State of the Environment

Motion 22nd October 2025

Hon Dr Steve Thomas (1:46 pm): I am delighted to make a contribution to the substantive motion before the house today. As I indicated earlier, the opposition will be supporting the motion before the house. Even though we do not always agree with our friends in the Greens (WA) on many of these issues, I think there is enough in this motion to agree with. I appreciate that it is written in a way that gives the opposition the capacity to support it.

This is potentially particularly dangerous for someone like me, in the far right–wing of the Liberal Party, but I have for many years been an example of an economic far right–wing member of the Liberal Party who believes in climate change. Members might think that is an oxymoron, but I think it is simply a question of science merging with economics. However, I will make a few points on this. I understand that the government is not going to support this motion before the house today, and I fully understand why. It might surprise members to learn that I have been around for a while now when the 2007 State of the Environment Report dropped, I was shadow Minister for the Environment, so I have had a fair bit of practice at this. Of course, we need to take the basic principles first, and that is that governments will always hate state of the environment reports and oppositions will always love them. That is just the sheer reality of things, so right now, in opposition, we are supporting the motion. I would like to think that we would also support it in government, but we would be doing other things, so let us see what happens in the fullness of time.

That is what happens. Perhaps having been such an efficient and effective shadow Minister for the Environment in 2007, I frightened off future governments from ever dropping another state of the environment report, because I have to say, I made enormous mileage out of it. It was enormously good fun. The Greens at that time were, I think, scarcely represented; I think Hon Paul Llewellyn was virtually the only Greens member of the upper house back in 2007. Let us just say that he was an interesting character from my patch of the South West, and perhaps leave the commentary about Paul to that. As an opposition member, I had enormous fun with that report. I understand, though, that it is a tool of the opposition and the crossbench and, particularly, a tool of the Greens. It is generally a weapon against the government, so I am not overly surprised. I could spend an hour on this, and I might have to seek an extension, but in my fairly short contribution members will hear me use the word "courage" a bit, because it takes enormous courage for a government to go down the path of a state of the environment report, particularly the version that was released in 2007 by that formidable former head of the Environmental Protection Authority, Dr Walter Cox; some members might remember him if they have been around for as long as I have. He was well respected and a formidable gentleman. The first thing I would say to the government is that it would take courage, but I do not think it should be frightened of that. I understand why courage is dangerous. I have watched all the Yes Minister episodes, and I have them on DVD if anybody wants to borrow them.

Hon Jackie Jarvis: And a DVD player?

Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Yes, and a DVD player. They can probably be downloaded now, Hon Jackie Jarvis.

The kiss of death is to call something courageous, and I do understand that. But I make this point: in the first instance, the State of the Environment Report 2007 was unfortunately as much qualitative as it was quantitative. It was the opinion of various contributors and generally overseen by the Environmental Protection Authority. In the first instance, I think government and opposition in particular should be able to debate whether they agree with those qualitative statements. There have been plenty of times in my history as shadow environment minister when I have disagreed with the EPA, and that takes courage.

I am a believer in the old-fashioned ministerial responsibility process. This is probably where I am going to diverge from the Greens. The EPA offers an opinion and, ultimately, government makes a decision, and that decision will, to some degree, rely on EPA advice, but it does not have to follow EPA direction. Government should be free to disagree, which I think is critical. It is hard for the Labor Party, which sometimes tries to be light green—one of those lime colours, let us say. When it tries to be light green, it is trying to have a foot in both camps. It is trying to say, "We're the left-wing environmentalists; don't listen to the darker greens on that side and don't listen to the other side, because the Liberals are environmental vandals." When it puts itself in that position, its capacity to disagree and use other categories and other decision-making tools is taken away, and that makes it frightened of a report that might criticise it. There are plenty of things wrong with the environment. It is a bit sad that my good friend the Leader of the House is not here because a few examples have been brought up and I was dying to throw arum lilies into the mix—it is something that we have debated for the last eight years! I am sure that the new Minister for the Environment has been down south and looked at the arum lilies. There are plenty of examples, but I am trying to take an overarching view of this; that is, there is an opportunity. If the government has courage and is prepared to disagree, and to disagree in public, there is a value to the process. But it requires courage. I know that courage is not always the way.

A few members here were in the chamber at the time so they might remember March 2019 when the EPA came out with a brand-new offsets policy. In 2019, two years into the McGowan government, the EPA went a little rogue in coming up with its own offsets policy, which in my view was a disaster for industry and economics in Western Australia.

Hon Sophie McNeill: And the environment.

Hon Dr Steve Thomas: It argued that it was pro-environment and anti-development. My argument is that both have to be encompassed. I have a copy of the press release that I put out at the time. I have to say that I looked a fair bit younger back then—it has not been a kind six or seven years! It says:

The Shadow Minister for the Environment Dr Steve Thomas says the recommendation of the Environmental Protection Authority that major projects be required to offset one hundred percent of the net greenhouse gas emissions was ideological rather than practical, and put at risk future development … and future jobs in Western Australia.

I stand by those comments I made at the time. Interestingly, I put that out on 7 March. By 14 March, the McGowan Labor government had overridden the EPA. It took courage at that particular point to disagree with the EPA. I make that point. The government should not be frightened of the messenger if it has the courage to disagree. There will be occasions when we as a Parliament, and as a government and certainly as an opposition and crossbench, should have the courage to disagree. The EPA is not a government within itself. It is not an autocracy. It does not tell the people of Western Australia what to do. It makes recommendations to government. Government should have the courage in all cases to say yes, no or go away and redo that in a different way. That is how democracy works. In opposing the motion before the house, the government is showing a lack of courage to take a forceful position on issues of the day. Even though the EPA says that it considers the triple bottom line and that it will put economics as an equal contributor, it does not, and I do not think it should. I do not think that is its job; that is not the job of the EPA. In some cases it gets consideration, and in some cases it does not. The EPA should look purely at the environmental processes. Some of the social processes in heritage have snuck in, and, to be honest, I would remove that from the EPA as well and have the EPA focused entirely on environmental outcomes, which, in some cases, is often in conflict with heritage, and probably Aboriginal heritage as well. There are separate bodies for that as part of the process. If it focused entirely on environmental outcomes and a report came back that said, "This is what we think", the government would have the capacity to say, "Thank you very much for that. We agree" or "We disagree" or "We agree and disagree, with certain changes and amendments." That is how the process works.

We should not be frightened of having the report done. There are a number of ways that the report could be done. I note that the motion before the house effectively says to develop an updated state of the environment report. It is not completely prescriptive, and I am sure that Hon Jess Beckerling in her motion was thinking about the same sort of book we got last time but with different pictures and an update et cetera. I do not think that is the only way to address this. For example, as an alternative, there might be an ongoing state of the environment report that is broken up into different sections, because it is a huge undertaking. When the Minister for the Environment gets up and talks about how many millions of dollars it would cost to deliver one of those things, that is true. This government has had $6 billion in additional revenue, $12 billion in total iron ore revenue and a $6 billion surplus, so I think it could afford it. Lucky Phil on the other side is rolling in cash, so he could trickle a few shekels over the edge for that. Even if that were the case and iron ore crashed and it got tight, there would be ways to do this on which a slightly different view might be taken. A rolling state of the environment report might come out in pieces, for example. Biosecurity might be done in one year and something else might be done the next year.

The second argument that the government will come up with—I could have waited until afterwards to rebut, but I might as well rebut in advance—is that these things are all being done within government departments anyway. The main argument that the government will have is that the EPA is doing all these things and is examining the environment, the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development takes a certain role in landcare and there are other things happening and these reports come out. I respond to that in advance by saying two things: Firstly, ultimately, it will not deliver the outcomes that have been talked about. It simply will not be enough. Secondly, those government departments are so busy doing all sorts of other things, and often wasting far too much time on things like approvals et cetera, that they do not have the capacity to deliver those outcomes.

I like that additional report. I have a full book copy at home, but I did not bring it with me. There are a couple of great bits in the 2007 report about its key report card that I want to mention. I have brought only the summary document with me. I will go through the summary report. The EPA said in 2007 that there is a lack of information and a lack of knowledge. I would say that there is absolutely a lack of information and a lack of knowledge on soils, plants and animals. That has not changed. When the government says that these things are being done by government departments, the reality is that they do not have the capacity to do the research. Fluffy animals are kind of cute and people like them, but the scientific research that underpins our environment is not sexy. It does not sell all that well. It is complicated. Some of the universities put in, and government departments put in as well, but it is not going to deliver the level of information required.

There is a lot of work to do. I do not accept the position that the government is about to take, which is that the government is doing many of these things anyway. In some cases, it is trying its best. In some cases, it is doing so wholly inadequately. In some cases, it is not doing it at all. I am happy to spend the next couple of years pointing out the government's failings on some of these things, like the arum lilies in the South West. I note that the Minister for Agriculture and Food has just returned.

Biosecurity is one of our biggest failures, and that will continue to be the case. I have watched this for 20 years, starting as the shadow environment minister in 2006, when the process was undertaken to identify invasive species, be they animal or plant. They come in and they go on priority one. They say, "Let's keep them outside. They're currently exotic." Then, "They are in, but we need to act." Then, "They are in, but we need to act in certain regions." Then, "They are in, but we have to have some token effort." Then, the final one, which was either an A5 or P5 level, was, "They are in now and are endemic." We just watched them trickle down through the forms, and governments of all ilk have this failure on our belts. That is absolutely the case. It is impossible to avoid some of those things, and I get and understand that.

But I am going to use "courage" again. When those things trickle down because you just cannot keep them out, because it is too late once they are in, acknowledge that, and say, "Yes, we acknowledge that." In the next state of the environment report, there might be a sub-report on biosecurity that says, "These things have trickled in. We are unable to throw them out. That is not going to happen. We are now going to try to work out how we live with it as best we can." It takes courage—and, of course, yes, the opposition gets to throw a whack at the government. The Minister for the Environment can come back and read this speech and say, "Well, Hon Dr Steve Thomas said we should have courage, so we are having courage." I will back him on that. For those things for which the government needs to show a bit of courage and say, "Yes, these things are impossible to deal with", then let us do that. I understand that it is very difficult. It is very easy for oppositions and minor parties to throw rocks in the media and the media loves a failure-of-government story. I absolutely get that. I would love to sit here and say that the opposition and the crossbench and the Greens (WA) will not grandstand on these issues if the government shows a bit of courage, but I suspect that is a promise I cannot make and it is a promise I am not foolish enough to give even though I am under parliamentary privilege!

What will be the case? It requires a bit more courage to go down this path and to be strong about it. Here is my commitment to the Minister for the Environment. Every time that I think that the Environmental Protection Authority gets it wrong or that other factors are more important, I will back a sensible decision, as I have done for the last 20 years. I have stood up for proposals that I think should be allowed to progress. I have stood up for industry when I think that industry is important. I have taken on the EPA on a number of occasions. It causes friction. Yes, it is easier to do it from opposition than government, but the government gets to call officers of the EPA to its offices. If I have to talk to them, I have to go to theirs. The government has a bit of power to talk about these things.

I am happy to back the government on a triple bottom line. I am happy to say that, at this point, the environmental outcomes in this state could be improved. With due regard to my very good friends the Greens over there, there will be occasions when we violently disagree on what those things look like. I think I have proven that I am happy to disagree with the Greens as much as I am happy to disagree with the Labor Party—let me say the Liberal Party on occasions as well! I think we should, particularly in the Legislative Council, be robust enough to have these tough and hard conversations and point out shortfalls, and for government to say, "Look, I understand what you're saying and I disagree", or "Look, we just don't have the budget for that." That is a little bit hard to argue over the last six years, but maybe the ore price collapses and suddenly the government has no money, and the EPA and environment generally are fairly well down on the investment list. I understand why.

Interestingly, every year there is a poll of the ranking of issues. When people are doing really well and they are not suffering, the environment is usually about fourth or fifth. When things turn difficult, it is about 15th—and they flip. I think the environment is very important, and I have suffered many times because I take an environmental bent in a conservative party. People flip under stress on those things.

But I think the wider public will appreciate if the government steps up and shows strength and courage and disagrees particularly with the bureaucracy. There are a few lessons I would probably take from Donald Trump—not a lot, but a few—one of which is to be prepared to stand up to the bureaucracy because people do not have a link to bureaucrats and the bureaucratic process; they do not have a link for that. Every time we think we cannot stand up to the bureaucracy and the bureaucrats and the public service—as Yes, Minister says, the opposition is just the government-in-waiting; the civil service is the opposition-in-residence—I think people will reach and grab such a stand, but it takes courage. It takes a strength of character and a commitment to the environment.

I think that the Minister for the Environment has a really strong commitment to the environment. I absolutely believe that. From the conversations and debates that we have had, I absolutely believe that. It is hard as the Minister for the Environment to get resources out of government. I fully understand that as well. It easy to get pushed down the rankings of people who want to deliver multibillion-dollar projects. But the government should not be afraid of this. It should have the courage to deliver this and it will take a very courageous government to step up and do it.