Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee, , 6:06:50 to 6:13:14
Discussion on aligning state and federal environmental regulations to provide certainty for the agriculture sector and the department's engagement with industry bodies.
Topics: EPBC Act, Land management, National Farmers Federation
Speakers: Senator Paul Scarr, Jessica Mitchell, Matt Lowe, Miss Victoria Anderson, Unknown Speaker
>> No, that's fine. So, have you received any any feedback with respect to these time and cost issues?
not direct feedback from individual producers but we understand that a force has provided generalized feedback or aggregated feedback on concerns about uh cost and time.
>> Okay. So you understand that aforce has provided has aforce provided that to your department?
>> Aforce has provided it to um the minister I believe and we've also seen a force uh
>> so it's been copied to you.
Yes, we've I' I've seen correspondence from a Force that raises concerns about overall costs and and effort.
>> Okay. Secretary, are you aware of the feedback?
>> I'm I'm aware of the feedback generally, not specifically the correspondence you're talking about.
>> Is it something you need to be across, do you think, in in terms of detail given it's
>> Yes. So, I've
>> importance to the industry.
>> I've met with the CEO of the uh National EPA um and we had a good discussion. and he talked to me about some of the discussions he'd been having in Queensland in particular that Miss Mitchell mentioned before. So, it is it's not something that's sort of a set and forget from our um perspective. It's something the department's quite engaged in.
>> Have you met with a Force in relation to it?
>> Have I met with a Force? No, I haven't met with a Force.
>> Uh, Senator, I can confirm though I have a regular dialogue with um the CEO of the NFF and it the these are matters that he he regularly raises as well.
>> Have you had discussions with a falls?
>> I haven't personally. No.
>> I have
>> Mr. Lo, do you think you should have discussions with a force given the
importance of the issue? My door is always open, but I also um very confident in my team and their ability to engage with a Force on the issues and they're probably a lot closer to the issues than me.
>> But probably meeting with a Force might give you an opportunity to uh reinforce that confidence. >> Okay. Uh is DAFF providing any funding or providing any practical help for especially family farms? And you know, again, I return to Senator Canavan's point. We we're expecting them to deal with changes to discretionary trusts. We issue a over 50page guide book uh to deal with self assessments which got has got quite a complicated table um of things to do and I've read some of the definitions right and it's taken me back to my years when I used to work on feasibility studies for mining projects and some of these issues around significant impact etc are nuanced they're difficult to understand in the concept of a uh a small farming operation as opposed to a large project. Uh how's DAFF helping our especially farming families come to grips with these obligations?
Um I mean I think you've heard um primarily where our focus has been which has been around supporting um input into ensuring that the guidance is practical um and fit for purpose for farmers. Um, I certainly appreciate its length and um, I know that the National EPA and ourselves are trying to work to find the right balance between the level of regulatory or specificity in the guidelines um, and um, the ability also to ensure that there's um, discretion for farmers to to make their own judgments on the basis of um, what they know best which is their own enterprise
that comes back to the point I made about we don't want a situation where a farmer's reading the guide and then talks to someone in the department and there's a disconnect between the guide and what the national EPA is telling them such that they don't have that regulatory certainty. That's something we want to avoid, isn't it?
>> Absolutely.
>> Okay. So, but you haven't given any particular advice in relation to that uh
aware. So,
>> okay. >> Okay. Can I ask you just take on notice and make sure you haven't had that raised with the department in terms of the the discrepancy issue and you haven't engaged with >> uh national EPA with respect to that issue. Just so I've got the record clear in that regard. >> Uh because it does seem to be a material issue otherwise I wouldn't be asking the questions. >> Uh so one of the other issues is farmers of course have to deal with the states. my home state of Queensland, you got deal with the Queensland government and you've also got this overlay under the uh with the national EPA. So, you don't want a situation where uh a farmer has reached an agreement with the state and then all of a sudden the goalposts are shifted because the national EPA is expecting something more. Uh so has DAFF had any discussions with the national EPA with respect to that issue making sure that the obligations are not only consistent between the guide and what or all advice people are being given but to the extent possible there's alignment between agreements made with state governments and regulators who are on the ground uh and obligations or expectations [clears throat]
certainly um tried to ensure that our state colleagues are aware of the changes and and engaged in them and that they know who they can speak to at uh DQ and the national EPA uh to resolve any of of those issues. But my understanding is that's uh the intent of bilateral agreements between the Commonwealth and states and territories. And I think there was a line of questioning last night with with Minister Watt um about the progress of those bilateral agreements. Um so that is to um to have a consistent agreement between the states and territories in the Commonwealth. So landholders are only having to deal with one regulator rather than two.
>> Okay. I wasn't aware of that. I was dealing with Brisbane aircraft noise >> chair that uh finishes that line of questions. >> Tremendous.