcome back to Afternoon Briefing. You’ve been pretty critical of the Government here for kicking the can down the road on these broad changes to environment legislation. That’s something the Coalition could be accused of doing as well could it not, given the Samuel Review was handed to the Government back in 2020 when you guys still had the hands on the tiller.
Senator Duniam:
Well, perhaps we could be accused of that but I would also point out to anyone who would make such an accusation that before the election we did introduce into Parliament two tranches of laws to actually try and fix the EPBC Act, which is are the laws we’re talking about here. Graeme Samuel, who we spoke to the other day at a Senate committee, described the laws as an abysmal failure, they should be torn up and thrown on the bonfire heap. Couldn’t agree more. No one thinks they’re working. And so that’s why we did attempt to amend those laws in the last Parliament. Labor blocked those laws. But after the election we were promised we’d have the full suite of laws in Parliament following a full and extensive public consultation by the end of last year. We haven’t got them and we won’t get them this term. Instead, we’ve just got a new bureaucracy to implement these broken laws. It’s not what we were promised.
Matt Doran:
Keen to get your thoughts on the new Federal EPA proposal in just a moment, but more broadly, where do you see the most pressing areas for reform as we as we stand?
Senator Duniam:
Well, I think certainty is what is lacking. Labor have said it, the Greens have said it, we’re saying it as well, certainty for both the community and the business sector as well, I think are essential. These laws and the way they’re administered by very well-meaning public servants in Canberra don’t provide certainty. There is so much scope for things to go off track to be delayed, so many opportunities for matters to be appealed at infinitum, and it doesn’t yield in any way certainty. So I think certainty for the community to whom the environment belongs, certainty for the investment community around how long they’ll be engaged in a process and what the likelihood of success is when they make an application for development are essential. But I’m not hearing much out of the so-called ‘consultation process’ so far that gives me any hope on that front from this Government.
Matt Doran:
Are those concerns around certainty, you float the community situation there, but are they more weighted towards the business community wanting to know whether or not their dollars are actually going to be spent on the projects that they want. Are you siding more with the business community rather than those who are genuinely concerned about the protection of species that might be on certain development plots of land or things like that?
Senator Duniam:
Contrary to a lot of the hyperventilating that goes on about mining companies, for example, you know, they don’t want to just go out there and trash the environment. Of course, mining does have an impact on the environment and good laws would minimise that impact and make sure that we can still have economic gains and jobs coming from these projects alongside minimising that impact on the environment. But it is important that the community have their say and when I say the community, the actual community, not cashed up activist groups from Sydney, Melbourne or other built up areas, but the local community. People who are impacted by wind farms in their neck of the woods or new transmission lines, or a new coal mine or gas project. It’s important that they do have certainty around the process and what it generates as well. Again, as I say, what I’m hearing from stakeholders, both environmental and business, is that no one is satisfied with what’s being put forward by this government under the proposed reforms of very high level details that have been provided thus far in their closed door process.
Matt Doran:
Something that the Minister did to announce earlier in the week was a desire to spend around $100 million to try to speed up some of the processing of applications under the EPBC Act. Surely that’s something that you’d be in favour of seeing, considering you’re talking about delays and bureaucracy slowing the process down?
Senator Duniam:
Well, that $100 million going into speeding up these approval processes will go straight into the bureaucracy, it’s going to be more people administering the same broken laws. It will not speed things up. The fact is, the effort should be and the resources should be put in to reforming the laws. If they thought two years ago, almost two years ago, that it was ok to say we’d have the laws in Parliament by the end of 2023, then they must have thought it was doable. Why they can’t just get their act together, reform the broken laws so that we can actually have a process that is simpler and faster and provides more certainty is beyond me. But this $100 million that they’ve announced is just going into more bureaucrats, not a better process and better laws.
Matt Doran:
But couldn’t more bureaucrats speed up that process in the interim period, though?
Senator Duniam:
No. Administering broken laws, which are open to endless appeals, which are open to countless interpretations which you find for instance, when the bureaucracy, say, give us seven reports on the environmental impact of this project, it suddenly becomes fourteen after the first seven have been done. These sorts of things, the open-ended nature of the laws as they’re applied right now, are not going to be improved by more bureaucrats applying those laws. The laws need to be changed, which is why everyone from right across the spectrum, the environmental movement through to mining companies and everyone in between are very, very concerned at the fact that Labor have kicked this off into the never-never. It’s the same laws, the same uncertainty, and it will yield bad outcomes if it’s not fixed.
Matt Doran:
You’ve already flagged that you’re not a huge fan of what the Minister is saying around the creation of a new agency, a Federal Environmental Protection Agency, to administer applications to make those sort of decisions. Tanya Plibersek does say that, in her view, it’s a good idea to have an agency like this because it takes that final approval process out of the political sphere. They’re not subject to the political whims of the day. Does she have a point there?
Senator Duniam:
I always believe that Ministers should be held to account for their decisions. I know previous Environment Ministers, including the incumbent Environment Minister, face a lot of heat in their electorates for decisions they make, and rightly so. I know when Malcolm Turnbull was Environment Minister in the Howard Government, he faced a lot of pressure in his seat of Wentworth over his approval of the Tamar Valley Pulp Mill in Tasmania. So I think accountability for Ministers making decisions is important. An unelected bureaucrat will never be held to account, ever, for decisions that a Minister cannot control. And that means the community is removed from the decision-making process. This is the point of a Westminster system of democracy where the community can, through their elected representatives and the Executive amongst those elected representatives, can have a say or hold to account those people making those decisions. An EPA won’t provide that and what’s more, this new EPA is again just going to be applying broken laws, not new laws that will speed things up. It is just making a bad situation worse.
Matt Doran:
Jonathon Duniam in Hobart, thanks for your time.
Senator Duniam:
Thanks, Matt.