Watt tables nature law reforms to mixed reviews – and a tough crowd in parliament

Landmark reforms overhauling Australia’s environment protection regime have been introduced into parliament but the government still faces a fight to get them written into law.

Introducing the proposed legislation, senior minister Tony Burke said the current environment laws were flawed and needed fixing.

“We need change. The law is broken,” he told parliament on Thursday.

The nearly-1500 pages of legislation would create a new federal agency tasked with enforcing Australia’s environment laws, while strengthening protections for natural sites and streamlining approvals for major housing, energy and infrastructure projects.

The government wants to pass the changes before the end of the year but is facing an uphill battle, as it needs to win support from either the opposition or the Greens.

Opposition environment spokeswoman Angie Bell said she’d been negotiating with Labor in good faith but the legislation was complex and unworkable in its current form.

“I don’t understand the minister’s rush to Christmas,” she told reporters in Canberra, indicating talks may drag into the new year.

Environment Minister Murray Watt laid down the law on Thursday morning, urging both the coalition and the Greens not to make outlandish requests during negotiations.

“If either side sets ridiculous demands for us, then we’ve got another option to pass these laws,” he said.

Environment groups have reacted sceptically to the overhaul, and want it to include greater consideration of carbon emissions when deciding whether to approve a project.

They’re also calling for tougher regulations around the logging of native forests.

“There’s no point doing this half-arsed,” Greenpeace Australia Pacific chief executive David Ritter said.

“The protection of our national environment requires that the loopholes that enable the bulldozers and the chainsaws to destroy our forests be closed,” he told reporters.

Under the proposal currently before parliament, the environment minister would have the power to override regulations if they believed a project was in the national interest.

The reforms will also remove duplication in approvals and assessment systems by updating bilateral agreements with state and territories, streamlining the approval of major developments.

The government will push for a 25-day parliamentary inquiry into its reforms, which would report back in time for the bill to clear the Senate before the end of the parliamentary year.

The reactions

The Business Council of Australia said the reforms were an opportunity to overhaul a broken system, but said the government needed to clarify a number of elements of the bill, including the power to block a project if it poses unacceptable impacts on the environment.

BCA chief executive Bran Black said more detail was needed on the definition of an “unacceptable impact,” and also called for a number of other changes to further speed up project approvals.

The Clean Energy Council says the lon-anticipated reforms are “pragmatic and thorough” and will provide greater clarity for the renewable energy industry.

“This reform package strengthens environmental outcomes and ensures we can continue to deliver the electricity Australia relies on as coal-fired power stations exit the system,” new CEC CEO Jackie Trad said on Thursday.

“We particularly welcome proposed changes to the way environmental offsets are managed, giving clean energy companies the ability to channel billions of dollars – that would otherwise be spent on purchasing additional land for offset agreements – into regional communities.

“These funds could go towards supporting on-the-ground environmental work such as pest eradication, invasive species programs, feral pig control, and fire ant mitigation, which currently cost local councils and state governments a small fortune – while also contributing to broader nature restoration efforts.

“The reforms deliver on the commitment to protect nature during project construction with tangible benefits for regional landholders and communities,” she said.

Queensland Conservation Council (QCC) director Dave Copeman says there is much to welcome in Watt’s amendments, including the inclusion of unacceptable impacts, an independent EPA with stronger stop work powers and penalties, and national environmental standards. But there are some big loopholes in the legislation, too.

“While wind farms, mines and roads are usually assessed under the EPBC Act for the proposed impact that their deforestation will have on threatened species, clearing for pasture development is not,” Copeman said on Thursday. 

“Without closing the deforestation loophole embedded in the current Act, none of these changes will stop the 300,000+ hectares of deforestation that occurs every year in Queensland.”

The Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) says one of the biggest failures of the current EPBC Act is the excessive discretion held by the minister of the day.

“Yet the reforms introduced today still allow far too much discretion, rather than setting clear limits and binding standards,” AMCS chief Paul Gamblin said. “This includes expanding rather than constraining the national interest exemption.”

Nicole Rogers, a professor of Climate Law at Bond University, was much more harsh in her assessment of the proposed reforms, in particular the complete absence of a climate trigger.

“The government’s reforms are like building a fire station that doesn’t respond to fires,” Rogers said on Thursday.

“Climate change is already devastating Australia, from the Great Barrier Reef to our bushfire-ravaged forests, yet the government refuses to even consider the climate consequences of its own decisions in this proposed law.

“If the law can’t stop projects that breach our climate targets, how can it be fit for purpose? Excluding climate from our national environment legislation is a catastrophic blind spot that undermines both environmental protection and Australia’s international credibility.”

Source: AAP, by Zac de Silva and Grace Crivellaro in Canberra, with Renew Economy staff reporter