IIn an era of monumental political shifts, news that The coalition doesn't likeand most likely not to support it, Labour's proposed reform of the national nature law has at least one advantage. It's painfully predictable.
I mean… of course it had to go this way. Australia's right-wing parties are in disarray and threatening to fall apart. maybe not everyone Coalition The MP rejects evidence that the country's extraordinary and unique nature is in long-term decline. But a significant number do.
Susan Ley and David Littleproud are fighting to unite their parties and keep their jobs. The idea that, with the support of the Nationals and many Liberals, a deal could be struck that included even modest hints of improved conservation was always quite optimistic.
It's hard to imagine that the Albana government believed this was possible. But for weeks we have been involved in the political dance of Environment Minister Murray Watt, talking to both the Coalition and the Greens about what a future Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Bill might look like.
At the very least, we should be grateful to Leigh for stopping the pretense on Thursday when she said the laws of nature are a “red light” for jobs and suggested that the creation of a national Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would be a form of “green ideology”. Much of what she said was untrue—Alcoa quickly rejected Lay's claim that the law would stop a proposed gallium refinery expansion—but it made her position clear.
This means that unless something extraordinary happens in Australia's right-wing politics or Labor gives up any pretense of wanting to protect the country's extraordinary wildlife, the government will have to deal with the Greens in the Senate. Politically, we are essentially back to where we were a year ago, before Anthony Albanese intervened at the behest of WA Labor and mining and scuttled the deal between then minister Tanya Plibersek and the Greens to pass the EPA legislation.
This time the agreement seems difficult, if not impossible. Lobbyists, activists and politicians have seen parts of the law, but key elements—like the EPA's structure—have yet to be released.
There are some things we know. The proposed changes to the EPBC Act do not address its fundamental problem: despite its name, the law does not prioritize environmental protection. Its main role is to allow projects, including fossil fuel developments, to proceed subject to certain conditions to limit environmental damage.
This approach has failed, partly because the current environment minister has amazing discretion to approve what he sees fit. Ministers regularly approve compensation that does not compensate for lost nature. The conditions were not met. The cumulative impact of multiple events was not considered.
State-controlled logging of local forests was effectively exempt, despite a long list of court cases that found it to be in violation of the laws. Deforestation of private land for agriculture, a major driver of biodiversity loss across large areas of western New South Wales and Queensland and the Northern Territory, has rarely been assessed.
In addition to these fundamental environmental concerns, decision times on projects are often delayed – a major problem the industry wants to solve.
Overall, this means that in order to address the systemic problems outlined in Latest major state of the environment report. The risk is that the overhaul ends up being a rework rather than a transformation.
If the government's first goal is to strengthen environmental protections – and it was willing to lose its skin to industry attacks in the process – there is good reason to believe that it will replace this law entirely. Watt's predecessor Plibersek noted the possibility before abandoning the idea. There seems to be no appetite for it now. Instead, the focus is on passing legislation as quickly as possible.
Watt's proposal has several worthy elements.
He leans heavily on 2020 review by former competition watchdog chief Graham Samuelincluding one of its central recommendations – the introduction of national environmental standards against which development proposals could be tested. Two draft standards covering issues of national environmental significance and compensation are promised with the legislation, with more to follow. Their strength or not will go a long way in deciding whether the changes are meaningful.
The legislation will include a definition of “unacceptable impact.” This can be critical to checking whether a project in an environmentally sensitive area should be approved. Business interests don't like it and they want it.
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According to the minister, there will also be wider “no-go zones” in which development will be prohibitedand the requirement that industry not only compensate for the damage it causes, but also spend funds to create a “net benefit” for nature. This is vital given what has been lost, but we know nothing about how the net benefit will be determined or delivered. For now it's just a phrase.
Watt promises to establish a legal requirement that developers avoid or limit damage before purchasing compensation. And he says there will be tougher penalties: fines of up to $825 million and a promise that offenders will be deprived of financial benefits obtained as a result of breaking the law.
Much of these commitments are difficult to assess without details, including whether EPA will have the power, resources and culture needed to transform conservation across the country.
In addition, there are problems and unanswered questions – and they are significant.
There is little indication that the legislation will solve the enormous problem of deforestation. Millions of acres have been cleared without federal oversight, mostly for industrial farming. The State of the Environment report found that 93% of threatened species habitats cleared between 2000 and 2017 were not referred for assessment under national legislation. A hundred scientists wrote to Albanese this week calling for an urgent solution to the problem.
The government plans to create a “rehabilitation contribution” fund into which developers can contribute, which officials will then use to buy compensation. But the legislation does not include a requirement that compensation be “similar,” suggesting that the costs of a completely unrelated environmental project could be used to justify the destruction of nature elsewhere.
It is also unclear how the government plans to remove the exemption from native forest logging (which Samuel, Plibersek and Watt agree is necessary) but which the forestry industry and the Tasmanian government are strongly opposed to.
And on the landmark issue of climate change – which will transform large parts of the natural environment as temperatures rise – the government remains firmly opposed to calls for greenhouse gas pollution from fossil fuel development to be factored into the approval process.
Instead, developers would simply be required to disclose expected emissions and a plan to reduce them in their application, a step that many large companies are already taking. Rather than blocking large polluting projects, it's likely that coal and gas proposals could get the green light faster if legislation is passed in the name of reducing the green tape.
If it does, history will likely view it as a decidedly perverse outcome of what the government announced on Friday will be known as the environmental reform bill.
