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Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda

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Speaker 1: Bunjelung Calcuttin woman from Gadigl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges

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Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the

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Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and torrest

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Speaker 1: Right island and nations. We pay our respects to the

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Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.

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Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily Oas it's Monday,

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Speaker 2: the thirteenth of February.

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Speaker 3: I'm Zara, I'm Sam.

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Speaker 2: Environment Minister Tanya Plebisek has rejected an application for a

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Speaker 2: coal mine proposed by Clive Palmer's company Central Queensland Coal.

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Speaker 4: I've decided that the adverse environmental impacts are simply too great.

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Speaker 4: The mine is an open cut coal mine less than

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Speaker 4: ten kilometers from the Great Barrier Reef.

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Speaker 2: Last month, plebisk approved an extension to the license of

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Speaker 2: another mine in Queensland until twenty sixty three. So why

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Speaker 2: has the Environment Minister blocked this latest proposal and what

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Speaker 2: does it mean for the future of fossil fuels here

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Speaker 2: in Australia.

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Speaker 3: We're going to get billion to join you for that

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Speaker 3: deep dive Zara. But first, what is making headlines this morning.

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Speaker 2: US authorities have claimed the spy balloon shut down recently

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Speaker 2: was quote capable of collecting and geolocating communications. According to

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Speaker 2: a US Department of State spokesperson, the balloon was clearly

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Speaker 2: for intelligent surveillance and had multiple antennas. China's Foreign ministry

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Speaker 2: said the claims were quote part of the information and

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Speaker 2: public opinion warfare that the US had waged against China.

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Speaker 3: Well. A US fighter jet has shot down an unidentified

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Speaker 3: cylindrical object over Canadian airspace. It's the third such event

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Speaker 3: in North America in seven days. Canadian PM Justin Trudeau

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Speaker 3: said he ordered the strike after being informed of the

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Speaker 3: object by the North American Aerospace Defense Command, and that's

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Speaker 3: a joint US Canadian organization that defends airspace above both countries.

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Speaker 3: Authorities have not recovered the wreckage and refused to link

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Speaker 3: it to any foreign government.

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Speaker 2: More news of job cuts, this time in the media industry.

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Speaker 2: News Corp Australia has announced it or cut five percent

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Speaker 2: of its workforce following a decline in earnings. Chief executive

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Speaker 2: Robert Thompson said on Friday that roughly twelve hundred jobs

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Speaker 2: would be cut amid a surge in interest rates and

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Speaker 2: acute inflation that they say had a tangible impact on

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Speaker 2: all of their businesses.

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Speaker 3: And today's good news. Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest fell

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Speaker 3: in January by sixty one percent when compared to January

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Speaker 3: of last year. Limiting forest destruction was one of the

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Speaker 3: key environmental policies of President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva,

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Speaker 3: who has sworn into office on the first of January

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Speaker 3: this year. Lula, as he's more commonly known, has promised

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Speaker 3: to totally eliminate deforestation in the Amazon.

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Speaker 2: Hi, Billy, thanks for jumping on the pod today.

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Speaker 5: Thanks for having me now. Last week, you guys shared

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Speaker 5: Tom's chat with the Prime Minister Anthony Alberisi, and one

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Speaker 5: of the things that came up during that chat was

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Speaker 5: the government's coal and gas plans.

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Speaker 6: It remains the case that the government won't commit that

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Speaker 6: it will never consider any coal and gas projects, and

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Speaker 6: that's it's in a context where atl is constantly updating

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Speaker 6: its timelines for coal places. There has not been a

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Speaker 6: new coal fired power station built in Australia at any

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Speaker 6: time at any time, but there are a lot of

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Speaker 6: gas exploration projects that are under consideration then a decade.

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Speaker 5: So that's the context in which Environment Minister Taniel Pipisek

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Speaker 5: formally refused a coal project proposed by Clive Palmer's company,

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Speaker 5: Central Queensland Coal last week, and she basically said in

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Speaker 5: explaining that decision that the risk was simply too great.

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Speaker 4: The mine is an open cut coal mine less than

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Speaker 4: ten kilometers from the Great Barrier Reef and the risk

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Speaker 4: of pollution and an irreverse damage to the reef is

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Speaker 4: very real. The project would have had unacceptable impacts on

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Speaker 4: freshwater in the area and potentially on fragile seagrass meadows

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Speaker 4: that feed jugongs and provide breeding grounds for fish just

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Speaker 4: off the coast.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So, Billy, I want to get into what the

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Speaker 2: government's policy is and what this decision means for the

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Speaker 2: future of fossil fuels, but I think that a good

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Speaker 2: starting point is just to understand a bit more about

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Speaker 2: what was actually being proposed by Clive Palmer.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: Well, first of all, we should also say that you

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Speaker 5: might recognize the name Clive Palmer. He is a billionaire.

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Speaker 5: He's also a politician, or should I say failed politicians

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Speaker 5: are now the Central Queensland Coal Project planned to use

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Speaker 5: coal mines near Rockhampton, which is less than ten kilometers

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Speaker 5: from the Great Barrier Reef, which I'm sure you're aware

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Speaker 5: is a World Heritage Listed area. And so now the

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Speaker 5: project would have mined up to ten million tons of

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Speaker 5: coal a year for around twenty four years. I don't

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Speaker 5: know about you, but that's a really hard number to

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Speaker 5: fully grapple with. But yes, ten million tons of coal

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Speaker 5: a year, And so with anything as major as that,

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Speaker 5: there's always a really long approval process. And in twenty

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Speaker 5: twenty one, the Queensland Department of Environment and Science recommended

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Speaker 5: that the project not proceed, saying it posed a number

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Speaker 5: of unacceptable risks, mainly due to the proposed location being

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Speaker 5: so close to the reef.

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Speaker 2: Okay, may you said that this all started in twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty one, which were now two years away from, which

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Speaker 2: I guess shows you how long these processes go on for.

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Speaker 2: Can you talk me through what the actual logistics are

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Speaker 2: of how a minister can reject something like this that

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Speaker 2: is presumably a privately operated business.

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Speaker 5: So this is all because of a law called the

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Speaker 5: Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. That's a lot of words.

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Speaker 5: We're going to call it just the EPBC Act, and

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Speaker 5: that came into force in two thousand to provide federal

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Speaker 5: oversight over these large projects. And basically, when anyone is

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Speaker 5: planning a development that might significantly impact the environment, they

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Speaker 5: need the approval of a federal government minister, which in

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Speaker 5: this case today is Environment Minister Tanya Plibisec. Now, there

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Speaker 5: was a public consultation period, which is where anyone in

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Speaker 5: the public can email the minister, and this time there

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Speaker 5: were about nine thousand submissions and Plivasek would have looked

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Speaker 5: at them and considered them before she made this decision, which,

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Speaker 5: as we said, was to formally reject the proposed mind.

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Speaker 5: And it needs to be pointed out that it's really

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Speaker 5: not that often that this happens. As of July last year,

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Speaker 5: there were more than seven thousand projects that have been

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Speaker 5: referred to the federal government and only thirteen were refused.

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Speaker 5: So there were seven thousand applications and only thirteen were refused.

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Speaker 2: And I think that's a good point to dwell on

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Speaker 2: because I feel like oftentimes the public is and certainly

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Speaker 2: our audience we found is asking for this sort of action,

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Speaker 2: but it doesn't actually happen very often. Billy. Do you

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Speaker 2: think that this marks I guess, a shift in the

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Speaker 2: way that Australia deals with fossil fuel productions.

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Speaker 5: Well, not necessarily. I mean, it is only one decision,

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Speaker 5: and the government has previously said that it will assess

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Speaker 5: projects on a case by case basis. And something that

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Speaker 5: points to that is that in a different decision just

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Speaker 5: last month, PLIVSEC actually approved an extension to the coal

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Speaker 5: mining license of an existing MIND in Queensland until twenty

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Speaker 5: sixty three. So no, I don't think that it marks

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Speaker 5: a shift necessarily. But I also think that there is

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Speaker 5: another important point to make here, and that's about what

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Speaker 5: PLIVSEC actually has the power to do in this space. Now,

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Speaker 5: remember she's acting on these proposals under the EPBC Act,

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Speaker 5: and there are specific things the Act sets out to protect.

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Speaker 5: I'm not going to list them all, but they roughly

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Speaker 5: fall into, you know, protecting natural environments, heritage areas at risk, wildlife,

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Speaker 5: things like that. Now, what I think is really interesting

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Speaker 5: here is that the law doesn't explicitly require the government

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Speaker 5: to assess the project's carbon emissions when deciding whether or

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Speaker 5: not it's going to approve it. So remember plivsc's decision

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Speaker 5: on this new mind she's rejected was about the impact

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Speaker 5: it would have on the Great Barrier REEF, not its

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Speaker 5: contribution to climate change.

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Speaker 3: More broadly, we're going to take a short break. We'll

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Speaker 3: be right back.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So, am I right in saying that the environmental

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Speaker 2: protections being used by the federal government don't actually factor

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Speaker 2: in carbon emissions, well.

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Speaker 5: Not explicitly. So you could argue that carbon emissions would

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Speaker 5: still impact natural environments, for example, but there is no

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Speaker 5: explicit requirement that plibisec actually take carbon emissions into account

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Speaker 5: when making her decision. Now, there was a major independent

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Speaker 5: review of the EPBC Act in twenty twenty and that

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Speaker 5: found that the legislation was outdated and that it needed

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Speaker 5: fundamental reform. Its key recommendation was to create a brand

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Speaker 5: new set of standards, and in response to that, in

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Speaker 5: December of last year, the government announced its plans to

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Speaker 5: introduce new laws to establish an Environmental Protection Agency to

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Speaker 5: enforce Australia's existing environmental protection laws. So, if passed, these

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Speaker 5: reforms will require developers to disclose greenhouse emissions and also

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Speaker 5: to work within the government's climate change policies.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So, that sets the legislative groundwork. I guess to

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Speaker 2: understand the future, what do we expect to happen now

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Speaker 2: for Clive Palmer.

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Speaker 5: Well, just before we get there, I just want to

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Speaker 5: stick with the climate legislation that I mentioned just before. Now.

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Speaker 5: The government's new laws will be legislated sometime this year,

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Speaker 5: and the Greens have already flagged that they will be

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Speaker 5: pushing the government to go further and the Coalition has criticized.

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Speaker 5: So we don't know yet if that actually will pass.

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Speaker 2: But it'll be an interesting one because it's climate and

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Speaker 2: we know that David Pocock holds the balance of power

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Speaker 2: in the Senate and that he's very strong on climate.

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Speaker 2: There seems like a natural alliance there.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, definitely they might have to make a few amendments,

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Speaker 5: but I think that they are probably in a strong

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Speaker 5: position for it to pass. Now, Zara, your initial question

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Speaker 5: was about Clive Palmer. So to go back to, you

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Speaker 5: know where we started this whole episode with Clive Palmer's

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Speaker 5: proposed coal project. He is able to seek a judicial

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Speaker 5: review on the minister's decision, So if we were to

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Speaker 5: think about it like at court, he's able to kind

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Speaker 5: of appeal it but he would have to argue that

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Speaker 5: Plivers's decision involved a legal error, which I think we

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Speaker 5: can fairly say would be hard for him to prove.

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Speaker 2: Billy, thanks for jumping on the pod to talk about

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Speaker 2: Clive Palmer and Mines.

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Speaker 5: Thanks so much.

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Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us on the daily OS. We would

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Speaker 3: love if you could give us a rating or a

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Speaker 3: review on whatever app you're using right now. Maybe truck

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Speaker 3: us some stuff. It helps new people find us and

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Speaker 3: join the TDA community. Have a great Monday,