Criticism for ‘one stop’ environmental approvals

Agreement by all Australian states and territories to a deal that effectively gives them the final say on environmental approvals has immediately come in for strong criticism from environmentalists and the Australian Greens Party.

All states and territories agreed to start the process towards “one-stop shops” for environmental approvals at the Council of Australian Governments  (COAG) meeting in the national capital, Canberra.

The Australian Greens and the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) immediately condemned the move.

Despite the policy going against federal Labor’s stance on the issue, Labor-led Tasmania, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory signed memoranda of understanding with the conservative Liberal-National federal government.

Coalition-led Western Australia, Victoria and Northern Territory also signed the MOA.

Speaking after his first COAG meeting as Prime Minister, Tony Abbott said the memoranda would move the jurisdictions “towards a one-stop shop process for environmental approvals”.

New South Wales and Queensland, which had already agreed to the plan the government says will reduce “green tape”, have signed what the Prime Minister termed “assessment bilaterals”.

These agreements will allow states to carry out the environmental assessments for major projects and pave the way for states to also carry out the approvals.

Mr Abbott argues that the “same high standards of environmental approval” will apply but with a “much swifter outcome”.

While Labor supports the streamlining of environmental approvals, to get rid of state-federal double-ups, it does not agree with giving the states final approval powers over environmental sites of “national significance”.

“We do not support handing over the protection of the Great Barrier Reef to Campbell Newman,” Labor’s environment spokesman Mark Butler said earlier.

The Australian Greens are vehemently against the move, and even before today’s COAG press conference had ended issued a statement condemning the agreements as “dodgy deals”.

“These deals pave the way for Tony Abbott to abolish a 30-year-old federal safeguard for our most precious natural places and wildlife, established when (former Labor PM) Bob Hawke stepped in to save the Franklin from being dammed,” environment spokeswoman Larissa Waters said.

“Today’s in-principle agreement to move towards ‘one stop shops’ for environmental approvals is a step towards weaker protection of the country’s most significant natural assets, the Australian Conservation Foundation said.

“The laws that protect Australia’s World Heritage areas, precious water resources, internationally significant wetlands and threatened species are not ‘green tape’, they are essential safeguards for our life support systems,” said ACF’s healthy ecosystems campaigner, Jess Abrahams.

“These assets give us clean water and air, they pollinate crops and naturally control pests.

“The memoranda of understanding signed today paves the way for the undoing of 30 years of national protection for places and species of national environmental importance,” he added.