Special rules for Frank

Minister wants Parliament to allow him not to consider the environment under the Environmental Planning & Assessment Act

Amendments to the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (EP&A) before NSW parliament seek to prevent thorough assessment of greenhouse gas emissions and the impacts this will have on the environment of NSW.

What is going on?

These changes will mean that development proponents will no longer have to comply with Environmental Assessment Requirements under the controversial Part 3A of the EP&A.

* Part 3A already gives the Planning Minister a disturbing degree of discretionary power, and removes many avenues for legal challenge of the Minister’s decisions. These amendments will completely remove the requirement for proponents to even assess the development’s impacts.

* This will affect projects far beyond Anvil Hill, and will remove the need for any Part 3A project to thoroughly assess environmental impacts.

* The Government is facing a legal challenge regarding the Anvil Hill coal mine proposal. The challenge seeks to ensure that the climate change impacts on the environment and community of NSW are fully assessed.

* Frank Sartor introduced the amendments this week, claiming that they were “housekeeping measures” but they will nullify the court challenge by removing the requirement for the Minister to consider any environmental assessment.

The amendments will affect all Major Projects.

* Specific transitional arrangements in the amending Bill ensure that all projects that have approval pending will be affected by these changes. That means Anvil Hill, and dozens of other Major Projects, and if passed it will affect all developments declared as Major Projects from now on.

* In order to avoid assessing the full impacts of Anvil Hill, the Government is winding back 25 years of planning law, and is disregarding the public interest, and even public safety.

* Companies undertaking Major Projects, like chemical plants or mines, are currently required to undertake assessment within parameters set out by the Government. Following these changes, they will be able to write Environmental Assessments, if they write them at all, that do not discuss dangerous or destructive impacts of their project.

Arrogance Sydney Labor-style.