This part of the Environment Protection Reform Bill explanatory memorandum is generating rather a lot of interest (As Amy has noted):

National interest approval

The Samuel Review recommended that the EPBC Act should include a specific power for the Minister to exercise discretion in rare circumstances to make a decision that is inconsistent with the national environmental standards, where it is demonstrably in the public interest and with a clearly articulated statement of reasons. The Reform Bill would provide an approval mechanism that responds to this recommendation for designated projects that the Minister considers to be in the national interest to be approved even if they do not meet the requirements of the EPBC Act. However, such actions will only be able to be approved so far as any such inconsistency is reasonably necessary for the action to result in the outcome the Minister has decided is in the national interest. 

So what is “national interest”? Basically, whatever the minister thinks. Which given the recent (long) history of Australian politics is not a good sign.

On ABC RN Breakfast tried to make it sound like it would be exception and rare… but not necessarily so. He suggested when asked if he’d be happy for an LNP minister to have this power he said:

“Governments of the day should, in very rare circumstances, have the ability when something is in the national interest to approve a project proceeding, even if it doesn’t meet the usual environmental standards.”

Ok, but what are we talking about? He continued “What we’ve said in the bill is to try to give a flavour of the types of projects that we’re talking about would be most likely defence or security projects, actions that may be undertaken in responding to a natural disaster. We have made the point that that should be rarely used, that there’s got to be transparency with the minister of the day issuing a statement of reasons justifying why they’ve done that. And just to be clear, that decision to approve a project in the national interest would occur after a full assessment was done.”

Oh, goody a full assessment – like the one that led to the North West Shelf Extension being approved.

And here’s the thing about “defence” projects. The government – led by Resources Minister Madeleine King has very much linked approval of new gas projects to national and internation security. Earlier this month she told Sky News that:

“Australian LNG has a vital role in the energy security of Japan but also in Korea. It plays its part in Singapore and in Malaysia and also in China. So what we know is energy security is what – is the underlying reason for prosperity in a region. So that energy security is what leads to peace and prosperity in our region.”

She and others in government at the Australia-Japan Business Cooperation Committee conference also earlier this month talked up how (as the AFR put it) “Australian gas keeps the peace in Indo-Pacific”

So, excuse me for being a bit sceptical that the line about national security will not be abused.