Interview with Nadia Mitsopoulos, ABC Radio Perth WA Mornings

NADIA MITSOPOULOS, HOST: Well, the Federal Government’s 1500-page bill that rewrites the country’s environmental laws passed the House of Representatives yesterday. But getting this bill through the Senate is the real battle, given neither the Coalition or the Greens are supporting the proposed legislation in its current form. So, what will the compromise be? Well, that’s up to Murray Watt. He’s the Federal Environment Minister and my guest this morning. Minister, good morning.

MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: G’day, Nadia. Good to be with you again.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: So, what’s going to give, Minister? The Greens don’t support your bill. The Coalition does not support your bill. Where will the compromise come from?

MURRAY WATT: Well, you’re right, Nadia, I don’t think it’s too surprising that at this stage of negotiations, we have both the Greens and the Coalition not supporting it – the Greens saying that it’s too good for business, the Coalition saying it’s too good for the environment. It’s pretty hard to see how both of those things can be true, but we understand there’s a fair bit of political lines and slogans going on at the moment. What I’ve always said with these laws is that what we want to achieve is a balanced package of reforms for our national environmental laws that do deliver stronger protections for our environment and also simplify and speed up the processes so that we can assess and approve housing, renewables and other projects as well. And so, the approach I’ll be taking as we seek to negotiate a deal on these reforms is which side of politics is prepared to work with us to ensure that we get that balanced outcome. I’ve said all along that no one’s going to get 100 per cent of what they want. There can’t be a set of reforms that only delivers to the environment or only delivers to business. We’ve got to achieve both, and I’m very confident that we can do that over the next couple of weeks.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: And the concern is that it gives more to business than it does to the environment. Now, the Greens say there are not enough protections for native forests or the climate, and that a minister will have the power to approve a big project like a new mine or a mine extension without even having to consider the damage to the climate. That's going to be your sticking point, isn't it?

MURRAY WATT: Well, that's certainly the things that the Greens party is saying, but you would expect a political party to be exaggerating a little bit to suit their own goals.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: Isn't that the case, though? You know, the minister can have the ultimate say.

MURRAY WATT: In fact, across the board, what we've done is follow recommendations from the review that Graeme Samuel, a prominent Australian businessperson, put forward five years ago, and his reforms were about delivering benefits for the environment and for business. One of the recommendations he put forward, which we have implemented, is the ability for a minister of the day in rare circumstances to approve a project that is in Australia's national interest. But we would see that as being a very exceptional case. And what we've tried to do with these reforms is actually deliver very real benefits for the environment. The Greens don't like to mention this, but these reforms, even in the way we've introduced them in the House of Reps, deliver for the first time national environmental standards that projects need to be assessed against. They introduced Australia's first ever National Environment Protection Agency, a real cop on the beat to come down hard on people who do the wrong thing. We've put in there a definition of what is a project that has an unacceptable impact on the environment that simply cannot proceed. And when it comes to environmental offsets for projects, what we've said is that they need to deliver a net gain for the environment. So they're just a handful of the ways that this law actually improves protection for the environment. It's just that the Greens don't like to admit that and want to sort of say that it's all bad.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: Okay, so how do you- what's the definition, then? An unacceptable impact on the environment – how do you decide what that is?

MURRAY WATT: So what we've done is include a range of criteria in the legislation to help decision makers to determine that. Basically what it comes down to is would a project have an irreversible impact on a particular habitat or a species? Would it threaten the viability of a species? And if it does have that, then it's very likely to be deemed to be unacceptable. And to give you a couple of examples, if someone wanted to go and mine for oil or gas on Ningaloo Reef, then I think there's a reasonably good chance that that's going to get knocked back. That is a World Heritage-listed reef, and I think most people would accept that that shouldn't happen there. Equally, if some sort of …

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: But I imagine that most people wouldn't be trying to apply to mine or drill in a World Heritage area anyway.

MURRAY WATT: You'd hope not.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: So those kind of cases are not going to come before you, to be fair.

MURRAY WATT: You would hope not. But, I mean, I've seen instances where property developers have sought to put apartment blocks on internationally listed wetlands. Now, at the end of a several-year process, they got knocked back, as they should. But in the meantime, they racked up millions of dollars in costs. They should have been told from the beginning it's not going to happen. And that's a way of making sure that the environment is protected. Similarly, when it comes to housing development, if habitat for an endangered species is going to be cleared that means that endangered species is likely to be driven to extinction, then that should be unacceptable. And we should say no to those kind of things, and we should do so early.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: And we have 61 critically endangered animals in WA, mammals, birds, reptiles, and 178 plant species. So there’s a lot at stake here.

MURRAY WATT: And we need to protect them. Yeah, absolutely, we need to protect them. And that’s what I’m saying is that one of the aims of this legislation is to ensure that we don’t just see the ongoing decline of those sorts of endangered species, but we start to see them rebound by protecting the habitat that they live in, but also restoring some of the degraded land that we have seen cleared so that those sort of species can thrive again.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: And are you, you make the, use the example of Ningaloo Reef, which is a World Heritage area. And you could argue, well, there’s applications to drill near Scott Reef, for instance. Now, that’s not necessarily a World Heritage area, but it certainly is an environmentally sensitive area, so that, something like that, I just, how do you protect that?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, so I should say that that particular project, the Browse project, that will be assessed under the current laws rather than the new ones because it's already in the system. But if we were to see a future project lodged for assessment along those lines, what we will be doing is determining whether that project would have a significant impact on one of the defined matters of national environmental significance, which includes threatened species. But equally, as I say, if these laws pass, if a project is going to have a simply unacceptable impact that would damage that environment irreversibly or drive a species to extinction, there's a pretty good chance it's going to get a quick no. And that's good for the environment, of course, but it's also good for business in being able to give them that quick answer so that they don't spend all that money unnecessarily and get a no at the end of the process.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: But surely something as significant as the Browse project, if it does happen and there's question marks around that and the cost of it, that surely for something like that should be assessed under these new laws?

MURRAY WATT: Well, the issue is, Nadia, that any project that has already been lodged and has been referred to my department for assessment will continue to be assessed and considered under the existing law. Obviously, when you pass a new law, it only applies from the date that it's passed in essence. So any new project that is lodged after those laws are passed will be, the new laws would apply to that. But any project, whether it be the Browse project or residential developments or wind farms that are already in the system, they would continue to be assessed under the current laws.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: My guest this morning is Murray Watt, who of course is the Federal Environment Minister, at six minutes to nine. Some will argue that every project that's proposed would be in the national interest. And a minister could, under these laws, approve anything and everything. You could argue that that anything that's brought before you is of the national interest.

MURRAY WATT: Well, I guess someone might argue that, but that's where it comes into the role of a politically accountable person being the minister to make that decision. I should say that this idea of a national interest approval, which we have included in the bill based on Graeme Samuel's recommendation, a project in that situation would still need to have a full environment assessment, would still be required to minimise its environmental impacts as much as possible, but it does reserve the option for a minister to decide in those rare circumstances that a project is in the national interest and should go ahead anyway, the sorts of examples that we've provided in the legislation would be matters involving defence or national security, natural disasters and emergencies, those kinds of things, to give people a bit of a flavour of the types of situations that we would think it would be used. The minister would need to be fully transparent and provide a statement of reasons for why they would do that. But as I say, we would expect that the overwhelming majority of projects would go through the normal assessment system, would have to reduce their environmental impacts, would have conditions attached. This is for those very rare exceptions.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: Isn't the concern in the future? I mean, you may argue that you will do the right thing in your assessments when it comes to something of the national interest and whether you should give it the approval. Isn't the issue future environment ministers who potentially could abuse this loophole, given there is so much discretion?

MURRAY WATT: A decision for future ministers, how they interpret that legislation, but based on those sorts of examples that we have provided in the legislation. And in the end, I mean, we do have a democracy here where people get to have their say about whether they support decisions of the government of the day or not, and people would be able to express those views at an election after those sort of decisions are made. That's very different to if we have a situation where public servants, who I've got the greatest of respect for, but don't have to face the people in an election, get to make those decisions. But as I say, we do expect this to be very rare occasions. If people have got concerns about the way we've drafted that, we've said we're open to listening to them. What I've said is that we're open to passing these reforms with either the Coalition or the Greens, but they need to come forward now and say what changes would they require in order for us to attract their support.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: And people might be scratching their heads. How are you going to deal with the Coalition on this, given the Nationals have dumped a net zero target and the Liberals are likely to do the same? You would have to question their environmental credentials.

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, look, I mean, I think there is a question mark about whether in their current state, the Coalition can actually decide what they think on this issue. We've seen them become a complete rabble over the last couple of weeks, even more than they already were. But we think it's important to be negotiating with both sides of politics. I'm not prepared to fully gut the bill to simply satisfy one side or another. But as I said to you at the outset, what I'll be looking for is which side is prepared to work with us to deliver that balanced package that does deliver real gains for the environment and also speed up processes for business.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: Minister, finally, before we get to the news at nine, yesterday we found out that the WA Government has been sitting on a secret report it commissioned Deloitte to do, which says there are substantial risks that natural gas could crowd out investments in renewable technology or delay the broader adoption of renewable energies technologies. And that's after we hear the Premier say that for people to transition to renewables, they need our gas. Based on that report, do you think it was irresponsible to allow Woodside to extend the life of the Northwest Shelf to 2070?

MURRAY WATT: No, I don't, Nadia. I mean, the decision that I had to make around that project was whether its emissions would unacceptably damage the rock art that is obviously very nearby the gas processing plant. And the evidence that I was provided with convinced me that provided we applied very strict conditions to that project going forward that the rock art could be preserved. The decision did not involve an assessment under the law around what its emissions would be from a climate change perspective. It's worth remembering that that project is already required under the government's Safeguard Mechanism to reduce its greenhouse emissions by 5 per cent every year to be net zero by 2050. So it's not as if we're giving them a free pass when it comes to greenhouse emissions, they're required to reduce them. But the decision I had to make was about the potential impact on the rock art, and I'm satisfied that the conditions we've applied will do that.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: I'll leave it there, and I thank you for your time.

MURRAY WATT: No worries, Nadia. Good to talk.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: You too. Murray Watt there. Senator Murray Watt. He is, of course, the Federal Environment Minister.