16/06/2014 

16 June 2014 I rise today to oppose the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Bilateral Agreement Implementation) Bill 2014, which is before the House.This Bill amends the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to facilitate the delegation of environmental approval powers to state and local governments. The delegations allowed within this Bill include World Heritage listed sites, nuclear activities and approvals under the Water Trigger Amendment. Divesting the Commonwealth government of its responsibility to protect environmental areas of national significance is not good policy. It is not good for the health and wellbeing of our planet and it is certainly not good for future generations. In practice, this Bill will allow state and local governments to determine the level of protection we afford to nationally significant environmental and heritage sites across Australia. It hands over the power to approve developments in some of Australia's most iconic and sensitive natural areasincluding the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu National Park and Fraser Islandto the cash-strapped states and local governments. Handing Commonwealth power to the states would endanger some of our most sensitive natural areas and threaten biodiversity protection across Australia. Only the Commonwealth has the mandate and capacity to consider the needs of the whole of Australia when approving projects that could affect the environment. A state government has no motivation to put the national interest before its own state interest when approving development within its own state. This Bill puts major environmental decisions in the hands of the current 'everything is for sale' state governments. We will have Campbell Newman, Premier of Queensland, waving in the ships to dredge and dump on the Great Barrier Reef. He will probably try and find a way to sell the reef while he is at it. Colin Barnett, Premier of Western Australia, a strong supporter of the controversial shark culls in WA, will now be in charge of the Ningaloo Reef. We will have Will Hodgman, Premier of Tasmania, axe and saw in hand, overseeing Tasmania's iconic World Heritage listed forests. These are premiers and state governments who have already proven that they do not have the capacity to make sound environmental conservation decisions. We most definitely should not be giving them more approval power to make decisions about our environment and sites of national significance. These are state governments who are under significant budgetary pressure following the actions of this Abbott Liberal government. State governments have not held back from criticising this government for the cuts it has made to their own budgets2.5 million education facility at the centre. The Hunter Wetlands and the 64 other Ramsar sites need environmental protection at a federal level, not a state or local government council level. Their collective futures are important to the nation's future. This argument is shared by conservation groups. Humane Society International are so concerned of the possible effects on Ramsar sites under this Bill that they have written to the secretariat of the Ramsar Convention at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature in Switzerland. Their major concern for the sites is that this Bill before the House weakens the capacity for Australia to fulfil its protection obligations under the Ramsar convention by moving the onus of conservation and wise use of wetlands from an agency focused on environmental conservation, that is, the Environment Minister, to state agencies who have a more localised planning and economy based approach to natural resource management, who also have less obligations on conservation through their state legislature. These Ramsar sites must continue to be protected at a federal level. Labor opposes this Bill because we believe the national government is responsible for matters of national environmental significance. We continue to support streamlining environmental assessment processes for major projects, but final approval on matters of national environmental significance should remain with the national government. The Australian government has a responsibility for protecting Australia's precious environment and the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act in particular accounts for matters of national environmental significance. The Abbott government has no interest in protecting Australia's environment for the future. We have seen this through the Prime Minister claiming, 'We have quite enough national parks' in relation to the Tasmanian forests and, when elected, one of the first things this government did was approve dredging in the Great Barrier Reef, a decision that I note is currently subject to much discussion at the UNESCO World Heritage committee that is meeting as we speak in Doha. I note that the World Heritage Committee has made particular note of the proposed dumping of dredged material from the proposed Abbott Point development, expressing their concern for the condition of the Great Barrier Reef. The UNESCO Committee also noted that the transfer of decision-making powers from the Federal level to the State level appears premature. Its now very likely that the Great Barrier Reef will be added to the List of world Heritage in Danger at the Committees 39th session in 2015. Since coming to government the Prime Minister and the Minister for Environment have made bad decision upon bad decision about our environment, but this is the furthest they have gone in terms of putting our environment at risk of irreparable damage by leaving decisions of national environmental significance to the state premiers.