\n<\/p>\n
The former Treasury secretary Ken Henry says \u201ca conga line of developers\u201d would lobby the environment minister for special carve outs unless the Albanese government clarifies the types of projects that could be granted exemptions under its new nature laws.<\/p>\n
While welcoming the overall package of laws introduced to parliament on Thursday, Henry said the vague drafting of the \u201cnational interest\u201d exemption and the failure to close loopholes for native forest logging and land clearing were problems that needed to be fixed.<\/p>\n
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Labor\u2019s grassroots environment action group also want the exemption \u201ctightened\u201d, and the other loopholes shut, but is desperate for the laws to pass after years of internal campaigning.<\/p>\n
Five years to the day since Graeme Samuel presented his scathing review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act to then Coalition government minister Sussan Ley, Labor on Thursday introduced its promised fix to parliament.<\/p>\n
\u201cReforming these laws is vital to protect our precious natural environment, on which life depends, as do jobs in tourism, agriculture, resources and other industries,\u201d the environment minister, Murray Watt, said in a speech to the National Press Club. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut this act is also incredibly important to giving business certainty and achieving our national priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among the bill\u2019s provisions is a new power that would allow the environment minister to approve a project in breach of national environmental standards if it was deemed in the \u201cnational interest\u201d.<\/p>\n
The legislation cites projects relating to defence, security and national emergencies as the types of applications that might attract the exemption.<\/p>\n
But it does not limit the exemption to those areas, creating a level of discretion that green groups fear could be used to approve fossil-fuel projects at odds with nature laws.<\/p>\n
Labor MP, Ed Husic also warned the power could be misused by a future Coalition minister.<\/p>\n
Henry, who as chair of the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation has been a high-profile advocate for EPBC reform, said the exemption needed to be clarified.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnless there is sufficient clarity, the minister is going to have a conga line of project developers through the halls of parliament house, trying to get him to argue that their project is in the national interest,\u201d he told Guardian Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery project developer is absolutely convinced that their project is in the national interest. And if that\u2019s all it takes, then the laws are worthless.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously more than that\u2019s going to be required [to get an exemption] but exactly what\u2019s going to be required \u2013 that\u2019s the big question.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Labor Environment Action Network (Lean) co-convener Louise Crawford also wanted the exemption \u201ctightened\u201d to avoid \u201cunintended consequences\u201d.<\/p>\n
Questioned at the press club about the provision, Watt again cited defence and national security as the type of projects that the \u201crarely used\u201d power could apply to.<\/p>\n
When asked why the legislation didn\u2019t explicitly prohibit the exemption from being used for fossil projects, Watt left the door open to changes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf others want to raise those kind of things over the course of the debate, we\u2019ll listen to them as we will to every other proposal,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
While praising the bill as a \u201cbig step\u201d forward for nature and business, Henry was disappointed the carve out for native forest logging and the so-called \u201ccontinuous use exemption\u201d that allows agricultural land clearing to bypass federal assessment were not removed.<\/p>\n
Watt has promised native forest logging would be captured under proposed new environment standards but has no plans to touch the land-clearing exemptions.<\/p>\n
Environment groups including the Australian Conservation Foundation, Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund and Wilderness Society all criticised the exemptions as they warned the bill contained too many loopholes to properly protect nature.<\/p>\n
The Wilderness Society\u2019s Sam Szoke-Burke said the bill was \u201criddled with loopholes that would enable rampant deforestation and species extinctions to continue at pace\u201d.<\/p>\n
Crawford said LEAN would continue to its long-running campaign for the EPBC Act to be stripped of all exemptions.<\/p>\n
But she said members were determined for the legislation to pass after several failed attempts, including in the Albanese government\u2019s first term, to fix the John Howard-era nature laws.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe there\u2019s enough good in this bill, it is time to get on with it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The Coalition and the Greens, which are both opposed to the bill in its current form, joined forces in the Senate on Thursday to refer the bill to a five-month inquiry.<\/p>\n
Labor could still pass the laws this year if it struck a deal with either side.<\/p>\n
The Greens environment spokesperson, Sarah Hanson-Young, said she was open to negotiating with Labor but stressed the current bill \u201cleaves nature for dead\u201d and would \u201cmake things worse for nature and the climate\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will take environment protections backwards while fast-tracking approvals for business,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The former Treasury secretary Ken Henry says \u201ca conga line of developers\u201d would lobby the environment minister for special carve outs unless the Albanese government clarifies the types of projects that could be granted exemptions under its new nature laws. While welcoming the overall package of laws introduced to parliament on Thursday, Henry said the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[2059,13925,4385,519,1132,14655,4098,1354,120,4565,124,17365,1060,18349],"class_list":{"0":"post-31538","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-australian","9":"tag-exemptions","10":"tag-henry","11":"tag-interest","12":"tag-ken","13":"tag-labors","14":"tag-laws","15":"tag-minister","16":"tag-national","17":"tag-nature","18":"tag-politics","19":"tag-tightens","20":"tag-warns","21":"tag-worthless"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}