2016-04-14
Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — My question is for Mr Jennings, representing the Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water. The minister's government inherited a number of grants to projects seeking to develop products from coal from the last government. As a result of the drip-feed of information we have been getting in the chamber on these coal projects, we have now learnt that the milestones for the two surviving projects — that is, the first milestones for Coal Energy Australia and for Ignite — are to achieve all necessary regulatory approvals. That is step one. Both projects are in fact overdue on achieving their first milestone — one of them, we now know, by 12 months; the other was due last month — and as far as I am aware neither of them has even commenced achieving environmental approval. Why will the government not use this opportunity — their failure to achieve their milestones — to cancel the grants?
[Speech was interrupted.]
Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — No, thank you, Minister. We first requested these documents nine months ago; we learnt two days ago that in fact both projects have failed to achieve their milestones. I asked about both the funding and the regulatory approvals. Let me follow that up. I gave the minister the opportunity to confirm whether in fact they have not yet even commenced to apply for their regulatory approvals. Can the minister explain to me why the Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water is not using the powers that she has got under regulatory approvals to prevent these two polluting projects from being given a green light?
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