Additional Comments from Coalition Senators

1.1On behalf of the Federal Coalition, we reaffirm that we do not support the insertion of a climate trigger into any Commonwealth legislation. More specifically, in the case of the Bill that is the subject of this committee inquiry, we do not support the addition of such a trigger to Australia’s national environmental laws.

1.2Broadly, we therefore agree with the sole recommendation of the MajorityReport that the Bill should not be passed. Nevertheless, there are still some significant differences between our reasoning and the Labor Party’s reasoning for taking that position.

1.3For the Coalition’s part, we have consistently taken the view that it is unwise (and there is no substantive reasoning or justification) to include a climate trigger in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (the EPBC Act).

1.4In short, we believe that, far from delivering the kinds of outcomes that the Greens imagine, a climate trigger would actually deliver the reverse outcome – that is, it would significantly complicate (and compromise) the task of emissions reduction in Australia. Indeed, as we outline in more detail later, that view is also reinforced by the findings of multiple expert reviews and analyses. Consistently, those reviews and analyses have concluded that a climate trigger is unnecessary in Australia.

1.5These are points that we have already made, for many good reasons, on many different occasions—including in 2020, at which time the Greens decided to introduce a very similar Bill to the Parliament.

1.6As they did in 2020, the Greens have sought to punctuate the debate on this Bill with a series of assertions about how projects can be approved without consideration of their environmental impact. To that (false) premise they have also attached a series of theoretical claims about how badly a climate trigger is therefore needed in Federal environmental law.

1.7However, at no stage of this process—or the preceding one in the last parliamentary term—have the Greens provided detailed, credible analysis or modelling in relation to the extent of any emissions reductions or any other environmental benefits associated with their legislation. Similarly, they have not been able to present this Committee, or the Senate more broadly, with any evidence to show that the Bill would deliver positive social and economic consequences. In addition, they have never quantified the impacts that would be brought to bear on the many businesses (and the workers employed at those businesses) that their Bill would clearly affect both directly and indirectly.

1.8The basic reality is that a climate trigger would prove counterproductive for Australia, especially alongside the numerous other climate-related policies and laws that already exist in our country. Recklessly, it would also further increase the already enormous regulatory and financial pressures currently being faced by businesses seeking to invest in Australia. In short, it would send a(nother) very clear signal to them from the Greens that they would be best advised to take their job-creating and wealth-generating activities to other countries instead.

1.9At a time when the Federal Labor Government is already extraordinarily handing millions of taxpayer dollars to the Environmental Defenders Office (which has assisted that organisation to disrupt a host of industrial projects across Australia), the introduction of a climate trigger would also inevitably open up yet more scope and opportunities for far-left environmental activists to launch green lawfare against companies.

1.10Fundamentally, it is the view of the Liberal Party and the National Party that there are far more practical, effective and prudent ways of encouraging and delivering emissions reductions.

1.11During our time in government between 2013 and 2022, for example, we believed that such reductions would be better achieved by promoting improvements in technology rather than imposing new taxes or making radical legislative changes. Throughout that period, Australia’s emissions duly fell to a level that was more than 20 per cent lower than in 2005 (the baseline for the Paris Agreement). At the time that we left office, projections showed a likely reduction of nationwide emissions, under our policies, of between 30 to 35 percent by 2030.

1.12Prior to the 2022 Federal election, we also released our Long-Term Emissions Reduction Plan.[1] This was aimed at delivering further Coalition progress and achievements in this policy area.

1.13Since the 2022 election, and whilst emissions have actually been rising under the Albanese Government’s policies (most of which have been backed in Parliament by the Greens), we have continued to focus on a range of practical measures as the keys to achieving further emissions reductions. Unlike Labor and the Greens, we concentrate on policies and mechanisms that work at a practical level—and that strike an appropriate and sensible balance between preserving our existing industries and continuing to encourage and foster a greater uptake of low emissions technologies.

1.14We should add that, within the Environment portfolio specifically, the Samuel Review of Australia’s national environmental laws also validated our approach. This comprehensive Review still represents the most up-to-date, independent assessment of the EPBC Act, and concluded that there was no reason to proceed with a climate trigger.

1.15Among other findings, its Final Report (which was released publicly on 28January 2021) said that ‘the Review does not agree with suggestions that the environmental matters the EPBC Act deals with should be broadened’.[2] It also said that ‘successive Australian Governments have elected to adopt specific policy mechanisms to implement their commitments to reduce emissions. The Review agrees that these specific mechanisms, not the EPBC Act, are the appropriate way to place limits on greenhouse gas emissions’.[3]

1.16Moreover, passage of the Greens’ climate trigger Bill would undoubtedly lead to the creation of yet more environmental assessment and approval processes. As it stands, businesses are already often forced to spend many years adhering to the exacting and extensive compliance requirements associated with these processes in Australia—and this proposed legislation would only exacerbate such difficulties.

1.17There is likewise little doubt that, in legislating for significant additional restrictions on economic development, one of the most obvious practical effects of the Bill would be to limit and/or stifle major new investment in Australia. It would accentuate the threats to business activity that have already been growing rapidly under an Albanese Government that continuously worsens the environment in which businesses are expected to operate in Australia.

1.18To that end, this Bill is actually even more stringent in a number of respects than the Greens’ 2020 version. In particular, it encompasses two new thresholds for projects to be assessed as matters of national environmental significance. Specifically, it proposes that Ministerial approval would be required for any project that would emit 25,000 to 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent annually and that a ban be placed on all new projects that would emit more than 100,000 tonnes per annum.

1.19Those are each ill-advised thresholds, even in isolation. It would be an even more dangerous situation if they were to be introduced in the aftermath of the various changes to emissions-related laws and policies introduced during the life of the Albanese Government, such as their 43 per cent emissions reductions target by 2030, and their Safeguard Mechanism. Not to mention their target of 82percent renewables by 2030 and up to 100 per cent thereafter, which they have already proven they simply can not deliver and which is causing mayhem and anger across the country, especially in rural and regional communities.

1.20Whenever legislators make life more complicated and more punitive for companies, it inevitably and inexorably drives up the cost of doing business in Australia and damages our nation’s sovereign risk in the process.

1.21The actions of the Albanese Government are also already significantly driving up the cost of living, and another inevitable impact of the passage of a Bill of this kind would be that it would add to those pressures.

1.22As the Final Report of the Samuel Review noted, the creation of a climate trigger would also ‘result in muddled responsibilities, further duplication and inefficiency’ across the various tiers of government in Australia.[4]

1.23In short, there can be little doubt that the incorporation of a climate trigger within the EPBC Act would be highly destructive in an economic sense.

1.24We would also note – with considerable disappointment and trepidation – that we have been hearing increasing concerns from stakeholders during the current term of Parliament that the Labor Party may be readying itself to agree to the Greens’ demands for a climate trigger. The ALP had seemingly made very clear, until recently, that they did not support a climate trigger.

1.25The Environment Minister, the Hon Tanya Plibersek MP, said on 8December2022—for example—that, ‘what we’re not going to do is have a Safeguard Mechanism on the one hand and a separate set of environmental laws covering the same material on the other hand … (and) we do have a lot going on in the area of emissions reduction. What we’re not going to do in our new environmental laws is duplicate or second guess those measures’.[5]

1.26We hope that position continues to prevail within the ALP.

1.27However, there is now nervousness in many corners of industry that this position will be reversed. Of course, this would be in keeping with the Albanese Government’s now well-entrenched pattern of breaking clear promises to the people of Australia.

1.28Industry and the Coalition each suspect that a reversal of Labor’s previous commitments on this issue may be one of the trade-offs that they make in return for the Greens’ agreement to pass their looming, broader changes to the country’s national environmental laws.

1.29Notwithstanding that none of them has achieved a worthwhile outcome for the overwhelming majority of Australians, there have already been numerous such Labor-Green deals brokered on other legislation during this term of Parliament. In the Environment, Climate Change, Energy and Industry portfolios alone, these have included the:

Safeguard Mechanism;

43 per cent by 2030 emissions reductions target;

Nature Repair Market Bill; and

National Reconstruction Fund.

1.30It is very likely that the long-promised but still-not-delivered overhaul of the EPBC Act will prove to be yet another.

1.31It is also worth noting, in this case, that Prime Minister Albanese (when he was the Shadow Environment and Heritage Minister) actually introduced his own Climate Trigger Bill to the House of Representatives in 2005.

1.32In his First Reading Speech on that Bill, Prime Minister Albanese said that ‘the glaring gap in matters of national environmental significance is climate change. This Bill closes that gap. The climate change trigger will enable major new projects to be assessed for their climate change impact as part of any environmental assessment process and will ensure that new developments reflect best practice’.[6]

1.33However, neither the Rudd nor Gillard Governments enshrined these views in law after Labor won office in 2007.

1.34Indeed, no Federal Government has ever chosen to embed a climate trigger within the EPBC Act. Principally, and entirely reasonably and sensibly, this has been because each of these governments has considered that there have already been a sufficient range of policies, laws, strategies and programs in place across the country to reduce emissions.

1.35As we noted earlier, this stance has also been reinforced by the findings of numerous inquiries and reviews into environmental policies and laws in Australia.

1.36Among these were the conclusions of the second-ever, 10-year statutory review of the EPBC Act—the Samuel Review. This review process recommended that the EPBC Act should not be used to duplicate existing Federal frameworks, strategies and programs for the regulation of emissions.

1.37The earlier, first-ever statutory review of the operation of the EPBC Act (the Hawke Review) did actually advocate the use of an ‘interim greenhouse trigger’. However, it quite explicitly recommended that it be utilised only until the Rudd Government’s then-mooted Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme began operation.

1.38In a similar light, no recommendation for a long-term greenhouse or climate trigger was made in reviews such as the Senate Red Tape Committee Report – ‘Environmental assessment and approvals’ (of 2016-17). Nor was it made in any of three relevant Productivity Commission inquiries between 2013 and 2017: namely, its 2013 report into Major Project Development Assessment Processes, its 2014 report into Mineral and Energy Resources, or its 2019 Inquiry into Resources Sector Regulation.

1.39Regrettably, over time, the continued rejection of the need for a permanent greenhouse or climate trigger has only emboldened the Greens to advocate even more stridently for its inclusion in the EPBC Act. Revealingly, they indicated a number of times in their Second Reading speeches on this Bill that the underlying aim of this approach is actually to stop all new coal, oil and gas projects in Australia.

1.40To borrow a line from former Prime Minister the Hon Tony Abbott, their approach in this case has been underpinned by ‘socialism masquerading as environmentalism’.

Footnotes

[1]Australian Government,Australia’s Long-Term Emissions Reduction Plan, October 2021.

[2]Independent Review of the EPBC Act – Final Report, p. 45.

[3]Independent Review of the EPBC Act – Final Report, p. 47.

[4]Independent Review of the EPBC Act – Final Report, p. 45.

[5]Sky News interview with Minister for the Environment and Water, the Hon Tanya Plibersek MP, 8December 2022.

[6]The Hon Anthony Albanese MP, House of Representatives Hansard, 5 September 2005, p. 16.