Page 2136 - Week 07 - Thursday, 20 August 2020
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (5.45): This clause is about EIS exemption approvals and this is a key concern of environment groups. This clause would expand third-party appeal rights for the grant of an environmental impact statement exemption. This is important because the requirement to produce an environmental impact statement only applies to the most environmentally damaging developments. The developments exempted are therefore the most high risk from an environmental point of view—developments like clear land which is home to threatened species.
MR PARTON (Brindabella) (5.46): I have four words: jobs, jobs, jobs and no.
MR GENTLEMAN (Brindabella—Manager of Government Business, Minister for Advanced Technology and Space Industries, Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Minister for Planning and Land Management, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for Urban Renewal) (5.46): The decision to grant an EIS exemption as a reviewable decision is not supported by government. Currently a decision to refuse an EIS exemption is reviewable only by the applicant. The proposed clause would allow an applicant to review a decision to grant an EIS exemption to them.
Additionally, this drafted amendment appears to be incomplete and is missing a necessary subsequent amendment to add third parties or representatives as an eligible entity to apply for a review. This would add considerable time to a development, allowing decisions to be reviewed at multiple stages through the planning process.
Clause 22 negatived.
Clause 23.
MR GENTLEMAN (Brindabella—Manager of Government Business, Minister for Advanced Technology and Space Industries, Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Minister for Planning and Land Management, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for Urban Renewal) (5.47): The current environmental assessment process already has consideration of climate change as part of it. I move amendment No 5 circulated in my name [see schedule 3 at page 2163].
Proposals that trigger an impact track DA—that is, a significant proposal set out in schedule 4 of the Planning and Development Act 2007—require further consideration of ACT government policies in the environmental assessment. For the environmental impact statement process, or EIS, the authority issues a scoping document which sets out the matters that the proponent must address within the EIS.
With respect to climate change, the scoping document includes the following wording:
The EIS must include information on how the proposal will reduce the risks from climate change impacts and include proposed adaption measures to reduce vulnerability and increased resilience of the community and the Territory, particularly to the extreme events of heatwaves, droughts, storms with flash
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video