The newly elected Northern Territory government wants to grant itself sweeping new powers to exempt major projects from environmental assessments in a move described by conservationists and Indigenous groups as authoritarian and anti-democratic.
A leaked consultation document, seen by Guardian Australia, outlines how a new Territory Coordinator (TC) would have powers to “step in” and take the role of government agencies to make assessments and approvals and could order other agencies to make decisions within a specific timeframe.
The document says under new powers, a minister could also issue “exemption notices” on significant projects, allowing them to be exempt from some regulations.
The government also wants to designate “projects of significance” that would “enable the TC to effectively expedite industry and economic development,” the document said.
The Country Liberal party, led by Lia Finocchiaro, ousted Labor in the August election. The NT parliament has no upper house and the CLP holds 17 of the assembly’s 25 seats.
Conservationists and Indigenous groups expressed shock at the move and feared the new powers could be used to push through large gas fracking projects and an agribusiness project holding the biggest ever water allocation.
The opposition leader, Labor’s Selena Uibo, said Finocchiaro was “breaking her pre-election promise to Territorians to be open and transparent.”
The executive director of Environment Centre NT, Kirsty Howey, said the powers outlined in the document were a “terrifying new development”.
She said the “pernicious laws” were “profoundly anti-democratic” and authoritarian, and would see “power arbitrarily wielded in favour of fossil fuel company profits over communities”.
The document, which is not public, says a consultation period on the new powers ends on 1 November. Howey said the CLP could use its majority to push through the new laws as early as late November, when the parliament is scheduled to sit for three days.
Uibo said the consultation on the new powers was “a sham” that “deliberately excludes the community”. A CLP promise that new projects would have to meet environmental rules “is now in tatters”, she said.
Kat McNamara, elected as the first Greens MP in the NT assembly at the last election, said Finocchiaro was giving herself powers to exempt projects at will.