You are hereQ: Is the Northern Victoria Irrigation Renewal Project compliant?
Q: Is the Northern Victoria Irrigation Renewal Project compliant?
Northern Victoria Irrigation Renewal Project: planning permit
Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) -- My question is for the Minister for Planning, Justin Madden. The minister issued a planning permit to the Northern Victoria Irrigation Renewal Project. Has he been monitoring compliance with that planning permit, and can he assure us that the project is in compliance?
Hon. J. M. MADDEN (Minister for Planning) -- I welcome Mr Barber's interest in these matters.
With any of these larger scale projects that I in a sense sign off on I will give planning permission to. If there are reporting mechanisms or auditing mechanisms that are required for these projects, then those are reported back to me via the department more often than not, and eventually I receive that information with advice from the department as to whether the compliance is sufficient. If there are any deficiencies, then I make a response to those. More often than not if they are projects within the domain of other ministers or other departments, I will notify the respective departments that there must be improvements to what may or may not be taking place. That is the case.
There are issues in many such projects that need to be monitored. I am monitoring those from the reports that I am receiving. If there has been or needs to be any more rigorous approach to the compliance, then I have indicated that to the respective departments to make sure that they will or should continue to comply with the directions or the qualifications issued within those permit conditions.
Supplementary question
Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) -- Clearly in this instance the minister is not sure right now if that project is in compliance with its planning permit, and I would appreciate it if the minister could check out that aspect. But here is the issue, and I ask the minister to respond: NVIRP (Northern Victoria Irrigation Renewal Project) is also seeking an approval under the federal EPBC act (Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act), and one of the federal minister's decision guidelines is whether NVIRP has a good environmental record. That is something he must consider. NVIRP is a state-owned enterprise that was created solely for the purpose of doing this one project, so it does not have a pre-existing environmental record; it only has the environmental record for the works it is doing right now under the minister's permit. Will the minister therefore report back to the house, and to the federal minister, the compliance of that project as it stands right at this moment?
Hon. J. M. MADDEN (Minister for Planning) -- I would expect that if there are qualifications around the monitoring of the performance of the project or the delivery of the performance of the project through the federal government that we would be in contact with the federal government through respective officers within the department to relay that information, so I would expect that to be the case if the federal government is seeking that information. I am always happy and would expect to have to provide that to the federal department or the federal minister if that is warranted and if they expect that.
On those other issues in terms of the monitoring, at any given particular point in time I suspect works will be being undertaken and there will be some time lines and schedules in which those reports must be either formulated, audited or provided to me. I am not immediately conscious of when those time lines or those audits or reports would come to me about the project.
I am happy to check to see how often they do come to me and how often the federal government may wish to see those or not wish to see those. I am happy to respond to the house accordingly on the basis of seeking information on that.
I am conscious many people will be interested in the environmental performance of these sorts of larger scale projects, and that is an important public issue. It is important that we give the public confidence that any of the environmental criteria which must be adhered to are adhered to and are sought to be adhered to by those who are delivering the project. I would be happy to provide further advice to the member and to the house at a later date when I have checked on those details.
