00:00Minister, thank you for your time.
00:04Well, this is the government's second attempt
00:07at reforming Australia's environment laws
00:10and it's the sort of third attempt in recent years.
00:14If you can't land a deal this time, is that the end of it?
00:18I think it certainly makes it harder the longer this goes on, Jake.
00:22Graeme Samuel tabled his review for former Environment Minister
00:26Susan Lee five years ago.
00:28This Act is required to be reviewed every ten years
00:34and we're now halfway through the ten years
00:36since Graeme Samuel handed down his last review.
00:39In the meantime, we see species in decline.
00:42We see housing and renewable energy projects being held up
00:46at a time that we desperately need them.
00:48So there's no doubt in my mind that now is the time
00:51that we need to get moving with these reforms.
00:53You say the bill will speed up certain projects,
00:57particularly focusing on those housing renewables projects.
01:00Can you give a sense of how much you would expect it to speed up?
01:04Have you done modelling that would give a sense of how much faster
01:07housing projects, renewables projects would be approved?
01:10Yeah. It's difficult to sort of speculate precisely
01:13because it depends on the individual project.
01:15But really the aim of these reforms is to make sure that we can get assessments
01:19and approvals done in years rather than decades and months rather than years.
01:24Even some of the changes to the approach that we've undertaken in the last few months
01:28are seeing housing approvals get through more quickly than they have traditionally done.
01:32But the reality is that the processes under the current legislation are still very time consuming,
01:37very confusing for people and they're holding things up.
01:40One of the things in the bill is this sort of last resort ministerial intervention power,
01:46which I understand would be able to be used in defence and national security situations.
01:53Does that leave open the possibility that a future government could use that power
01:57to fast track a coal or gas project?
01:59I cannot see that happening because of the way that we've structured this bill.
02:03And as you say, even the bill itself talks about things like defence projects,
02:08national security projects, sometimes a natural disaster situation would be the sort of circumstances
02:14where this would be justified.
02:16What Graeme Samuel said was that we needed to have these clear national environmental standards
02:21that needed to be met before a project was approved,
02:24but that it should be up to an elected government where they decide that it's in the national interest
02:28for a particular project to proceed to give it the tick, even if it doesn't meet the usual benchmarks.
02:34But he made the point that that should be rare.
02:37It should be for situations in the national interest like those defence type situations.
02:41And also that there should be transparency by the minister providing a statement of reasons
02:46justifying those sorts of decisions as well.
02:48Do you have any concern in terms of the timeframe after this bill is passed?
02:52Let's imagine a scenario where it's passed by the end of this year, as you hope for.
02:56Will there still be requirements for state governments to then amend their legislation
03:01to be able to be accredited, for example, or match up with the federal laws
03:05and then develop these regional plans that would allow go zones, no go zones?
03:09Is there the potential that we are still years away from the full structure being in place?
03:14Look, the reality is that there is going to be a big implementation task
03:17even when we get this bill passed.
03:19You know, we are talking about major reforms to how the country assesses projects,
03:24managers at natural environment, and that is going to take a bit of time.
03:27But we've already started working with the states and territories about how we can make
03:32whatever changes are required at the state and territory level,
03:35how we can be entering agreements with them to ensure that we can accredit their processes.
03:39We don't want to get to a point that we pass a bill and only then begin those sorts of discussions.
03:45It was really pleasing to see agreement at the recent meeting of federal, state and territory
03:50environment ministers that people want to work together on streamlining these processes.
03:55So I don't want to pretend that this is going to happen overnight,
03:57but all of the indications are that people want to proceed with us.
04:00Now you've kept your door open to a deal with either the Coalition or the Greens,
04:04or in perhaps a very unlikely world both.
04:06I'm an optimist.
04:08You've ruled out a climate trigger, that hard-line mechanism that would be used
04:15to potentially block, say, coal and gas projects.
04:18But would you be open to something that is along the spectrum, say,
04:21some sort of climate assurance where you could attach conditions to a project,
04:25requirements to cut emissions over time?
04:28Is that something that you would be willing to consider?
04:30I wouldn't see us agreeing to those kind of conditions either as part of this legislation.
04:35Again, to go back to what Graham Samuel said in his review,
04:39he acknowledged that governments, including ours,
04:42have decided to manage the emissions from projects through a whole batch of climate policies
04:47and climate legislation, in particular things like the safeguard mechanism,
04:51which requires big coal mines, big smelters, big emitters
04:55to reduce their emissions every single year.
04:57Given that one of the aims of this legislation is to reduce duplication in the system,
05:02we don't really see a case for including requirements like that into this legislation,
05:07in addition to what we're already requiring in our climate legislation.
05:11Do you acknowledge there are questions within your parliamentary party, though,
05:14about whether you've struck the right balance on climate?
05:16Oh, look, I think everyone in this parliament will have a different view
05:19on whether this bill does enough for the environment,
05:23whether it does enough for business.
05:25But what I've encouraged everyone in this debate to think about
05:28is that we don't need to have a binary outcome.
05:31You know, very often in the debates we have around climate and the environment,
05:34there are people who say you can only have an environmental outcome
05:37and you can only have a business outcome.
05:39The government's position, Labor's position, is that we want to be striving for both.
05:43And we've been able to demonstrate through our climate change policies
05:46that you can have wins for the climate as well as for jobs.
05:50And that's the kind of balance that we're trying to strike here as well.
05:53A final question for you, Minister.
05:54Given the bells are ringing, you might have to run soon.
05:56If this bill isn't passed this year, if it gets bogged down like, say,
06:00the Housing Australia Future Fund did, what risk does that put to the rest of your agenda
06:06on housing, on climate and on productivity?
06:08Well, I think it would be a very poor signal from the Coalition and the Greens coming out of an election
06:14where they both paid a political price for blocking the government's reforms
06:20if they haven't heard that message from Australians that people want us to get on with it.
06:23I mean, we are trying to achieve progress here, progress for the environment
06:27and progress for business and progress for housing and other things like that.
06:31And I think it would be a very sad reflection on the Coalition and the Greens
06:35if they repeat what they did last term and simply get in the way
06:38and obstruct things for their own political gain.
06:41I mean, we know that there are all sorts of leadership turmoil within the Coalition.
06:46It would be really disappointing for the country
06:48if Susan Lee put her own political interests and her survival
06:52over the needs of the environment and business.
06:54And equally, I think it would be a terrible outcome for the environment
06:57if their absolutism and their refusal to sit down and talk and make progress
07:02means that the environment continues to suffer.
07:04Thanks, Minister, for your time.
07:06No worries, Jake.
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