Murray Watt accuses Queensland government of taking 'ideological' approach to renewable energy

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The federal environment minister has taken a swipe at the Queensland government over what he says are short-sighted decisions around renewable energy projects.  Murray Watt has announced major reforms to environmental planning laws but the premier says it's the same approach his government is taking.

Transcript

00:00It's go time for the renewable energy sector under an overhaul of Commonwealth planning laws.

00:09Zones in regional areas will be created where individual project assessments and approvals won't be required to fast track development.

00:18It then actually provides go zones and no go zones to industry and the environment about where development can occur

00:26and where the environmental impacts would be so severe that development should simply not happen.

00:31That's instead of projects being assessed on a case-by-case basis.

00:35Nobody in industry wants to waste time and money developing proposals that are then ultimately knocked off.

00:42What they should do is protect areas of irreplaceable habitat.

00:46They should protect the areas we can't restore, that we can't protect, so that we don't see new extinctions.

00:52And instead they should give guidance to companies.

00:54The regional plans will require partnership with states and territories,

00:58which might have been made more difficult in Queensland after Murray Watt bashed the state government for scrapping several wind farms.

01:05The unfortunate thing we're seeing from Jarrod Blay and the LNP here in Queensland

01:10is that they're very happy to listen to opponents of renewable energy projects

01:14but they don't seem to want to listen to the supporters of those projects.

01:17Everything that Minister Watt says around the need for proper regional planning

01:22and making sure that we have areas where we welcome renewable investment is exactly what we are doing.

01:27The laws will be introduced in Federal Parliament by the end of the year.

01:31We'll be able to control that investment in our future projects

01:33and prove that we haven't had enough work in the past.

01:34We're not making sure that we don't have enough work to get a lot of work to get a lot of work to do.

01:36The main city is a part of the great development of Canada,

01:37and if we can do this in the future, we can do it.

01:38The main city will be introduced at the early in the New York Times,

01:40The entire day is the only country to live in a nation.

01:41Yep, I'm sure we can do it.

01:42The end of the year we can do that withija.

01:43The native land is an area called Federal PHA's open-by-class.

01:44The team is great to write engines for gambling,

01:45The fascinationidi it at the end of the year.

01:46The book is that we have to rely on the plans and be made to Europe as well as good as possible.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended