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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-11-27 Daily Xml
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

The Hon. M. PARNELL (15:40): I rise to speak today about worrying developments in environmental protection in Australia and its implications for South Australia. The federal coalition government appears to be moving full steam ahead with its promise to transfer federal environmental approval powers to the states.

The federal and Queensland environment ministers announced a couple of months ago that Queensland and the commonwealth had entered into a memorandum of understanding to establish a one-stop shop for environmental approvals. While the governments are refusing to release the MOU, it no doubt includes an intention to enter into a bilateral approval agreement under federal environmental laws to allow Queensland to both assess and approve Queensland projects on behalf of the commonwealth.

It is now clear that at the forthcoming Council of Australian Governments meeting in two weeks, the new Tony Abbott government will be putting pressure on South Australia to go down the same path. That would be a bad move for reasons that I will outline shortly.

Of course, an MOU itself does not transfer any powers—a bilateral agreement is needed first, which must be made following the process in the EPBC Act, including public consultation—but it is clearly the intention of Queensland and the commonwealth to do so urgently, and the commonwealth wants to sign up all other states as well.

So the question for our government is whether South Australia, too, wants to sign up and implicate itself in the abrogation by the commonwealth of its national responsibility for the environment. Conservation groups and environmental law bodies such as the Environmental Defenders Office, are firmly of the view that handing over federal approval powers to the states via bilateral approval agreements is not only a bad outcome for the environment, but it will not provide the efficiency gains that industry claims it will.

We already have assessment bilateral agreements in place in every state which allow the state to undertake environmental assessments on behalf of the commonwealth, but the commonwealth retains the final approval power. These bilateral agreements are designed to reduce duplication in assessment processes and are routinely used in each state.

Industry groups are saying that assessment bilaterals are not good enough, that projects are still being delayed and that approval agreements that hand over the commonwealth's approval powers to the states are necessary to make the environmental impact assessment faster and cheaper. However, claims by industry that the commonwealth approval stage is causing huge delays just do not add up. There is no evidence that the commonwealth takes longer than the states.

So this begs the question: what is the real reason that industry groups want the commonwealth government out of environmental approvals? Clearly, they think they will get more approvals out of the state government, which they hope will be more inclined to overlook environmental concerns and approve whatever they put forward.

Leaving aside the abrogation of environmental responsibilities by a national government, there are a number of other reasons why SA should reject the idea of an approvals bilateral agreement with the commonwealth. For one thing, it would represent cost shifting from the commonwealth to the state, not just in relation to the cost of assessment and now approval, but also in relation to the inevitable legal costs that will flow from the ability of citizens to challenge decisions. As members would know, decisions on major projects in South Australia are not able to be challenged in court, but commonwealth decisions can be subject to judicial review.

I think the SA law should be amended to allow a review of decisions, and I have moved that many times in this place over the past eight years. Nevertheless, transferring commonwealth decisions to the state will bring with it all the community ire about development decisions that have a significant impact on matters of national environmental significance. There will be no more hiding behind the feds over environmental decisions; the disputes will move from Canberra to Adelaide. This is a recipe for serious pain with no gain.

Just to remind members, we have been debating in this place our concerns over what the Queensland government is proposing to do in the Lake Eyre Basin. That is exactly the outcome that the Queensland and federal governments seek by removing the federal government from all decision-making and leaving it entirely up to the state.

In conclusion, the Greens agree with the environmental groups and the EDOs that there is no need for these bilateral approval agreements and no need for the commonwealth to abdicate its vital role in protecting the environment in the national interest. We urge the government to say no to the Abbott government. It is a word they are used to saying, but now they need to hear it.

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