Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025, National Environmental Protection Agency Bill 2025, Environment Information Australia Bill 2025, Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (Customs Charges Imposition) Bill 2025, Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (Excise Charges Imposition) Bill 2025, Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (General Charges Imposition) Bill 2025, Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (Restoration Charge Imposition) Bill 2025
Mr BOYCE (Flynn) (20:32): I rise to speak about the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025. A moment ago, I listened to my colleague the member for Canning, and he said that bills in this parliament should be treated with due diligence. I agree with that.
That's absolutely right. But what have we got here? We've got the explanatory notes for this bill, and here they are.
There are 1,500 pages. We've had a few weeks to examine them. That's quite an appalling situation—to give that amount of scrutiny to such an important piece of legislation.
I'll quote from an old friend of mine, Winston Churchill. I never met him, but he's an old friend, nonetheless. He said: This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read.
That's absolutely right. The set of bills and the explanatory memorandum, as I said, are 1,500 pages or thereabouts. However, you don't have to read very far into this bill to come to the conclusion that the devil is in the detail.
This legislation—primarily, the reckless rollout of renewable energy—is a prime example of how the government is wanting to pick and choose winners to suit their own agenda. The legislation is giving the government the green light to speed up the destruction of our environment and the social fabric of our regional communities by providing the minister with autocratic powers to ram through renewable energy approvals, if they wish.
That's spelt out on page 2 of the explanatory memorandum, and I'll quote from it: The Reform Bill would amend the EPBC Act to provide a framework for the Minister to make, vary and revoke national environmental standards, and to apply such standards to decision-making under the Act, across the various approval decision pathways. The minister will be supported by the creation of more government bureaucracy—the National Environmental Protection Agency, supposedly independent from the government; and the new Environment Information Australia division of the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.
These new agencies will come under a new chief executive officer, as well as the head of Environment Information Australia. With all of this added bureaucracy, costed at $121 million for the NEPA and an additional $51.5 million for HEIA over the next four years, what will we receive from the investment? We can see from the legislation that the minister already intends to use this as a political weapon by not allowing the construction of nuclear fuel fabrication plants, a nuclear power plant, an enrichment plant or a processing facility.
Shouldn't the EPBC Act have a policy focused on agnostic energy and not ideology—policy that supports and protects our Australian environment, our unique plants and animals and their habitats? Page 3 of the explanatory memorandum mentions that 'projects with unacceptable impacts on nationally protected matters cannot be approved'. Will the minister please outline what he deems an unacceptable risk?
This is subjective wording that does not provide clear guidance on what it actually means. Does it mean halting and shutting down job-creating industries like coal and gas projects? Let's take a look at our nation's wealth and what has built the foundations of our great country.
What has allowed us to support our education systems, our hospitals, our roads and other critical infrastructure? Where does that money come from? It's mining royalties from natural resources and other critical industries that line the government's pockets.
In the 2023-24 financial year, Australian mining companies paid approximately $59.4 billion in taxes and royalties. These are the industries that will be severely impacted by these environmental law reforms cooked up by the left faction of the Labor Party. Without transparency around this 'unacceptable impacts' definition, our blue-collar industries cannot commit to continuing to support jobs and the growth of Australian regions.
On pages 3 and 4 of the EM, it quickly becomes clear that the government plan to expand bureaucracy and green regulations for the industries that they don't support, while giving the environment minister the power to speed any renewable project through without proper investigation. In my electorate of Flynn, the Moonlight Range Wind Farm project, approximately 40 kilometres from Rockhampton, was cancelled in May of this year by the Queensland government.
If approved, the project was set to clear over 740 hectares of remnant regrowth vegetation that was key to vulnerable and threatened species including koalas, powerful owls and the greater glider. Ecosystems of concern had been identified, including an extremely large area of ancient cycads that have lived in the disturbance area for hundreds of years. That's not to mention the installation of 88 proposed turbines with a tip height of 280 metres, requiring the tops of the mountain ranges to be blasted for their construction.
During the two-month cooling-off period, there were more than 550 representations to the Deputy Premier. The submissions made it clear that the project did not have community support, with 88 per cent of the local residents opposed to the project proceeding. The Moonlight Range wind project was found not to have met the requirements of the government's new planning laws, which were to ensure that renewable energy projects are assessed in the same manner as other major resource developments.
I strongly supported this action by the Queensland government to cancel this project. The Queensland government has introduced these new laws to give locals a say in what developments can proceed in their backyards. But I have great concerns that, if this EPBC legislation is passed, it will give the federal government environment minister of the day the ability to steamroll state governments' processes and, with it, the local community's voices.
Don't take my word for it; it's written here in the legislation. On page 2 of the explanatory memorandum, it says: The Reform Bill would amend the EPBC Act to provide a framework for the Minister to make, vary and revoke national environmental standards … Furthermore, on page 9 it states: The Reform Bill would provide an approval mechanism that responds to this recommendation for designated projects that the Minister considers to be in the national interest to be approved even if they do not meet the requirements of the EPBC Act.
I'm going to repeat that so that people get this right. It's on page 9; you can look it up. It says: The Reform Bill would provide an approval mechanism that responds to this recommendation for designated projects that the Minister considers to be in the national interest to be approved even if they do not meet the requirements of the EPBC Act.
It's outrageous! This would ensure that destructive projects like Moonlight Range, in the wrong location on the very environment that the EPBC exists to protect, can be rubber-stamped and expedited by the minister, even if they don't meet the requirements of the EPBC Act. It couldn't get any clearer.
If the minister thinks it's in the national interest, and the Labor government's reckless renewables-only plan comes to mind, then there will be no way to stop a project that does not meet the requirements of the EPBC Act. This is the intent of this bill, unfortunately. This should be a red flag for the Greens and the teals, who want to save the planet at all costs.
These are the costs that the EPBC will be able to turn a blind eye to. The minister can approve any project, regardless of our protected matters or matters of national environmental significance. This package of bills also requires the HEIA to create a public environment data portal.
I assume that this might be a new website that would list useful environmental information. It might be similar to the Australian Renewable Energy Map—the truth map as it is more commonly known. Thousands of hours were put into it by conservationist Steve Nowakowski searching and mapping over 1,200 projects, 96 of which are in my electorate of Flynn.
It would be beneficial to the EPBC to be able to use HEIA's public environment data portal to see the cumulative effect of the thousands of wind turbines and 500 million solar panels that they are wanting to fast-track. These intermittent weather dependent forms of energy generation are covering agricultural Australia, including in my electorate. In fact, they're all over Australia.
This agricultural land is not protected under the EPBC Act, despite the essential need to produce food for our nation. The HEIA's data portal is limited through the information available to the public, unlike the truth map. These proposed bills state that the HEIA would not need to share this information if they deem it to be protected information, despite the bill stating on page 3 of the Environment Information Australia Bill, if you're reading along, that the HEIA would provide 'transparency, certainty and accountability', but only for individuals for authorised purposes under the condition of nondisclosure.
So where is the transparency? Where is the accountability? There are more holes in this legislation than a cast net.
Honestly! Here is the summary of what the appointment of the NEPA CEO would look like under the Labor government. The CEO is supposed to be independent of the minister, and the NETA becomes another department funded by the Australian taxpayer.
The CEO gets issued a statement of expectation from the minister and the CEO then gives the minister a statement of intent. The CEO is appointed by the Governor-General. And while I understand the intent of this action, I ask what expertise the Governor-General has in deciding this critical position.
The CEO must be familiar with regulation and public-sector administration, but not necessarily any more than one of natural resource management, heritage, Indigenous affairs, ecologically sustainable development, biodiversity conservation, law and law enforcement. The CEO can have committee experts in these fields. The CEO can ignore their advice when making decisions.
I'm not making this up—it's all in the bill here. That CEO can create a committee of subject matter experts but then choose to ignore their advice. It's on page 4.
The current reforms are also missing the ability for the CEO to be terminated by the minister. Only the Governor-General can terminate the CEO just like Sir John Kerr did 50 years ago when he removed the Whitlam government. So where's Sir John Kerr now when we need him?
The only difference here is that the Australian people get to decide who will lead the country every three years, while this CEO appointment gets a free pass for five years. To summarise, the CEO gets a $30 million budget per year to create and run another government department that is run by a CEO who cannot be directed by the minister and can ignore advice provided by technical experts in his chosen advisory group.
Once again, it's bureaucratic nonsense with no repercussions and no transparency. The CEO will have extensive, broad, sweeping powers to issue indefinite stop-work orders. Once again, it's a power that creates uncertainty for business and industry.
The rush of this package of bills, to be forced through the House in a matter of hours, speaks volumes about the intent of this government. They are hell-bent on hampering the industries of Australia that we rely on for a stable, generous and prosperous economy while allowing unchecked destruction of the landscape and environments that I consider precious. I do not support this legislation.
I urge the teals and the Greens to do the same, and we must reject this bill.