SUBJECTS: Foot and mouth disease border controls, State of the Environment Report, EPBC Act amendments, emissions target, access to abortion.

LAURA JAYES, HOST: Welcome back. Well, the Opposition is calling on the government to seriously consider closing Australia’s border with Indonesia to prevent the spread of foot-and-mouth disease. The Agriculture Minister, Murray Watt revealed that traces of the virus had been found in meat products and at the border.
 

Joining me live now is the Environment and Water Minister, Tanya Plibersek. Tanya Plibersek, thank you for your time. I know this is not your portfolio, but can you give us an indication of how worried the government is about it, and what it would take to close the border? 

TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Look, of course it is deeply concerning to see foot-and-mouth so close to Australia’s borders and traces appearing in meat supplies here. We are watching this very closely indeed. I know my colleague Murray Watt is very concerned. We know that if foot-and-mouth got into Australia it would be absolutely devastating for Australia’s agricultural sector. And we are doing everything that we can to make sure that this doesn’t reach Australia. It’s a very troubling time. 

JAYES: The option to shut the border even temporarily, is that a live one? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, I think you really would need to talk to Murray Watt and, of course, to Don Farrell as the Trade Minister. It is a devastating disease. We are determined to make sure that it doesn’t reach Australia. And I know that my colleagues, the responsible ministers, are considering every option. Every option would be on the table. 

JAYES: Okay. Let’s talk about the State of the Environment Report you launched earlier this week. Youpledge to protect 30 per cent of Australia’s land. What does that actually mean? Does that mean reducing farmland? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: No, absolutely, it doesn’t. We’ve already got World Heritage areas, we’ve got national parks, we’ve got Indigenous protected areas, we’ve got a range of different land tenures that set land aside to be protected, looked after, different types of ecosystems across Australia. And one of the best contributors to biodiversity in the Australian landscape are Australian farmers who are protecting remnant vegetation on their own land. And many are engaged in rehabilitating land that has been over-farmed in the past. There’s a lot of regenerative farming practices underway at the moment. 

We need to make sure that we’ve got enough land protected across Australia to protect our threatened species. We need to make sure that the land that we are protecting is properly stewarded. A lot of land that’s been set aside for national park or World Heritage area still has invasive species threatening it. So when we’ve got land that’s set aside for preservation we need to look after that land as well. 

I know that the Nationals, as usual, are trying to make mischief and suggest that this is going to be widespread socialist takeover of farms. It’s certainly not that at all. 

JAYES: Well, you talked about strengthening environmental laws as well. That has rung a few alarm bells in the farming community, but business as well. Does it mean more green tape? Does it mean more hoops for some of these farmers and business groups to jump through? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I think it means less red tape. We know that the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act written in 1999 is just not fit for purpose anymore, and it hasn’t been fit for purpose for a long time. The government received a really thorough review from Professor Graeme Samuel a couple of years ago about how to reform the EPBC Act to make it stronger in its environmental protection but also simpler so that we get faster, clearer decisions for business when they’re proposing big projects that need to be assessed. 

At the moment nobody’s happy. I mean, we’re seeing continued environmental degradation on a massive scale. The report that I released this week that was kept hidden by the previous government shows just how bad our environment is and that it’s on a trajectory to get worse under current settings. But business isn’t happy either. They talk all the time about expensive, convoluted processes, unnecessary delays when it comes to making decisions. So we want to reform the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to make sure we have better environmental protection and faster decisions for business. 

JAYES: As you say that, I’m thinking about the Narrabri project and the hoops that business had to jump through with the red and green tape there. With what you’re thinking and what you’re proposing, would getting projects up like that be more streamlined? Would they be faster? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, I’m not going to comment on any sort of individual projects; I’ll only make general suggestions because quite often I will end up being a decision-maker on projects, so I can’t offer you a view on projects ahead of time. 

What I will say in a general sense is yes. I mean, we’ve got communities we want to see built. We’ve got roads connecting communities. We’ve got solar and wind farm projects. We’ve got all sorts of projects that we want to see go ahead in a simple, cost-effective way. And if a project is not going to go ahead, if it’s never going to proceed because its environmental impact is bad, then proponents deserve an early answer on that. They deserve not to be wasting time and money proposing things that are impossible for the future. So better environmental protection, faster, clearer decisions to business, that’s what we’re aiming for. 

JAYES: On emissions Labor seems wedged between the Greens and the government at the moment. You say the former government was too slow, but the Greens seem like they’re trying to push too far. Is that a correct assessment of where we’re at as we look at what happens next week with that legislation before parliament? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: We took a very clear policy to the last election of zero net emissions with a 43 per cent interim target. We could not have been clearer with the Australian people. That’s what they voted for. 

Now, we’re happy to talk to the Coalition. We’re happy to talk to the Greens and the crossbench about how we implement these targets. But we could not have been clearer about what the targets are. And it will be really up to the Greens and the crossbench in particular to recognise that that’s our promise. We want to deliver on our promise. And I hope – I hope understand that the last time the Greens voted with the Liberals against Labor’s carbon pollution reduction we saw years of inaction and continued increasing carbon pollution. They’ve got a decision to make – do they want progress or do they want to be in the way of progress again. 

JAYES: That sounds like your position would still be you will legislate the 43 per cent reduction in emissions, and if you can’t get that through, you won’t capitulate to the Greens, you’ll just continue with that proposal, that target and just not have it in legislation, is that right? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, look, I’m not going to talk about where negotiations are going at the moment. We’re still very hopeful that the Greens – 

JAYES: Are they going well, Minister? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, I mean, you’ll have to ask Chris Bowen; he’s our lead negotiator. I’m not going to comment on that. But I am very hopeful that we come up with a legislated target. I think that gives the sense of certainty that business wants for the investments that they want to make. You know, we’ve got businesses queueing up to invest in big solar, big wind, big hydro projects, big storage projects. We want that investment. We want the investment in our electricity network upgrades. We want that investment to get us to net zero. 

I really hope that all members of parliament understand that this is important for the business community and it’s important to bring down domestic and business power bills. That’s what we want to do – bring down pollution, bring down power prices. 

JAYES: Okay. And it also sets a bit of a wedge before the next election for the Coalition perhaps. But I digress, let’s move on. I want to talk about this women’s ministers meeting. There has been calls for abortions to be available in public hospitals. Is that something you support? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, all of my political life I have argued for better reproductive health for Australian women, and that starts with better sex education, consent education in our schools, faster, cheaper access to contraception, better support for IVF, maternity services and, of course, it involves more consistent access to safe and affordable abortion. When I was the Health Minister I put RU486 on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Schedule, and I would like to see continued access to surgical terminations. 

It doesn’t strike me as fair that if you’re a woman living in a regional community and you don’t have hundreds of dollars to go to the nearest big town, stay overnight in a hotel and so on, that you end up having a baby that you didn’t plan because you don’t have any alternatives. That doesn’t strike me as fair. So I’ll continue to always support better access to reproductive health care, including terminations and, you know, how that happens will be up to health ministers over time. 

JAYES: Tanya Plibersek, thank you for your time. 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Thank you. 

JAYES: We’ll check in with Tanya Plibersek soon.

END