BOWMAN MP Andrew Laming has used the label "fake news" to describe claims that scientific research had been done on the $1.4 billion Toondah Harbour development.
Speaking at a debate organised by businessman Damien Buckley at Capalaba on Sunday, Mr Laming said that the proposal by developer Walker Corporation should be fully assessed environmentally, a process that should take at least 18 months.
However Greens candidate for Bowman Emerald Moon said the Toondah Harbour proposal should not even have reached the environmental impact stage.
She said that broken environmental laws, political donations corrupting democracy and a planning system that put developer profit before community need and the environment were issues that needed to be fixed.
Responding to a question from the audience, Mr Laming said the environmental impact statement process had just begun.
"Running around trying to spread fake news that the science is already done is completely wrong," he said.
"The science hasn't been done and you think it has been done because you know how many birds there are.
"You need to know what the bird does in response to the proposition. Animals are adaptable."
Ms Moon said that a federal government minister had already ignored the advice of public servants who opposed the Toondah Harbour proposal.
"The federal Department of Environmental Science experts determined this development ... would irreversibly damage the wetlands and irreversibly damage habitat for the endangered eastern curlew," Ms Moon said.
"They gave the advice to the minister that this project should absolutely not go ahead."
The advice was ignored and the project was moved to the next stage which was the environmental impact statement process.
Ms Moon said the fact that the coalition had received a donation from Walker Corporation was a bad look given the scientists' advice was ignored.
Mr Laming said the experts - or "PhDs in Canberra" - had no compulsion in objecting.
"They've already done it twice," he said.
"They are not bought off. They are not bought off because a political party takes a donation.
"This assumption that because you get donations therefore the politicians are corrupt is not only patently ridiculous, it's completely unsubstantiated."
Mr Laming said that if an application was turned down, developers could revise the development and submit a smaller proposal.
However Ms Moon said that 99 per cent of proposals submitted through federal environmental laws were approved.
"That doesn't sound like a thorough assessment to me," she said.
"It's clear that these laws are simply broken."
