29 April 2025
The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (15:56): I rise to speak on the State Development Coordination and Facilitation Bill 2025 on behalf of the Greens. I listened with interest to the speeches of my colleagues the Hon. Michelle Lensink and the Hon. Jing Lee, and I suspect I am going to be the odd one out here in indicating that the Greens are not supportive of this bill.
I am very concerned that this bill represents a significant change in the way in which we do things in South Australia, and it requires very careful scrutiny. Obviously, we are going to undertake a committee process shortly but I am very, very concerned that we run the risk of handing the Malinauskas government a blank cheque and an opportunity to override existing laws and protections here in our state.
That is concerning for our democracy, and it is coming at a time when I think a lot of South Australians are very concerned about the way in which governments of both persuasions—Labor and Liberal—are disregarding their views when it comes to their embrace of the United States and their very dangerous foreign policy.
I hear the Hon. Michelle Lensink groaning. This is a view that I think most people in the South Australian community share; this is a significant issue in Australia at the moment. The Trump presidency poses a real risk to Australia, and I think people right across the state are concerned about the nature of our relationship with the Trump administration. This is an issue that has been playing out over in Canada just today.
Members interjecting:
The Hon. R.A. SIMMS: With respect, the bill specifically references AUKUS, and that is one of the key elements that the Greens are concerned about. AUKUS involves a collaboration between the United States and our country, and I think it is legitimate to talk about the risks of that relationship when it comes to our security.
The bill establishes the Coordinator-General's Office, and I understand that where there is a project of state significance the bill allows the newly established Coordinator-General's Office to perform a series of functions or assessment processes that currently sit within other acts of parliament. This is a broad set of powers that are being proposed.
We understand that the government has undertaken consultation in the development of the bill, both open and targeted. However, while some concerns have been raised in the consultation stage and have been addressed, there are others that have not been sufficiently tackled by the government. One of these significant issues that has been raised with the Greens is the concentration of power to four unelected officials who will make up the Coordinator-General's Office.
The primary principle established in the bill, that the Coordinator-General's Office must consider the economic, environmental and social aspects of the project, is meritorious. We of course support that being included. However, there is not sufficient guidance being provided to the Coordinator-General's Office in terms of how that assessment is made. One of the fundamental concerns that we have, which I flagged in my introductory remarks, is the relationship between this bill and AUKUS.
The intention, as stated by the government very clearly, is to undertake projects of state significance, including increasing the supply of housing that is desperately needed for the state. Of course we support that, but I do not accept the government's premise that one of the major barriers to housing development in South Australia is a lack of fast-track approvals. Surely the major issue, when it comes to housing development in our state, is the lack of capacity to actually get the work done and the lack of investment from the South Australian government and the federal government in terms of public housing. That is the major barrier, not necessarily land release and certainly not necessarily red tape.
It is clear that the Coordinator-General's Office will be tasked with various AUKUS projects. Indeed, the bill makes it clear that one of the members of this office must have expertise when it comes to AUKUS. The Greens have been very clear that we do not support this dud deal. It is a dud deal for our nation and it is a dud deal for the people of South Australia. It trashes our reputation as a clean, green state and it makes our country less safe by putting us in the eye of the storm by tying our foreign policy interests and our defence interests to the delusional nutcase, Donald Trump. We do not believe that this is an equal partnership, we do not believe that we will ever see any benefit that will flow from this dud deal, and we have serious concerns about the toxic nuclear waste storage and transport that is associated with this deal.
I should say that this bill will also allow the government to, in effect, sweep in and find sites for nuclear waste and to potentially impose those on communities against their wishes. I recognise that the Malinauskas government and the Tarzia opposition are locked into supporting AUKUS. They are a unity ticket on this reform. But that is not the view of the community. For instance, the Port Adelaide Community Opposing AUKUS group have been advocating a long time into this project, and the residents of that area are directly impacted by the project in a number of ways.
There has been a lack of consultation and transparency from both state and federal governments when it comes to the implications of the AUKUS deal for that community. They have concerns about their health and their local environment. They have concerns about the potential impacts of any accidents that may happen in relation to nuclear waste.
It is interesting: when people talk about nuclear waste it is very easy to talk about it in the abstract, but no-one wants it in their backyard. There is a reason why the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has not visited one potential nuclear waste site during the federal election. He knows that people do not want nuclear waste in their backyard and for good reasons—because the health and the environmental risks are well documented and well known.
Here in South Australia, we pride ourselves on being a clean, green state, yet we have signed up to a deal that allows nuclear waste to be stored amongst our suburbs. The concerns of the community are valid, and we do not want to see the state government ignoring their views. We know that we cannot rely on a Trump administration to treat us equitably in any deal moving forward. Trump did not even know what AUKUS was when he was asked about it.
The atrocious public policy decisions being made by the Trump administration in the US should be making us question the state and federal government's dedication to AUKUS and our defence strategy in general. We know that South Australia is not set to start building submarines until 2030 or 2040, and in the meantime it is clear that there are going to be significant shifts in global politics that will impact on this deal.
The Greens will be moving amendments to the bill to ensure that this new Coordinator-General's Office's powers cannot be used for the doomed AUKUS project. Furthermore, we want to give assurances to the people of South Australia, and in particular the impacted community around Osborne, that these powers will not be used to establish nuclear waste sites, and so our amendments make that expressly clear.
This is a test for the Labor and Liberal parties. They will say that this is not about nuclear waste. If that is the case, they will support the Greens' amendments to make this very clear to the people of South Australia. I suspect, however, that what we will see is the unity ticket of Labor and the Liberals voting together to give this new office the power to fast-track finding these nuclear waste sites.
The Greens are also concerned that this bill is bad news for the environment. The Conservation Council made a submission to an earlier draft of the bill and it states:
The environment sector does not support the delegation of decision-making functions without clear safeguards to ensure the existing integrity of environmental approval processes are upheld rather than subverted.
This bill enables the Coordinator-General's Office to call in the functions of, or to undertake approvals under, a series of important acts: the Native Vegetation Act, the Environment Protection Act, the Coast Protection Act, the Heritage Places Act and the pastoral lands act. Parliament took great care in crafting these pieces of legislation. We should also exercise our due diligence when a government comes along with a plan to hand those powers over to another office without the same level of ministerial oversight, without the same level of knowledge or expertise that exists within those departments when administering those acts.
Our amendments seek to remove those acts from the remit of this bill, as we believe these are important standalone legislative instruments that should have their unique status preserved. In particular, we recognise that these acts are fundamental to environmental protection. That is why we have identified them for discrete treatment.
We are also concerned about the potential implications for work health and safety. As a result, we will be seeking to remove the ability to call in the functions of the Work Health and Safety Act. We see no reason why the Coordinator-General needs to bring these functions into their remit. The Work Health and Safety Act is a vital piece of legislation for keeping workers safe. Why do we need to transfer the powers of that act over to unelected officials?
I understand, of course, that the government will claim that these concerns will be addressed by the fact that parliament can disallow some parts of the bill. We will be asking questions in the committee stage about exactly which provisions of the legislation will be disallowable, as we have received some contradictory advice about how this will work in practice.
We also have concerns about the composition of the Coordinator-General's Office. As I mentioned before, the Greens do not want to see these powers being used for AUKUS, and therefore we will seek to change the composition of the council to ensure that there is diversity of expertise. Our amendments will remove a requirement that there is expertise in AUKUS and instead ensure that a member of the First Nations Voice is included, a person with expertise in climate change and a person with expertise in planning.
If indeed this bill is to enable development, let's make sure that there is somebody at the table with planning expertise. If the government is serious in its commitments to addressing climate and engaging with First Nations people as part of our planning, then it should also make a commitment to ensuring that these decision-makers in the Coordinator-General's Office have expertise in that regard. It is vital that these voices are included in these decisions, and this would go some way to addressing the concerns of members of the community who feel that they are being shut out of this process.
I am concerned that this bill is a power grab from the Malinauskas government, so that they can establish yet another office to fast-track key developments. This office will be able to take on the roles of important agencies to do the bidding of the government of the day, to prioritise the projects that they see fit, and it further reduces the level of public scrutiny and oversight over the provisions of the toxic AUKUS deal. This is the Malinauskas government bulldozing their way through our state, and the Greens are not supportive of this approach.
I do urge the opposition to think very carefully about their position on this bill. I understand that they are moving a number of amendments. As the Hon. Michelle Lensink acknowledged, we have only just seen those, but we will consider those and form a position on them during the committee stage. At first blush, many of the amendments that the opposition are proposing are sensible and do introduce some level of transparency, but they do not go anywhere near far enough in terms of addressing the myriad concerns that the Greens have with this legislation.
Might I also express some frustration at the way in which the Malinauskas government has approached this issue. This is something that should receive a high level of public scrutiny and a high level of public engagement. I accept the government has conducted a consultation piece; however, dealing with this in the parliament this week, which is on the eve of the federal election when all eyes are focused on national politics, does seem a little bit too clever from my perspective. It is being a bit too clever by half.
The government could have waited until another week, so that this could get the level of public and media scrutiny that it deserves. It is a significant change. It is one that the Greens believe the public should be engaged with, and it is one that this parliament should really give due scrutiny or due consideration of. We are moving a series of amendments. I urge members to support those, but ultimately our view is that this bill sets our state down a dangerous path.