Tanya Plibersek hinted that her planned Environmental Protection Agency would be removed from political influence,
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has declared she wants to take politics out of the policing of Australia’s flawed environmental protection laws, and re-committed Labor to introducing an independent watchdog charged withMs Plibersek also announced the Labor government would set a goal of protecting 30 per cent of Australia’s land and oceans by the end of this decade, including via newly created national parks and marine protected areas such as the proposed east Antarctic marine park.
“We do support an independent Environmental Protection Agency, but ... the specific roles the EPA will have and the way it’s constituted, I’ll talk about that in a few months.”The proposed EPA is a key recommendation adopted by Labor ahead of the May election from a review of the 1999 Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act by Graeme Samuel, which found widespread problems with how the act is administered.
Those objectives, she said, included protecting “especially sensitive areas”, and avoiding “unnecessary duplication in assessing projects”. Ms Plibersek defended the Labor government’s 43 per cent carbon pollution reduction target from calls for greater cuts, and pointedly resisted questions inviting her to condemn coal.
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