Gladys to make NSW great! (or “bugger the koala, give me a martini”)

By David C. Paull   

After her calls to “make New South Wales great”, it was a very telling move by the newly elected Premier of NSW, Gladys Berejiklian to remove two departments (or offices) and place their functions entirely under two new ‘super-departments’. Effectively there are only eight departments now in NSW, a remarkable concentration of power by any Australian standard. And no hint at all that this priority move was on the books prior to the recent election, given the surprise shown my departmental managers and staff.

Uncertainty still clouds the implications of subsuming a government department under a consent authority umbrella with senior and junior ministers, though the chain of authority would indicate the new environment and energy minister Kean would be without an independent voice and would more likely have to toe the line when it came to development approvals.

This is pertinent with a number of high-profile mining and gas approvals poised for approval or rejection in NSW currently before the Department of Planning, now re-named the Department of Planning and Industry. This new amalgam of ministerial interest, bringing together potentially conflicting pieces of legislation, is what the Berejiklian Government means when it says it is ‘streamlining’ or making things more ‘efficient’. But if considered with the history of legislative and policy reforms over the last eight years, particularly in relation to the environment, planning and development, these things have been said before. The Office of Environment and Heritage is a large department containing the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS). But this agency has been subject to repeated funding and staffing cutbacks over the last eight years such that the total budget has decreased by $80 million in two consequent budgets by the Baird Government.

As such the capacity of the NPWS to properly manage its current estate has been compromised, leaving open a number of private operators to start making a few bucks. Leaving the environmental managers short-staffed is a tactic which results in the agency open to more criticism for being poor managers, and so the cycle continues.

But the NSW Planning department specialises in legislative and policy hocus pocus in order to roll out the mining and housing development with the general intent to increase approval turnaround speed and reduce issues.

A crucial moment in the development approval process in NSW was the Warkworth Coal Mine Expansion, which was knocked back in the Land and Environment Court for a variety of social and environmental reasons, with the local endangered community a key issue. The NSW Government’s response was swift, to deprive the public of ‘merit appeal rights’ in the court by the establishment of a supposed ‘independent planning commission’ which would hear the merits of any major project provided there was enough objectors. ‘Independent’ of course but still under the same Planning Minister. Several iterations since the commission was first established has seen the scope and recourse for public input reduced. This is still the case in NSW.

Another bold move by the Planning Minister of the time was to put economic considerations clearly above social and environmental ones when considering development applications. However the howl of indignation, from the public and commentators saw this policy eventually rescinded. In fact, there are other ways to manage the environmental issues for any project, particularly for mining, being so intrusive in the environment.

• Development of an offset policy which would not deliver improved outcomes but provide something a bucket developer could throw money at;
• Legislative, administrative and policy flux through a series of new guidelines and rules and organisation re-structures in the environment area over the last eight years. Gladys recently announced.

Of course, the Berejiklian Government has substantially changed the environmental laws in NSW in a significant overhaul in 2016, dropping the Threatened Species Conservation Act and the Native Vegetation Act resulting in much weaker assessment and environmental protection powers on private land in particular, with a massive expansion of the self-assessment system and clearing loopholes. This is all at a time of course of serious declining biodiversity and land condition across the state.

An issue Planning has spent some time on is how to bring the triple bottom line components (environmental, social and economic) together into one measure of relative value. In theory, this would add robustness to the approval process and make them less susceptible to legal challenge. However the method adopted was the use of ‘choice modelling’, a type of cost-benefit analysis where, rather than ascribe an intrinsic value to a matter, say a particular creek, in terms of environmental services it provides, this method gives a dollar value only to public perceptions of environmental and social outcomes. Perceptions obtained by the use of community surveys.

Offset policies have been a failure in terms of delivering real environmental gains, as this has never been substantiated. It is the general consensus within the scientific community that rather than delivering good outcomes, offsets have only been successful at turning public perceptions to one of acceptance for significant environmental loss.

The pattern however seems to be clear, reduce accountability for environmental impacts and any legal recourse the public may have. One has to ask the question, is the government gearing up for an onslaught of unpopular development? New onerous changes to trespass laws have also been flagged by the Liberals, another worrying sign of impending social turmoil.

But is this really a war on the environment? To do so would imply a co-ordinated and substantial effort over many years, something ingrained in the culture that would allow such deliberate obfuscation of their public responsibility. Recent whistle-blower resignations have rocked the Planning Department and points to the fact that all is not well in the Department. Despite calls for the department to be investigated for some of its dodgier approvals which have surfaced, there is nothing in the recent announcement of this significant restructure in the bureaucracy by Gladys to suggest that anything will be scrutinised.

As whistle-blower revelations have suggested, there is a lot to hide. From my own dealings with the Planning bureaucracy there were certainly individuals who seem to have been taken with the idea that the aim of planning is to ignore and white-wash impacts and consideration of the environment as much as possible. As a regulatory officer with OEH (2013-15), a source of contention which kept being raised to me more than any other were threatened species and ecological communities, as one Director in the Planning Department, said to me at a meeting with Glencore over their Bulga Coal Mine approval; “endangered communities, they don’t matter that much do they?”

Well, apart from being enshrined in legislation, these things certainly do bother the hell out of mining executives. I remember one mining exec telling me he would like to ‘gauge the eyes out’ of an ornithologist for having the temerity to report seeing a couple of Regent Honeyeaters (Money-eaters as he called them) on his mining lease. This complete disrespect for the environment (and our human rights as a consequence) is not pretty to encounter first hand, but even less pretty seeing it reflected in the dealings of the public consent authority.

Another way of understanding this issue is the fact that the approach in NSW (and Australia more generally) of reducing the operation, size, power and effectiveness of that part of the bureaucracy dealing with the environment, has also been undertaken by the Australian Government with a 30% reduction in the federal department work force and a privatisation its functions, and also the US Government with significant repeal and winding back of important environmental protections and functions since the Trump presidency began. Co-incidence?

It is more likely that these patterns reflect a growing ‘libertarian’ or ‘neo-conservative’ trend in some western democracies, one that advocates for less government, less regulation, less taxation and less democracy. The taxation objective they have achieved with the biggest corporates paying no or little net tax today. But it is the twilight years for the fossil fuel sector, and this is the end game, however they’re not ready to lose their grip on the old ways of making money just yet. So, with a climate disaster looming, only two things can save our society from disaster for everyone in my view. (1) start a just transition to renewables and (2) end the grip of big money over our political institutions. They are not mutually exclusive and need to be done tomorrow. Our environment cannot wait.