Preamble

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Glossary of Acronyms

Executive Summary

1. Preamble
2. Forces Leading to the Agreements of '92
   • General
   • External Forces -- Environmental Globalism
   • Internal Forces -- The Need for National Rationalisation
3. Agreements and Structural Outcomes
   • The InterGovernmental Agreement on the Environment (IGAE)
   • Speculation About A Federal Environment Agency
   • The Commonwealth Environment Protection Agency (CEPA)
   • The National Environment Protection Authority (NEPA)
   • The National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development (NSESD)
   • The National Greenhouse Response Strategy (NGRS)
   • International Conventions
4. Implications for Australia
   • General
   • Status and Priorities of the CEPA
   • Examples of Current CEPA Projects
   • National Standards -- The Call for a Federal Agency
   • Impact of the Climate Change Convention
   • The Costs of ESD
   • Flaws and Omissions in the National ESD Strategy
5. Australia's National Stance on Environment
   • Creeping Nationalisation of the Environment
   • Relevance of International Comparisons
   • Realpolitik -- the CEPA versus the NEPA
6. Concluding Comments
7. Recommendations

References

Appendix 1:  National Standards

Appendix 2:  Illustrative State-Federal Issues in Canada

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This paper began in 1991 as an invitation to write a background paper on the proposal to establish a Federal EPA.  Being written only in spare time, its scope expanded as the Agreements of '92 progressed and as the need for, and lack of, an overview became more obvious.  Acknowledgements are happily given to those many government officers who discussed these developments, always with information in the public domain but perhaps not widely known.

Finally I thank many clients and colleagues in industry, who are trying to create wealth for the country while acting responsibly towards the community and the environment.  Their views and their expressed discontent with unbalanced, intrusive and uncertain government processes have undoubtedly influenced me, but I take full personal responsibility for this paper.

Richard J. Wood

GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS

AEC = Australian Environment Council, the Council of Ministers for the Environment from the 9 governments in Australia, now replaced by ANZECC

Agreements of '92 = Agreements associated with the formation of the CEPA, signing of the IGAE, approval of the NGRS and the NSESD, and international agreements at Rio

ANZECC = Australian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council (formerly ANZEC, and AEC), the present Council of "Environment" Ministers

CEPA = Commonwealth Environment Protection Agency, the non-statutory agency of the Commonwealth responsible for its interests in the physical environment, beginning in 1992

COAG = Council of Australian Governments, the First Ministers of the 9 governments, whose first meeting on 7 December 1992 replaced the Special Premiers' meetings

EIA = Environmental Impact Assessment, formerly the assessment of the impact of a proposed development on the environment.  Now broadened (IGAE Schedule 3.5.2) to include the impact of a private or public development, policy or programme on the environment, including where appropriate, cultural, economic, social and health factors

EIS = Environmental Impact Statement (as for EIA)

ESD = Ecologically Sustainable Development, an Australian approach to sustainable development

FEARO = Federal Environment Assessment Review Office (Canada)

IGAE = Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment, a 41-page document with 9 Schedules, which took effect 1 May 1992

MTIA = Metal Trades Industry Association

NEPA = National Environment Protection Authority, a proposed council of Ministers to be established by statutes of the 9 governments of Australia

NGRS = National Greenhouse Response Strategy, a 107-page document endorsed by COAG on 7 December 1992

NH&MRC = National Health and Medical Research Council, an advisory body since 1936 which was made statutory in 1992

NSESD = National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development, a 128-page document endorsed by COAG on 7 December 1992

UNCED = United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio in June 1992

UNSDC = United Nations Sustainable Development Committee, agreed to at the UNCED Conference

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This paper analyses the background, contents and implications of a number of wide-ranging environmental agreements endorsed by the nine governments of Australia in 1992.

The agreements, which effectively nationalised the Australian environment and increased Commonwealth dominance, are:

• the creation of the Commonwealth Environment Protection Agency (CEPA);
• the InterGovernmental Agreement on the Environment (IGAE);
• the Framework (UN) Convention on Climate Change, the (UN) Convention on Biological Diversity, the Rio Declaration, and Agenda 21;  and
• the National Greenhouse Response Strategy (NGRS) and the National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development (NSESD).

These agreements are concerned more with government processes than with results.  The domestic agreements display more bias toward environmental zealotry than the international ones, aggravating Australian disadvantages against international competition, yet with no proven advantages to the environment.  They neglect Australian needs and strengths.

Opportunities for the Commonwealth to intervene in State control of the environment have been greatly increased.  First, the wide scope of the Rio agreements might provide more occasions on which the external affairs power could be exercised.  Second, the IGAE allows unlimited opportunities for the Commonwealth to explore its interests with a State.  In addition, if a proposed National Environment Protection Authority (NEPA) is formed as agreed, a two-thirds majority of the nine Ministers may override environmental priorities of a member State.

The NSESD ethos emphasises environmental precautions but does not echo the call by the Brundtland Commission for "growth that is forceful" in order to achieve sustainable development.  In the NSESD the nine governments made 384 commitments to government intervention in many fields of wealth creation like mining and agriculture.  Commitments to changes within government areas like transport, energy and urban planning, are often cast in vague social engineering terms, and biased toward environmental purity rather than toward true sustainable development.

The two national strategies have elementary yet fatal flaws.  The NSESD agreed there was no accepted definition of Ecologically Sustainable Development.  The NGRS does not give any numbers as to how much hotter the greenhouse effect might make Australia, with or without the strategy.

But the flaws are much deeper and more extensive, particularly when combined with the IGAE and its broad diffuse concepts such as the precautionary principle.  The cost of each strategy is unknown.  Uncertainties and government intervention have been greatly increased.  The country has been exposed to increased economic disadvantage, without any clear improvement in environmental protection.

Based on the analysis presented here, ten recommendations are developed, including:

• using the CEPA in two key areas of national standards and environmental impact assessments to test the environmental and economic value of nationalising the environment;
• halting moves to create a statutory National Environment Protection Authority (NEPA) until the results of these tests are known;
• not ratifying the Convention on Climate Change until Australia reviews its greenhouse strategy;  and
• negotiating a new InterGovernmental Agreement on economically sustainable development to balance the environmental bias of the existing NSESD.

CHAPTER ONE

Five events which occurred in 1992 will shape the future federalisation of environmental issues in Australia, and thereby influence Australia's future development or stagnation:

• the Commonwealth Environment Protection Agency (CEPA) was created;
• an InterGovernmental Agreement on the Environment (IGAE) was signed, taking effect from 1 May, which inter alia foreshadows a National Environment Protection Authority (NEPA);
• Australia's representative signed the Framework Convention on Climate Change and that on Biological Diversity at the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio in June, and supported the Rio Declaration and Agenda 21;
• the inaugural meeting of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) on 7 December, approved a National Greenhouse Response Strategy (NGRS) and a National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development (NSESD);  and
• the High Court handed down its decision on the Mabo land rights issue on 3 June.

Here only the first four events are discussed, which can be conveniently grouped together as the Agreements of '92;  although the first, the CEPA, could have been a unilateral action by the Commonwealth.  For reasons of focus, other environmental agreements, such as the Commonwealth Major Projects Facilitation Initiative, the National Waste Minimisation and Recycling Strategy, and the National Forest Policy Statement, are not discussed.

The environmental spin-off from the Mabo case could greatly alter diffuse alliances of conservation and Aboriginal groups (the so-called "green-black" alliances that confused such issues as Coronation Hill).  What changes might occur are uncertain, and their scope is too great for adequate discussion here.

What is certain is that uncertainties flowing from the Mabo decision were the penultimate straw.  It has become even more imperative that any outcomes of the first four events must be used to produce an Australian government ethos which is environmentally responsible, but increasingly favourable to responsible development.  This paper provides the background to these events, speculates on the probability of such an outcome, and discusses key factors that will influence it.

What has been lacking to date is a critical overview of the Agreements of '92 taken as a whole.  Because of space constraints, this paper does not list all the environmental benefits claimed to flow from the Agreements.  Inevitably, this paper will therefore seem unbalanced, but the relevant government publications themselves contain offsetting self-congratulations, which praise the Agreements.  I state from the outset a belief that much of the praise is unwarranted.

Much of the international environmental movement uses nuclear and military imagery to help convey fears of environmental doom.  Thus it may seem appropriate to use the imagery of the nuclear cold war, to help convey the possible effects of the Agreements of '92 on Australia.  They are, in effect, unilateral (economic) disarmament agreements by the nine governments in the face of international competition.  Unless rectified, they carry with them such uncertainties and such burdens that the country will be doomed to end, not with a nuclear bang but with an economic whimper.  The Agreements were nominally aimed at decreasing uncertainties but this paper will show they increase them, greatly.

Certainly the Agreements of '92, while driven politically, derived much of their source material from extensive community discussions and consultation.  One must acknowledge the considerable amount of effort made by many people in many sections of the community in developing the Agreements.  For example, many meetings and much hard work went into the reports on Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD).  The resulting documents attempt consensus, but considerable dissatisfaction was still expressed at the end by some groups.

The opportunity for developers and environmentalists to exchange views on the broad issues of ESD without the heat surrounding a particular project, increased their awareness of where problems existed.  It may not have removed the problems, but it resulted -- or could have resulted -- in developers being more environmentally aware and environmentalists being more economically aware.

The tragedy is that the potentially valuable processes went wrong.  They were subverted because in the end the Agreements of '92 were driven by politics.  There are some fundamental philosophies, about sustainable development and intergenerational equity, which are valuable and axiomatic if stated objectively and completely.  These philosophies were distorted by a perception that environmentalism was more politically correct than economic development.  This perception probably arose because, in groups seeking consensus, tunnel-vision focus on conservation was more acceptable than tunnel-vision focus on development, and the clear and unfettered thinking needed to analyse sustainable development was simply too difficult.  Indeed, one may question whether consensus discussion can actually yield the creativity necessary to plan effectively for, and implement, sustainable development.  Diamonds of hard and sparkling truth are too easily concealed beneath verbiage and factional interests.

Such analyses and wordfests can often be generated by comfortably salaried, subsidised or otherwise cosseted people, shielded from the harsh winds of international competitiveness.  Often subsidised by the taxpayers and driven at best by idealistic motives to make future Australia more environmentally pure, many demonstrably fail to see the present-day priorities of the Australian community.  To them, foreign debt is an alien notion, and GNP is a dirty word.  Economic growth is the ultimate taboo.

The Australian failing exemplified in this is, of course, the common perception that, by consensus analysis, they were all creating solutions.  In fact, the Agreements simply ensured that analysis paralysis was firmly institutionalised at the national level.  It will be difficult to cure.

In view of the considerable efforts invested in reaching these Agreements, and the possibilities of their being applied in policy, attitudes and legal instruments of control, one must take them all very seriously.  To tinker with their flaws and strengths is to become immersed in their detail and to risk failing to understand their broad implications.

Rather than grappling honestly with the intellectual challenge posed by sustainable development or alternatively appearing impotent, the emphasis by all governments in Australia in dealing with the environment has been to concentrate on processes more than on results.  This facilitates expressions of environmental godliness, without demanding visible miracles.  In this the Agreements of '92 merely continue a tradition that began in the early 1970s.  Unless this is clearly understood, the reader of what follows may feel that Australian government decision-making has been swallowed up in a large black hole.

The Agreements of '92 were political documents.  Their inspiration was electoral rather than environmental or developmental.  Their strategies were strategies for a nation of governments seeking re-election, rather than a vision for Australia.  There was much of value in the fundamentals but it was buried under the processes that are the preoccupation of governments.

It was no accident that the Agreements took place in 1992.  It remains to be seen whether 1992 was an annus horribilis or an annus mirabilis for the Australian environment.  But there was a certain inevitability about the happenings once the countdown began to the 20th anniversary of the 1972 First United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, in Stockholm.  In mid-1992, environmental globalism was epitomised by the world summit, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) at Rio.  And that globalism dictated the schedule of the Australian Agreements.

A greater Australian tragedy arises from self-delusion.  Although Australian politicians express sympathy with developing countries, they fail to admit that Australia is not yet a developed economy.  They acknowledge that India and China should not be shackled by global controls on pollution and environment that might unfairly hinder their development.  But they fail to see, or choose not to see, that Australia is a young and thinly-populated country, which cannot afford to pretend to be a junior USA, or to give away economic advantages to massively populated international competitors, as was done at Rio (see Section 3.7.1 below).

The politicians and the environmental advocates of ecologically sustainable development seem to have adopted the scenario in Neville Shute's novel On the Beach, where Australia is the last failing outpost of environmental purity in a corrupt and dirty world.  But Australia is not a developed country, although its population might act as if it is.  We are not yet able to afford excessive environmental regulation, which even the USA is finding alarmingly expensive. ⁽¹⁾  Still less can we afford to bury ourselves in a maze of uncertainty and obscure processes.  And we do not need to do so.

Australia has significant environmental problems which must be addressed.  But not all is gloom, nor need be.  As discussed in Section 3.5.5 below, in analysing the relevance of the precautionary principle ⁽²⁾ to Australia, this is a rugged and resilient land.  To promote uncosted national strategies which have dubious environmental value, with an attitude of despair and an ethos of uncertainty, cannot possibly assist an economic recovery, environmental management or an improved quality of life.  In fact all these will suffer.

Figure 1 (below) attempts to sketch part of the family tree of the 1992 nationalisation of the Australian environment.  Details are developed later in the paper.  Various branches of political environmentalism have been omitted from Figure 1 for reasons of simplification.  Nevertheless, such branches (for example, the draft National Biological Diversity Strategy, the National Greenhouse Response Strategy and a National Waste Minimisation and Recycling Strategy) are real and weighty.

The Agreements of '92 appear to have united all governments in Australia with regard to environmental policies and processes, increasing nationwide government involvements to an extent and level of detail not previously achieved.  First Ministers made unprecedented collective commitments to the environment.  This paper examines the reality and implications of this nationalisation of the Australian environment, and 1992 will be seen as a year to remember.

Although the paper is lengthy, it has been necessary to comment on some broad environmental issues and philosophies so as to show where the agreements are flawed, what their consequences are and how they may be corrected.  Even so, several important matters such as environmental impact assessments are treated only briefly here.

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ENDNOTES

1.  Phillip H. Abelson, "Regulatory Costs", 1993;  Michael J. Pompili et al., Ohio Metropolitan Area Cost Report for Environmental Compliance, 1992.  See also Appendix 1 below.

2.  The precautionary principle, in overly-simplified words, suggests that an action should be avoided unless its consequences are known.  For a full discussion, see Sections 3.5.4 and 3.5.5 below.