This article is more than 9 months old

This article is more than 9 months old



Josh Frydenberg was “keen to see [if] he can accommodate Angus Taylor’s requests” when he was environment minister and asked his department for “a how to” guide on changing the laws designed to protect critically endangered native grasslands from clearing, new documents suggest.

The documents do not make clear what Taylor’s requests were.

At the time the minister was making the requests, his department was conducting an investigation into alleged illegal clearing on a property the current minister for energy and emissions reduction, Taylor, co-owns.

Illegal land clearing of federally protected ecological communities carries civil and criminal penalties of up to $1.05m for individuals and $10.5m for corporations.

Jam Land – a company part-owned by Taylor and his family, and of which his brother Richard Taylor is a director – was under investigation for the alleged illegal poisoning of about 30 hectares of the same grasslands on a property near Delegate in the New South Wales Monaro region.

More than two years later, the department says the investigation is “ongoing”.

The new documents, obtained under freedom of information, include a handwritten note by a senior bureaucrat recording a conversation with a staffer in the minister’s office.

In it the bureaucrat records his understanding of what he was being asked to do.

“Heads up re grasslands. Minister keen to see [if] he can accommodate Angus Taylor’s requests,” the note says. “Want a how to for Minister in event he wished to amend or delete thresholds.”

The “thresholds” he refers to are definitions of how much native grass has to be present for it to be protected under federal law.

A spokesman for Taylor said he “has never asked Mr Frydenberg to change laws governing the clearing of native grasslands”.

Ministerial standards state ministers must not “use public office for private purposes”.

Taylor told parliament in July: “I have had no association with the events leading to the compliance action that has been the subject of these allegations, and I have never made a representation in relation to it. I never would. All available information supports my repeated statements that the compliance action was never raised. My focus was advocating for the interests of the farmers in my electorate and across the region.

“Documents released under the FOI Act confirm the minister’s statements and any imputation to the contrary is rejected.”

Guardian Australia revealed in June that Taylor sought and received a briefing with Frydenberg’s office and senior department officials on 20 March 2017 about the critically endangered listing of the grasslands. The department has said it did not take notes, as is the usual practice.

Timeline Angus Taylor grasslands saga Show Hide Former environment minister Greg Hunt declares Southern Highlands temperate native grasslands critically endangered. Normal farming practices, such as grazing, are permitted, but not clearing. Poisoning of grasslands is alleged to have occurred near Delegate in southern NSW shortly after a company, Jam Land Pty Ltd, purchased the property, prompting complaints from a neighbour. NSW environmental authorities investigate. Federal environment department investigates under the Environmental Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act because grasslands are federally listed. Department becomes aware of the familial connection between Jam Land director Richard Taylor and the then cities minister, Angus Taylor, through a media search. Taylor says he got complaints from the farming community in his electorate about the endangered listing of native grasslands. Parliament resumes for 2017. Environment department officials met with Jam Land to discuss potential contraventions of EPBC Act and possible offsets. Grasslands compliance action is allegedly raised in parliament (no record of this in Hansard for the House or Senate). Department says minister’s office sought urgent talking points about the compliance action involving Jam Land. Department provides a dot point briefing, released to Guardian under freedom of information with redactions of all material relating to “an ongoing investigation”. Taylor says he had a detailed conversation with unnamed farmer from Yass and that prompted him to seek a meeting on the grasslands listing. Environment officials meet with representatives for Jam Land at the site Environment minister Josh Frydenberg’s office phones for information regarding the listing of grasslands. “He (the staffer) started quizzing me on the changed definition … He made the point that for farmers in the Monaro this is the ‘number 1 issue’ of concern,” bureaucrat Geoff Richardson writes. The minister’s office requests that the department meet with Taylor to answer the technical aspects of the listing outcome. The bureaucrats say they they need to know any sensitivities “including any compliance action (that we would of course stay out of completely).” Bureaucrats from the environment department meet with Taylor in his Parliament House office to discuss the grasslands listing. A compliance branch officer attends at the request of Frydenberg’s office. Taylor says only the policy was discussed. No notes were taken.

Frydenberg asks his department if he can make changes to the grasslands listing to weaken the protections. He’s told it can’t be done without making reasons public and would be against a recent scientific assessment. No changes are made. Senior bureaucrat Stephen Oxley writes a note that Frydenberg was keen to "accommodate Angus Taylor's requests" and sought a guide on what he would have to do if he wanted to change rules governing the clearing of the grasslands

More contact from the environment minister’s office about the compliance action on Jam Land. Richard Taylor does an interview on ABC Rural blasting the listing of the grasslands, saying it’s unworkable. More contact from the environment minister’s office on the Jam Land compliance action. Frydenberg and the deputy secretary of the department, Dean Knudson, meet with Nationals MPs. Federal government commissions former National Farmers’ Federation chair Wendy Craik to undertake a review of how the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (the EPBC Act) affects farmers. More contact with the minister’s office about the compliance action. senior bureaucrat Stephen Oxley writes a note that Frydenberg was keen to "accommodate Angus Taylor's requests" and sought a guide on what he would have to do if he wanted to change rules governing the clearing of the grasslands



In April 2017, Frydenberg’s office sought advice from the environment department on whether the listing could be watered down, and whether such a change would have to be made public.

Frydenberg has insisted there was nothing untoward about this and that the listing was never changed.

But the new documents show he went on to ask the department how he could go about changing definitions of native grasslands, known as condition thresholds, that define whether grasslands are sufficiently intact to warrant protection from clearing.

One reason the grasslands are so endangered is widespread clearing for activities including agriculture and urban development.

The handwritten notes taken by Stephen Oxley, a senior bureaucrat, show the department was having regular conversations with Frydenberg’s office about the matter in May 2017.

On 9 May 2017, under the heading “Monaro Grasslands”, Oxley wrote the notes which included the line: “Heads up re grasslands. Minister keen to see [if] he can accommodate Angus Taylor’s requests.”

It continues: “Want a how to for Minister in event he wished to amend or delete thresholds.”

A series of dot points then states that the minister’s office said there had been reports of landowners having difficulties administering the rules and asks for the “pros and cons” of making changes to be included in the “how to” guide.

The only active investigation for breaches of these rules at the time was the investigation into Jam Land.

The note then says the minister would “need to know in advance if going to get a brief which does not support [changes]”.

It is unclear whether any such “how to” guide was ever drafted.

In its freedom of information request, Guardian Australia sought access to any proposal or brief, including drafts, that proposed changes to these rules.

An April 2017 document, referred to as a “preliminary analysis of options”, containing “analysis and options for policy improvements” related to the grasslands, was withheld.

In refusing access, the department said that “if it were considered that the document would be released under the FOI Act, there is a significant risk that the document would have been drafted in a different manner, or indeed would not have been created”.

Other new emails show officials were also being asked if there were avenues to change the critically endangered status of the grasslands as early as March 2017.

An email from Monica Collins, the head of the department’s compliance division, on 6 March 2017, shows her asking bureaucrats for a response for the minister’s office to the question: “What are the available avenues/process to review a listing decision?”

The following day, a bureaucrat replies that this can be done only if the environment minister is satisfied a critically endangered community no longer meets the criteria for listing.

The same day, 7 March, officials from the department were meeting representatives for Jam Land at the site of the clearing.

In response to a series of questions to Frydenberg on Wednesday, his office directed Guardian Australia to his September interview with the ABC. That interview does not explain why he sought a guide on how to change rules governing clearing of the grasslands.

In September, Frydenberg told the ABC the meeting between his office, Taylor and senior department officials on 20 March 2017 was “only about the technical aspects of the listing”.

“[Taylor] has constituents and indeed farmers right across that region who have been concerned about the listing of those grasslands as critically endangered.

“And there’s been confusion around the compliance with that law. So it is only relevant and only appropriate that in relation to the technical aspects of that listing, which the officials made very clear, that this was about, that he had that briefing.”