IN the era of COVID-19 and the need to get the economy back on track, the focus has to be on jobs.
There has been a massive hit to employment, especially in areas such as tourism and hospitality and the construction industry is standing on the edge of an employment cliff.
Now that the health issues are largely contained, at least for the time being and as long as we maintain our standards, what is important?
The economy, stupid!
The focus right now has to be jobs, jobs, jobs.
And there is a role for the WA Parliament in making sure we keep that focus while not sacrificing our standards or protections.
The government has presented Upper House MPs with an opportunity to make real and significant change to the way environmental protection operates in Western Australia and it has never been more important to get this right.
It has introduced a wide ranging rewrite of the Environmental Protection Act (EPA), presenting us with an opportunity to make improvements and streamline the environmental approvals process.
The government's agenda is modest but positive.
Their changes will, for example, allow the State to enter into bilateral environmental agreements with the Commonwealth government, a much welcome move supported by the Opposition.
They are also proposing to introduce Environmental Protection Covenants - agreements between the State and landowners on the long-term preservation of natural assets on their land.
Of particular value will be allowing the EPA to measure and assess the cumulative environmental impacts of multiple actions on an ecosystem, as will be the capacity for the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation (DWER) chief executive officer to pre-assess whether a clearing application needs to be made in some circumstances.
These and other measures are welcome changes that the Opposition will support.
However, to only support the government's modest agenda without greater action would be a wasted opportunity to achieve far more ambitious and beneficial gains.
We have a real opportunity to make the system work better for all.
To that end I have proposed additional amendments that I think will make the system of environmental management in this State more streamlined and effective.
They would also deliver a fairer system, supporting landowners who too frequently face an extremely unfair battle with bureaucracy.
DWER, in particular, is empowered by the current system to a point that treats landholders as second class citizens and this is a great opportunity to rebalance that power.
The amendments that I have proposed are focused on small but critical areas.
In particular, they would:
- Introduce statutory time limits in the process of gaining environmental approvals;
- Require the government to register environmentally sensitive areas on the land title of impacted landowners;
- Require the government to register environment protection covenants on land titles;
- Ask the Environmental Protection Authority to specify timelines for environmental regulation under Part V of the Act; and
- Remove the need for a landowner to seek approval to clear vegetation within 25 metres of their home for the purpose of creating an adequate firebreak.
Having stricter timelines for assessments, approvals or rejection and the announcement by government of the environmental assessment of proposals is critical to the future management of our State.
This is equally important to both those who propose development and those who are opposed to it.
The system too often sees the clock stop on assessments with no set timeframe for it to restart.
I am proposing to limit the government's capacity to do this, by applying set timeframes for the period that government departments can sit on proposals.
The thorny issue of environmentally sensitive areas also needs to be better addressed.
The current system allows DWER to arbitrarily blight land with this label without any consideration of the landowner who manages it.
The impacts on those landholders can be horrendous, yet the government can ignore them.
The measure is not even recorded on the land title, meaning the blighting of land is invisible to the wider community.
I intend to change that.
The government must have some problem with the operation of the EPA, otherwise it would not be proposing to throw it out the window in its proposed changes to the Planning Act that it says are in response to the COVID-19 economic crisis.
Environment Minister Stephen Dawson is in the unenviable role of having to carry a Bill that throws environmental assessments out the window.
In doing so he will be the first environment minister to tell the Parliament and the community that the environment actually doesn't matter.
My plan is not to toss the EPA aside, but instead to make it better.
Better for the environment but also more workable for industry and landowners.
