ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION (BOARD OF AUTHORITY) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 13 February 2008. Page 1682.)

The Hon. M. PARNELL (17:15): I rise to support this legislation and, in doing so, would like to make a few brief remarks about the Environment Protection Authority and its independence. Of course, the first thing to note is that the Environment Protection Authority is our state's primary pollution watchdog; it is the agency that we have entrusted with the job of identifying pollution, prosecuting offenders, setting appropriate standards for pollution, and other similar activities.

The EPA is a government agency, but it is independent of government in two very important areas: the first area in relation to licensing, or the issuing of environment authorisations or exemptions; and the second in the area of enforcement. In both these areas it is important that the EPA is at arm's length from government. We had a debate last week in relation to animal welfare laws and in the committee stage we discussed, in some detail, the importance of keeping regulatory authorities at arm's length from government, because the alternative is a recipe for corruption.

If we take the EPA and its licensing role, for example, we cannot have a situation where the minister says to the EPA, 'Don't give that person a licence', or, 'Do give that person a licence; they are a mate of mine', irrespective of the merits of whether or not a person is deserving of a licence, given a situation. It is similar with enforcement. We cannot have a situation where a minister can direct the EPA whether or not to prosecute a particular offence. That is a recipe for corruption.

The question is: what does it mean for the EPA to be truly independent? A good starting point is this bill, in that it provides that the chair of the board of the Environment Protection Authority is to be independent. In some ways what we are doing is going back to the situation that existed before Dr Paul Vogel assumed the chair of the authority. The previous chair was Mr Stephen Walsh QC, a prominent barrister practising in the area of environmental law as well as in other areas. He was the chair, and clearly he was independent (he was not a public servant), but he was only part-time in the position—which is another issue not particularly relevant to this bill, but which does raise questions about the amount of work involved in chairing an independent authority and whether or not it is possible to do it on a very part-time basis.

When Paul Vogel was the chair he was also the CEO of the agency and, whilst there are no particular examples I can think of that show a conflict of interest manifested by poor decision-making, I think it was a poor structure to have the chair of the authority also responsible for all the 200 or so staff of the agency. So, I think this bill does go towards improving the situation by insisting that the chair is now independent.

However, the real test of the independence of a body such as the Environment Protection Authority is not so much the legislation—although that is important. The real problem area in terms of independence is the attitude of government and, in particular, the tendency of government to interfere in the operations and decision-making of the EPA. As members would be aware, because I have raised it on a number of occasions in this place, the worst example we have seen in terms of the current government in interfering with the independence and judgment of the EPA was the Whyalla steelworks legislation.

That was a situation where the EPA had drafted a licence. It had consulted with the company and issued the licence to the company. It was a licence that required OneSteel in Whyalla to reduce its pollution over time, yet we saw the company go crying to the Premier saying, 'Get the EPA off our backs and protect us from the pollution watchdog. Protect us from the EPA.' As a result, the government introduced a bill into this place which tore up the licence that the independent EPA had written and replaced it with a licence that was more acceptable to the company. That is the sort of challenge to the independence of the EPA that is not remedied in this bill and, in fact, it is very difficult to remedy that type of interference with legislation at all because the government used legislation, used this parliament, to do its work for it in overriding the decision that had been reached by the independent EPA.

The other area where the government can attack the independence of the EPA is simply by sidelining it, by not asking it for its input in important areas. I raised one of those in question time today: the fact that on the record, as disclosed in the freedom of information documents, it appears that the EPA was not consulted about the location of a desalination plant. They are the ones who will have to license a brine discharge. They are the ones who are closest to our marine experts employed in the Public Service in this state, yet when I ask them whether they can provide documentation, they have nothing that they can show us. So, that is another way that the independence of the EPA can be undermined, simply by being sidelined and by the government refusing it its proper role in decision-making processes.

It is easier to legislate against that type of interference; however, it is not something that is appropriate to include in the bill before us. The bill before us relates to the board of the Environment Protection Authority and, in particular, the independence of its chair. I will be happy to support this bill. Those other areas where the independence of the authority is under threat I will raise on other occasions through different legislation but, for now, I support the second reading of this bill.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins.