Source: Govt’s austerity Budget to cause real harm in communities
Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. I do want to just begin by emphasising the need, as Rachel Brooking has pointed out, for a review period. Because what we see in Schedule 1AA refers to, potentially, a large number of projects, perhaps some that are active authorisations, some that are under way, and it is important, given the retrospectivity of this, that there is a review period.
The second point that I want to make, and a question for the Minister, is about the number of those projects. Now, we’ve seen, as I’ve mentioned previously in this debate, that there is no regulatory impact statement; there is no proactively released Cabinet paper. So we don’t have a huge amount of detail that, previously or in other situations, were this not being passed through all stages under urgency, we would have had access to. I have seen some media reporting that basically says that in the past 12 months, the Department of Conservation (DOC) has granted 85 similar permits to project applicants, and that, in total, 315 applications are under way where a section 53 permit or authority could be granted. So my question would be whether the Minister can confirm those figures, and also whether new Schedule 1AA in Part 2 would then apply to all of those—the 85 plus the 315 that are in train as well.
The third point that I want to make is in lieu of a select committee process, all we have—previously we would have submitters, many of whom have done a fair bit of work in this space in terms of reviewing the Wildlife Act and making suggestions on what should be changed within the Act. We would have ordinarily heard from them through a select committee process; we, of course, haven’t, given that we are sitting in urgency, and so all we have to go on are some of the press releases that have been put out on this particular piece of legislation. And I do want to check: there is one from the Environmental Law Initiative—of course, the lawyers who judicially reviewed the decision have said that, basically, it increases the burden on those who are, I guess, pushing those projects through—the 85 and the 315, if, in fact those numbers are correct. And I would be keen for the Minister’s view, given what’s in Schedule 1AA, on whether he agrees that it actually does increase the administrative burden both for DOC but also in terms of the legal tests that now those projects have to be put against.
There was also another comment, and I can’t find it in front of me at the moment, around the fact that, potentially, what DOC should have done—and, again, it’s just been two months since the High Court ruling; that is a point that has been made before: there hasn’t been a huge amount of time. Had this been either delayed a little bit or had there been a slightly lengthier process, or some select committee process, there potentially could have been time for DOC to then go through the cases, on a case by case basis. We are here because the High Court ruling ruled that in that particular case, the Mt Messenger Bypass case, the authority that was given under section 53 didn’t actually meet the purpose of the Wildlife Act as it was written back in 1953, and, therefore, just this carte blanche approach to now changing the law to change, ostensibly, the purpose of this Act so that the permits that were given retrospectively will now be legal does not necessarily mean that those who are shepherding those projects through have taken reasonable steps to protect biodiversity.
So there is an argument put forward that what DOC should be doing is to look at those 85 cases where there is legal uncertainty and try and work out whether reasonable steps have been taken to protect biodiversity in each of those cases. And I would really like to know what the Minister’s view on that is, but, also, what advice he received on that point: is that something that DOC could actually have done? Was there consideration around the time period that it would have taken for DOC to be able to go through all of those cases on a case by case basis?