The Australian Greens Additional Comments
The Australian Greens support
the intent of the Bill, namely to establish a national streamlined
greenhouse gas and energy reporting regime which clearly establishes the
obligations of corporations.
Clause 5 and the limits of
Commonwealth power
The Australian Greens support
the deletion of Clause 5 consistent with the preferred position of Professor George Williams,
whose submission to the inquiry stated that:
Section 5 should be removed from the Bill. Section 109 of the Constitution deals regulates where a
federal law cannot operate consistently with a state law. It provides a
sufficient mechanism for dealing with such conflicts without needing a
Commonwealth Bill to cover the field so widely as to
undermine any related state laws.
However, the Greens welcome
the Committee's consideration of the submissions from the State governments and
the recommendation, " that clause 5 be re-drafted along the lines
proposed by Professor Williams and others, to have the effect that the minister
may by regulation exclude the operation of a state or territory law that
duplicates reporting under the national reporting scheme" as an
improvement to what was originally proposed. We remain concerned that the
proposed change is not specific enough and needs to be further amended to read,
“to have the effect that the minister may by regulation exclude the operation
of those parts of a state or territory law that duplicates reporting
under the national reporting scheme.” Without the qualification of “those
parts”, the whole of the Victorian EPA Act for example might be overridden when
only the part that refers to emissions data is relevant.
The Greens support the
proposed changes to Clause 27 as the replacement of “may” with “must” will provide
a greater level of assurance to the states about access to data that they
require. However, Clause 56 should also be amended to allow for an appeal by a
state or territory to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal if under Clause 5
there is a dispute about whether all or any part of a state or territory law
does or does not duplicate reporting.
Thresholds
The Australian Greens concur
with the Environmental Defenders Office assertion that the community's ‘right to
know’ principle requires accurate information at a facility level and that the Bill must not allow
aggregated totals of corporate groups to subvert this principle.
Specifically the Australian Greens support the position of the
Investor Group on Climate Change whose submission stated that:
To ensure any mandatory reporting
legislation provides relevant and complete climate change information for
investors (so as to remove the need for investors to make their own information
request and thereby streamlining reporting for companies) the IGCC make the
following recommendations:
- The introduction to reporting should be
accelerated such that all facilities are reporting in the second financial year
- The information publicly available
should be significantly expanded to include:
- Separate detailing of total Scope 1 and
Scope 2 emissions;
- Scope 1 emissions disaggregated into
category, e.g. combustion, industrial process, fugitive, etc; and type, e.g.
N2O, CH4, etc. of emission;
- List of facilities covered by the
emissions inventory;
- Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions for all
facilities above the facility threshold of 25 kilotonnes CO2-e, along with the
details outlined in point (b) above; and
- Further clarification of the definition
of operational control.
Senator Christine Milne
Australian Greens
Navigation: Previous Page | Contents | Next Page