THE HON TANYA PLIBERSEK MP
MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
6PR PERTH MORNINGS WITH GARY ADSHEAD
WEDNESDAY, 17 APRIL 2024
SUBJECTS: NATURE POSITIVE PLAN
GARY ADSHEAD: So the Federal Labor Government have said that they will go ahead with an Environmental Protection Agency, but the question mark is what powers will it have? There were tranches of legislation and laws that were to be introduced to Parliament. A lot of that, and it all follows from recommendations from the consultant that was brought in to look at this, Graeme Samuel. They've now wound back some of the laws that they were going to put into Parliament. They've put them on ice, kept them over there waiting for another opportunity. They say it's because they're trying to be fair and reasonable to all sides but there's question marks around the motives of the Federal Labor Government in relation to shelving some of these laws in the meantime. The Federal Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek joins me. Thanks very much for your time, Minister.
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: It's great to be with you, Gary.
ADSHEAD: Can I ask you, have you caved in to electoral fears in WA rather than stand your ground on what's needed around environmental protection?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: No. Look, the second tranche of our environmental law reform includes stronger environmental protection, stronger environmental powers, but it also includes faster environmental approvals and so there's something in here for the environment, and there's something in here for business. I think it gets the balance just right.
ADSHEAD: You, personally, I mean are there things that you've lost in the laws that you were putting forward that you would like to have kept?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: No, just to be clear, we passed the first lot of our environmental law reforms through the Parliament at the end of last year and that was establishing the nature repair market and getting better protections for water, from when there's a coal mine or gas mining, making sure that the water resources are protected.
This is the second lot of our environmental law reforms, we're establishing the first ever Environment Protection Agency, we're giving that agency stronger enforcement powers and higher penalties. We're also putting more time, more effort, and more money into making the environmental approvals process faster.
There will be a third tranche of our laws, we're continuing to work on them. But I didn't want to delay the introduction of the EPA with its stronger powers because we know that we've got an environmental job to do to better protect the environment, and we know that business has been crying out for these faster, clearer, decision-making processes so we can get that done now.
ADSHEAD: Did our Premier, Roger Cook, though, say to you that there could be electoral backlash if you go ahead with what you're planning?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, I spoke to - I've spoken to all of the State Governments and, of course, I take their views into account. But this is Commonwealth legislation and we've got to get it through the Federal Parliament, and it comes out of a long process of reform that started when we came to government with the release of our Nature Positive Plan that lays out exactly the direction that we're going in. This second tranche of legislation fits exactly with our Nature Positive Plan, and really comes out of the recommendations of Professor Graeme Samuel's review of our environment laws that was done in 2020 and never acted on by the previous government.
ADSHEAD: Okay, then, why do you think then that the mainstream media, I'm looking at the headlines in front of me now. I mean you've got "Plibersek's new enviro laws a toothless tiger", "WA backlash, delays environmental overhaul", and the front of the West is "Tan Yeah Nah."
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It's very creative, isn't it? What we've got, what we've got is the Greens political party saying we don't go far enough, and the Liberals political party saying we're going way too far. I think on the Goldilocks principle we've got it just right. We are always going to have extremists in the environment movement and extremists in the business community that think they should be able to do whatever they want whenever they want, complaining about any changes we make.
We've hit the sweet spot right in the middle where we give stronger environmental protections because, you know, Australians love the bush, they want clean oceans, they want to be able to go camping and fishing and surfing and all of those, you know, experiences that we have in the great outdoors. We want that to be available for our kids and grandkids, we want to better protect nature, but we also know that, you know, in a lot of cases, businesses are confused by the laws. In some cases they're deliberately doing the wrong thing. We've got to get on top of that as well. And I guess, you know, people will say why haven't we done stage 3 immediately. The same people who say why haven't we done stage 3 of the law reform are the same ones who say we want more consultation, we want more say on this, we want to see more draft legislation.
So you just, you know, I don't expect - I don't expect to have people patting me on the back. I just need to do the right thing, and this is the right thing. It's an absolutely middle of the road, moderate approach, that gives better environmental protections and faster, clearer decisions.
ADSHEAD: And you're satisfied that with the challenges and the threats we have from climate change, that this is doing enough, in terms of some of the issues that are confronting? I mean here in WA at the moment, it looks like we're going into a drought.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah. Look, we've got real problems with climate change. We've seen the bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. I was in the West recently, I saw how dry it is. Of course, we are concerned about climate change and that's why as soon as we came into government, we set a legislative target of getting to net zero carbon pollution by 2050 and we're working hard to get there.
We've introduced a safeguard mechanism; we've passed that through the parliament. That's how we bring carbon pollution down. We're getting to 82% renewable energy. We've introduced, you know, we're working on the vehicle emission standards, we're looking at aviation fuel, we're doing green hydrogen. Right across the economy we are doing the things we need to do to get to net zero. The people who complain about progress on reducing carbon emissions, the Greens, that teamed up with the Liberals last time we were in government to knock off our Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, are responsible for 80 million extra tonnes of carbon pollution in our atmosphere because they did that.
So, you know, this is a very Labor approach where we look after our environment, but we also know we need to build new housing. We need to build the infrastructure that will get us to net zero. We need the jobs that come with development. It just has to be done in the right way, in the right place, with the right protections for our environment.
ADSHEAD: I suppose the question I'd ask is surely the urgency is more than just putting off laws that would help the EPA, this new EPA do its job?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, look, it is urgent to make these changes, but we've got to get them right. I mean, we learned a pretty significant lesson from the way the cultural heritage law reform happened in Western Australia, which is you've got to get it right the first time. And so we put out -
ADSHEAD: Did the Premier remind you of that, our Premier remind you of that?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I didn't need any reminding. I was watching from afar. But we can't have a situation like that with our environmental law reforms. We need to get it right, and that means we've put out the Nature Positive Plan, that sets our direction. That sets out how we respond to Professor Graeme Samuel's recommendation about environmental law reform. Then we've gone into much more detailed consultation with more than 100 organisations, the business organisations, and environmental organisations. We've shown them the policy draft. We then showed them the draft legislation. We will release an exposure draft of the third tranche of these laws before we introduce them to the Parliament, and the whole purpose of doing it so carefully and so methodically is so that we get it right. And, in fact, Professor Graeme Samuel, who is the architect of many of these changes, said just yesterday that he completely supported the approach that the Government's taking to do this in a staged way is very sensible.
ADSHEAD: All right.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: You know, the current bill is more than 1,000 pages. This is a huge task to get this right. We are determined to get it right. And that means being consultative and taking our time to get the details, get the details right.
ADSHEAD: Just finally, though. I mean you know certain billionaires were very keen to see these laws shelved. They've had a win, haven't they?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: No, because -
ADSHEAD: They were campaigning - there's, from what I can tell, there's an entire new publication was sets up partly in relation to trying to undermine this and campaign against it?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: You know what? I know that there is no way that I will get the extremists at either end of this argument. There are some people who say I should be allowed to do whatever I want whenever I want, you know, build it, and bugger the consequences. There are other people in the environment movement who say build nothing anywhere any time. We can't take that approach. We are the Government. We're not, we’re not out there advocating for our own financial interests; we're not out there saying nothing more can be developed in Australia. We're slap bang in the middle and I feel very comfortable with the fact that this will give much better environmental protections. By setting up the EPA, we set up a tough cop on the beat. We give it stronger powers, bigger enforcement penalties, we give it the ability to pursue people that are deliberately doing the wrong thing. We do that now and then we continue to develop our environmental law reforms so we get them right.
ADSHEAD: Minister, thanks very much for coming on the program. We really appreciate your time.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It's always a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you for having me.
ADSHEAD: It's always a pleasure. Tanya Plibersek there, the Environment Minister, sort of saying that they found the middle ground. I know, what do you make of that?
END
