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Thursday, 25 August 2011
Page: 5564

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act

Senator WATERS (Queensland) (14:19): My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, Senator Conroy. In relation to the government's response to the independent review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, announced yesterday, we note Minister Burke's reference to the possibility of the federal government devolv­ing to the states some of its decision-making powers to approve, refuse or condition proposed actions on the basis of certain conditions, thresholds or standards. Can the minister explain in what circumstances this abrogation of federal responsibility is being considered and what are the conditions, thresholds and standards that will apply?

Senator CONROY (Victoria—Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Digital Productivity) (14:20): I thank the senator for her question. The Australian government's reform of national environment law will ensure better and smarter environmental protection into the future. The reforms will also reduce business costs by cutting red tape and unnecessary delay. Since the EPBC Act was introduced more than 10 years ago, environmental management has evolved and the economy has continued to transform. Reform is needed to ensure this important legislation continues to work effectively in a modern Australia.

The reform package will deliver new strategic approaches and provide a more streamlined assessment process, new nation­al standards for accrediting environmental assessment and approval processes, a new Australian government biodiversity policy for consultation, improved listing of species for protection, identification and protection of ecosystems of national significance, better regulation of international trade in wildlife, more public information, a more cooperative approach to developing environmental stand­ards, better processes for heritage listing and a draft environmental offsets policy for consultation.

The Council of Australian Governments has agreed to a federal government proposal on the need for major reform of environ­mental regulation across all levels of government. The government rejected the recommendations to introduce an interim greenhouse trigger and to amend provisions relating to the regional forest agreements. The government will be consulting on cost recovery options for the administration of the EPBC Act and will release a consultation paper in the next few weeks. The report by Dr Allan Hawke AC was tabled and publicly released on 21 December 2009. It had 71 recommendations. We did not agree with 15 of those but agreed wholly or in part with the other 56 recommendations. Minister Burke convened five stakeholder roundtables— (Time expired)

Senator WATERS (Queensland) (14:22): Mr President, I ask a supplementary question, also in relation to the EPBC legislative reform package. Will the govern­ment consider adding a water trigger into the act to allow consideration of impacts on water systems from proposed developments, including water intensive coal seam gas, noting that under the current design of the act the trigger would only catch significant impacts and therefore would not, as the minister indicated yesterday, mean that every bore on every block of land would require federal assessment?

Senator CONROY (Victoria—Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Digital Productivity) (14:23): Thank you for that supplementary. I have not got any further information on that specific matter. I am happy to take that on notice and come back to you, and on any parts of that first question that I did not quite finish I will also come back to you on those details.

Senator WATERS (Queensland) (14:23): Thank you, Minister. Mr President, I have a further supplementary question, also in relation to the EPBC reforms announced yesterday. Can the minister assure the Senate that the move to formalise and extend the use of offsets for damaging development will not allow otherwise inappropriate development to be approved under the act?

Senator CONROY (Victoria—Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Digital Productivity) (14:23): We are in the process of going through a draft for consultation. I do not think we have necessarily completed that part of the process, so it would be a little premature of me to give a final government position. But if there is any further informa­tion the minister would like to add to that answer I will take that on notice and come back to you.