The choir – lobbyists and powerbrokers

Who is singing and who is listening in the biggest environmental game in town?

By David Salt

The biggest environmental policy game in town at the moment is the review of the EPBC Act. That’s because the outcome of this review will have a major bearing on how governments deal with the perennial tension between economic development and environmental protection. It could influence how our nation looks after our environmental values for years, maybe decades, to come. It is a big deal.

Last week the government belatedly released the draft report of the review (led by Professor Graeme Samuel). This draft pointed out the EPBC Act was failing on multiple fronts. It was failing to protect the environment and it was too slow in processing development approvals. It proposed a range of reforms (and these have been discussed at length by many).

I’m always fascinated by what lobby groups say when reviews such as this are released. Their public statements come out so fast on the heels of the release I really wonder if they have even read the document (or even its executive summary). Reading their statements it quickly becomes apparent that most of their words are simple rehashes of their lobby platforms – what they want the public to think about them, and what they want the government to do in respect of the stakeholders they represent.

Let’s look at a few of those statements

Political statements

First up, there’s the draft review itself. It’s released by the Department of Agriculture and Environment (DAWE), the Department that oversees the EPBC Act (we’re already getting a signal even in the Department’s title on the priority given to the environment). The media statement provides a fairly good summary of the draft review with a link to the review itself.

Central to Samuel’s review is the belief that a set of National Environment Standards need to be developed, duplication between state and federal levels needs to be reduced and that an enforcement regulator needs to be established. On this final point, he said: “Community trust in the EPBC Act and its administration is low. To build confidence, the Interim Report proposes that an independent cop on the beat is required to deliver rigorous, transparent compliance and enforcement.”

Following simultaneously on this release comes the statement from the Government which thanks Professor Samuel for delivering the report, agrees we must end duplication and instantly squashes any idea that an ‘independent cop’ will be brought in. The government will not “support additional layers of bureaucracy such as the establishment of an independent regulator.” (It should be noted that when Labor was in government when the EPBC Act was last reviewed in 2009 that it similarly rejected the proposal for a ‘greenhouse trigger’ because it added layers of bureaucracy to the Act.)

The opposition party then follows with a statement saying it’s all the government’s fault: “In considering the Samuel Review Interim Report, it’s important to understand that Australia’s biggest problem in environmental management has been blue tape: delays and poor decision-making caused by Liberal and National cuts and mismanagement.”

Predictably, the Greens are also blaming the government for everything that’s wrong, and bitterly disappointed in their flat rejection of a regulator: “Environmental standards will be worthless if there is no one there to enforce them. This report shows the government can’t be trusted.”

Business statements

The Business Council of Australia was complimentary in its appraisal of the review: “What has been achieved in this review is a way forward that increases accountability, increases the transparency of decision making and retains the central goal of protecting the environment.” Pity the government’s already killed the prime mechanism for enhanced accountability.

The Minerals Council of Australia sees it as a greenlight for development: “Faster approvals, greater national cooperation and clearer guidelines on environmental management will boost jobs and investment and improve biodiversity outcomes.” They’re delighted by the government’s commitment to develop a ‘single touch’ approach to assessment: “The interim report highlights the need to address unnecessary regulatory complexity and duplication – including overlapping state and federal processes which deter investment.”

The Association of Mining and Exploration Companies and the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association pretty much parrot the Minerals Council’s thoughts. Less duplication and faster approvals are essential; though they don’t have much to say about improved environmental outcomes beyond suggesting they think they are important too.

But it’s not just the miners who see gold in the report, the farmers see carrots. The National Farmers Federation said: ““For too long the regulatory stick has been preferred, despite biodiversity outcomes actually declining. The solution is in a market-based approach rather than a stronger stick. It is time for some carrots.” I think the NFF are also not a fan of the ‘independent cop’ idea.

The foresters are also keen to support the report’s call for greater clarity, in their case clarity between the EPBC Act the Regional Forestry Agreement process. The Australian Forestry Products Association said: “This is our chance to ensure the right protection for our environment while also unlocking job-creating projects to strengthen our economy and improve the livelihoods of every-day Australians.”

Environmental sector statements

So business interests everywhere are in furious concord, the review is good if it reduces transaction costs around environmental protection. What are environmental NGOs saying? They are somewhat worried.

The Australian Conservation Foundation said: “the Federal Government would be lining up Australian wildlife for extinction if it rushes to devolve environmental approval powers to states”.

The Wilderness Society is also concerned by an apparent devolution to the states. It said: “Professor Samuel’s report outlines that environment laws are rarely policed, that endangered species recovery plans are rarely implemented, that Australia’s most important environmental values are in decline and yet the central Government response is to seek to hand environmental approval powers to the states with no concrete proposals to address any of the main environmental challenges facing Australia.”

The Invasive Species Council’s response was that it welcomed what it said was a “less reactive, more comprehensive response to Australia’s growing biodiversity crisis”. It supported the call for ‘strategic national plans’ and ‘regional plans’ but was “greatly disappointed that the Environment Minister today ruled out Samuel’s proposal for an ‘independent monitoring, compliance, enforcement and assurance regulator’.”

The choir

These were just the statements I saw in response to the release of the draft review of the EPBC Act. I’m sure there were many more but they give you a good flavour of the push and shove following such an announcement.

Most people never see these statements beyond, maybe, a quote here and there used in news stories, normally to add a bit of colour to the otherwise drier reportage. However, these statements are always coming out from the different lobby groups whenever the government makes a statement on anything, the story being reported here is just one from the environment sector.

These statements telegraph to the government what different stakeholder groups are expecting from our political leaders. You’ll often see lobby groups repeating phrases used by the government (like ‘single touch’ approval processes) giving them credence and solidity. Sometimes it’s the other way around; the government will pick up on phrases coined by a lobby group.

And, of course, this is just the visible signs of the lobbying process. There’s a whole industry based on cultivating influence of the government and most of it happens behind closed doors and is unseen by the public.

Having worked for many years in science communication connected with biodiversity conservation I’ve seen this game of duelling public statements many times. It amazes me the seeming co-ordination with which it happens, with each side singing to their own constituency and maybe pulling the strings behind some of the important decisions.

In this current situation relating to the EPBC Act, the industry groups seem to be at one with the government’s message of shorter approval times, less regulation and less bureaucracy. This is only an interim report but it provides a clear idea of what the final report will contain, and we also have a good idea which bits the government will act on (and which bits it will reject).

Missed the boat

The review is currently calling for public feedback on the interim report. But you’ll have to be quick. Having been given the report by Graeme Samuels last month but only releasing it last week, the government will only accept feedback till 17 August. The final report is due in October.

Though, even if you respond through the official channels, it could be you’ve already missed the boat. It seems the Government is not waiting for the final report and have promised legislation in late August. The Prime Minister’s statement from the most recent National Cabinet yesterday said the Premiers were all on board and keen to sign up to ‘single touch’ asap (why wouldn’t they)?

It is quite clear which choir the Government is listening to.

Image by stanbalik from Pixabay

Environment Minister Sussan Ley is in a tearing hurry to embrace nature law reform – and that’s a worry

The Morrison government has just released a long-awaited interim review into Australia’s federal environment law. The ten-year review found Australia’s natural environment is declining and under increasing threat. The current environmental trajectory is “unsustainable” and the law “ineffective”.

The report, by businessman and academic Professor Graeme Samuel, called for fundamental reform of the law, known as the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act. The Act, Professor Samuel says:
“[…] does not enable the Commonwealth to play its role in protecting and conserving environmental matters that are important for the nation. It is not fit to address current or future environmental challenges.”

He confirmed the health of Australia’s environment is in dire straits, and proposes many good ways to address this.

Worryingly though, Environment Minister Sussan Ley immediately seized on proposed reforms that seem to suit her government’s agenda – notably, streamlining the environmental approvals process – and will start working towards them. This is before the review has been finalised, and before public comment on the draft has been received.

This rushed response is very concerning. I was a federal environment official for 13 years, and from 2007 to 2012 was responsible for administering and reforming the Act. I know the huge undertaking involved in reform of the scale Professor Samuel suggests. The stakes are far too high to risk squandering this once-a-decade reform opportunity for quick wins.

‘Fundamental reform’ needed: Samuel

The EPBC Act is designed to protect and conserve Australia’s most important environmental and heritage assets – most commonly, threatened plant and animal species.

Professor Samuel’s diagnosis is on the money: the current trajectory of environmental decline is clearly unsustainable. And reform is long overdue – although unlike Graeme Samuel, I would put the blame less on the Act itself and more on government failings, such as a badly under-resourced federal environment department.

Samuel also hits the sweet spot in terms of a solution, at least in principle. National environmental standards, legally binding on the states and others, would switch the focus from the development approvals process to environmental outcomes. In essence, the Commonwealth would regulate the states for environmental results, rather than proponents for (mostly) process.

Samuel’s recommendation for a quantum shift to a “single source of truth” for environmental data and information is also welcome. Effective administration of the Act requires good information, but this has proven hard to deliver. For example the much-needed National Plan for Environmental Information, established in 2010, was never properly resourced and later abolished.

Importantly, Samuel also called for a new standard for “best practice Indigenous engagement”, ensuring traditional knowledge and views are fully valued in decision-making. The lack of protection of Indigenous cultural assets has been under scrutiny of late following Rio Tinto’s destruction of the ancient Indigenous site Juukan caves. Reform in this area is long overdue.

And notably, Samuel says environmental restoration is required to enable future development to be sustainable. Habitat, he says “needs to grow to be able to support both development and a healthy environment”.

Streamlined approvals

Samuel pointed to duplication between the EPBC Act and state and territory regulations. He said efforts have been made to streamline these laws but they “have not gone far enough”. The result, he says, is “slow and cumbersome regulation” resulting in significant costs for business, with little environmental benefit.

This finding would have been music to the ears of the Morrison government. From the outset, the government framed Samuel’s review around a narrative of cutting the “green tape” that it believed unnecessarily held up development.

In June the government announced fast-tracked approvals for 15 major infrastructure projects in response to the COVID-19 economic slowdown. And on Monday, Ley indicated the government will prioritise the new national environmental standards, including further streamlining approval processes.

Here’s where the danger lies. The government wants to introduce legislation in August. Minister Ley said “prototype” environmental standards proposed by Professor Samuel will be introduced at the same time. This is well before Samuel’s final report, due in October.

I believe this timeframe is unwise, and wildly ambitious.

Even though Samuel proposes a two-stage process, with interim standards as the first step, these initial standards risk being too vague. And once they’re in place, states may resist moving to a stricter second stage.

To take one example, the prototype standards in Samuel’s report say approved development projects must not have unacceptable impacts on matters of national environmental significance. He says more work is needed on the definition of “unacceptable”, adding this requires “granular and specific guidance”.

I believe this requires standards being tailored to different ecosystems across our wide and diverse landscapes, and being specific enough to usefully guide the assessment of any given project. This is an enormous task which cannot be rushed. And if Samuel’s prototype were adopted on an interim basis, states would be free, within some limits, to decide what is “unacceptable”.

It’s also worth noting that the national standards model will need significant financial resources. Samuel’s model would see the Commonwealth doing fewer individual project approvals and less on-ground compliance. However, it would enter a new and complex world of developing environmental standards.

More haste, less speed

Samuel’s interim report will go out for public comment before the final report is delivered in October. Ley concedes further consultation is needed on some issues. But in other areas, the government is not willing to wait.

After years of substantive policy inaction it seems the government wants to set a new land-speed record for environmental reform.

The government’s fixation with cutting “green tape” should not unduly colour its reform direction. By rushing efforts to streamline approvals, the government risks creating a jumbled process with, once again, poor environmental outcomes.

Image by MrsKirk72 from Pixabay

This story originally appeared in The Conversation.

Health trumps economy; economy trumps environment

Political priorities hinge on voter values

By David Salt

As CoVID 19 burns it way through 2020, the economy is taking a king hit. And I don’t simply mean a downturn in economic activity and ‘wealth’ creation; I also refer to the hegemony of economic advice in our national decision making. Traditional economic advice is taking a back seat to health advice.

The environment, as always, isn’t given any priority despite the environmental catastrophe of the wildfires at the beginning of the year.

Political priorities

The reason behind this switch of priorities is self evidently political. We have been receiving an avalanche of information and media showing us how bad the pandemic can be and our political leaders have had little choice but to follow expert advice on how to tackle this highly contagious virus because the consequences of not following this advice would be political death.

As I have discussed earlier (see ‘The man who shamed the PM’), Australia was uniquely lucky in its engagement with CoVID 19. Our national government was reluctant to bring on the lockdown because of the economic pain it would cause (even in the dying moments prior to the lockdown the PM was keen to promote mass crowd gatherings and wanted to personally attend rugby league matches) but the Black Summer of fire had our leaders hypersensitive to the perils of delay in the face of disaster. Consequently, they listened and responded quickly to the expert advice they were receiving.

And when that advice (and the government’s response) appeared to halt the virus in its tracks in Australia there was wide spread praise for government action and a belief that we had defeated CoVID 19.

Now we’re facing a second wave of disease with an explosion of cases in Victoria stemming from a breakdown in quarantine procedures. The critics are lining up to berate the Victorian State Government for not doing enough (often the same critics who castigated the Government for being too slow to reopen the economy) but all governments (state and federal) appear to be very responsive to the expert medical advice on how we need to respond as a society – close the borders, step up testing, enforce a lockdown of affected areas and increase community awareness of appropriate (and inappropriate) social behaviour.

Just as the bushfire emergency primed us for this pandemic emergency, so this breakout in Victoria is sustaining our vigilance and readiness to act on expert advice.

Real costs

Of course, this advice runs contrary to many economic advisers and business interests encouraging the government to open up the economy again.

Indeed some economists, such as Professor Gigi Foster from the University of NSW, say there’s a strong argument suggesting Australians would have been better off if the economy was never locked down, even if a “very extreme epidemic” had occurred. She points out that there are real and significant costs (including increased loss of life) associated with the economic lockdown that are not acknowledged by health experts who are just focussing on the impacts of the corona virus.

The Prime Minister tells us the lockdown is costing the economy $4 billion a week and that we need to get one million Australians back to work.

Of course, every decision has a cost, but these costs vary over time and space with different impacts on different people. The costs that matter most to our political leaders are those costs their voters perceive to be the most important to them. At this instant, voters are most scared about the immediate health implications of an unraveling pandemic.

A hierarchy of concern

Yes, those same voters are worried about the death of the Great Barrier Reef due to climate change. Indeed, a recent ABC poll found 60% of Australians believer climate change is real and present and “immediate action is necessary” (with another 24% feeling “some action” should be taken). The experts have provided the government with detailed advice on what action it needs to take to counter climate change but that advice by and large has been ignored, primarily behind the cover that it will hurt our economy.

The government is currently reviewing its premier environmental law and the line it is running is the primary focus needs to be on how it can be reformed to speed up economic growth (a line strongly backed by the resources industry).

Time and again we see it, the economy trumps the environment. Recall former Prime Minister Abbott’s words after the last election: “Where climate change is a moral issue we Liberals do it tough. Where climate change is an economic issue, as tonight shows, we do very, very well.”

However, in these strange times we’re seeing something new – health is trumping the economy. Could this be the proximity of the issue to your average voter? Considerations about the Great Barrier Reef don’t affect your average Australian on a day-to-day basis. The cost of petrol (and the strength of the economy and the employment market) does. However, the availability of toilet paper and the fear of your workmates, neighbours and family, trumps your concern about the strength of the economy.

Environment first

Which leads to a fairly sad conclusion when it comes to environmental protection; it will only become a significant priority (to our political leaders) when it is perceived (by voters) as being fundamental to their day-to-day welfare and intrinsic to their economic wellbeing.

As one voter, I hold these truths to be self-evident (ie, the environment is central to our quality of life), as do many of the voters whose lives were shattered by the Black Summer fires. But I’m certain this is not the case for the wider electorate where the environment is only a consideration after everything else has been addressed.

Until the environment is perceived as central to our sustainable health and wellbeing (and under immediate threat), it will always be trumped by other values. That’s something every environmental expert should keep in mind when telling the world about their latest scientific insight.

Image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay

It’s time: for a national conversation on the environment

And that conversation should include national goals and environmental measurement

By Peter Burnett

Soon after she became federal environment minister last year, Sussan Ley spoke of a collaborative approach to the environment.

Foreshadowing what is now Professor Graeme Samuel’s Independent Review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, Ley said the review was ‘the right time to have a conversation about the best ways we can ensure strong environmental and biodiversity protection measures that encourage people to work together in supporting the environment’.

Professor Samuel has handed his draft report to Ley, who is expected to release it soon.

So it’s about time to start that conversation.

Of course, it would have been better to have the conversation a long time ago, when the environment wasn’t in such dire straits, but as the Chinese proverb puts it, ‘The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.’

I’d like to suggest a couple of conversation-starters.

An agreed goal: what kind of environment do we want?

The first is to make sure the conversation leads to an agreed national statement of the kind of environment Australians want.

This is not an easy thing to do. For example, while most might support a goal of a ‘healthy’ environment, translating that vision into policy raises difficult questions like ‘how healthy?’ and ‘at what cost?’

Yet we need to commit to a clear goal. Otherwise we are left with our ongoing focus on the short term, something which has only delivered what Australia’s doyen of environmental policy, Professor Steve Dovers, has described as ‘policy ad hocery and amnesia’.

In colloquial terms this is a constant chopping and changing and it severely undermines our efforts to address environmental problems.

Earlier efforts at defining that national goal

So far, the closest we’ve come to adopting a clear national goal was through the ‘ESD [Ecologically Sustainable Development] process’, an intense dialogue between government, business, unions and environment groups in the early 1990s.

The ESD process produced a massive 12 volume consensus report containing hundreds of substantial recommendations. However, politics, especially Paul Keating’s ousting of Bob Hawke as Prime Minister, got in the way.

In the end, Australia’s governments gave us a vaguely-written and unfunded National Strategy on ESD.

As a conversation, the ESD process had at least two major flaws.

First, hardly anyone really knew what ESD meant. Unlike the ‘sustainability’ of political discourse, which means all things to all people, ESD is a real but complex and often misunderstood concept.

Second, the ESD process was a conversation between elites, which largely passed the rest of us by.

So we signed up to ESD through the National Strategy, without really ‘buying’ it. One consequence was that ESD was then written into many laws and policies, though usually in ways that allow lip service, which is what ESD usually gets.

But every now and again someone takes it seriously, as the Federal Court did recently in finding that VicForests had failed to apply the precautionary principle (one element of ESD) and were thus logging unlawfully.

This kind of outcome, where we set, but then ignore, environmental speed limits, while occasionally dabbing the brakes, is hardly good policy.

If we are going to have a national conversation, it needs to be widely publicised, well-informed, run at ‘town hall’ level and continued for as long as it takes to get a real sense of the aspirations of the Australian people for the future.

We especially need to grapple with the tension underlying ESD, which is how to reconcile our desires for ongoing economic growth with the capacity of the environment to support our ever-growing consumption of environmental goods and services.

If we squib this major challenge, we will likely continue as we have, nibbling away at various parts of the environment with a limited understanding of the cumulative impact of our daily decisions, large and small.

This nibbling away is what a famous American economist, Alfred Kahn, once described as ‘the tyranny of small decisions.’ And as the leading ecologist William Odum recognized, it is particularly pertinent to the environment.

You can’t manage what you can’t measure

My second suggestion concerns the dry but vital topic of environmental information.

One of the shibboleths of modern management is ‘you can’t manage what you can’t measure’. Managing the environment is doubly difficult because, even if we had unlimited data, we still wouldn’t fully understand nature in its complexity.

However a comprehensive information system, including environmental accounts to help arrange information for decision-making, would be a major advance.

Despite governments actively seeking to manage the environment for nearly 50 years, we still don’t have such a system. There have been many programs and promises over the years, but governments have tended to scale them back or drop them as they change focus.

Maybe that’s because environmental information isn’t politically ‘sexy’; most people neither know nor care.

A good example is the Rudd Government’s 2010 National Plan for Environmental Information (NPEI). This plan grew out of a recommendation from Prime Minister Rudd’s 2020 Summit (held in 2007) that Australia develop national environmental accounts.

But the NPEI was underfunded from the outset and then cut after a change of government.

We still have no national baseline biodiversity monitoring, first promised in 1996.

And although the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has been experimenting with national environmental-economic accounts for decades, these accounts remain experimental, partial or intermittent. They are certainly not developed to the point where they could support specific environmental management decisions.

If we were having a national conversation, I would argue for a national institution to gather and hold environmental information.

We do this for mineral resources, through Geoscience Australia; for health and welfare, through the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare; and for water resources, through the Bureau of Meteorology. An institution for environmental information is a logical next step.

And I would expand dramatically the environmental accounts prepared by the ABS, requiring them to be used in real environmental decisions.

The coming national conversation?

So we badly need a national conversation on protecting the environment, but will we get one?

Sussan Ley is hardly paving the way, having spoken of the Samuel Review only in the context of ‘cutting green tape’, a slogan.

Perhaps Ley will surprise us, by making some speeches about biodiversity or convening public forums to discuss the review.

Whether the conversation is led by government or not, we need to rise above slogans for a broad and respectful conversation about our environmental values.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

A bluffer’s guide to Australia’s premier environmental law

and why it’s going so horribly wrong

By David Salt

Any casual reader of the news (and of this blog) probably would have noticed that Australia’s environmental law is in the spotlight at the moment. It’s being reviewed, analysed and attacked from multiple directions.

Anyone with half an interest in nature or biodiversity conservation probably believes it’s important that Australia’s environmental laws are strong and effective. However, most people have very little idea what those laws are, how they work and whether they are adequate.

Well, here’s a quick summary of what Australia’s premier environmental law is and what all the fuss is about. Think of it as your ‘bluffer’s guide’ to Australia’s environmental law.

Why would you bother with a bluffer’s guide? Because the legislation itself is impenetrable (see item 1).

1. What is Australia’s premier environmental law?

Each state and territory has its own environmental legislation but the nation’s premier law is the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act) created and implemented by the Federal Government. It was enacted in 1999, is over 1000 pages long, full of arcane legal language and has been described by some as ‘impenetrable’.

Fortunately, Peter Burnett (the co-producer of Sustainability Bites) is a lawyer and has taken the time to break the Act down into its constituent part and explain them in plain English (see ‘What’s in the EPBC Box’). It has 16 major components which come together to serve three broad functions:

Identify: The Act identifies which environmental values (threatened species and special places) should be protected. These are often referred to as ‘matters of national environmental significance’ and include World Heritage places (like the Great Barrier Reef) and nationally-listed species (like the Leadbeater’s possum).

Plan: The Act provides planning for the conservation of these environmental values; for example, developing recovery plans for threatened species and management plans for protected areas.

Assess: The EPBC Act assesses and approves developments that might harm the environmental values protected by the Act. The best known component in this third stream is project-based environmental impact assessment. The Act gives the government the power to block projects that adversely impact matters of national environmental significance.

2. Who doesn’t like the law?

Everyone.

Everyone has problems with the EPBC Act, but the issues are different depending on where you’re coming from.

Environmentalists complain the Act is not protecting the values it was set up to protect. Species and ecosystems are going extinct or degrading at an accelerating rate, and areas of special significance (like the Great Barrier Reef) are not being protected from global changes such as climate change.

Developers and farmers, on the other hand, complain the Act is making it harder to turn a profit and get projects off the ground. They claim the approval process is green tape that adds to the cost of a development and enables political green groups to attack them in the courts (lawfare).

3. What’s wrong with the law?

The problem with pointing out what’s ‘wrong’ with the EPBC Act is that you’ll be instantly dismissed by the ‘opposing’ side; and clearly I’m on the pro-environmental side. On this side of the fence, the claims of green tape and lawfare appear unsubstantiated and ideological (and for an excellent discussion on this see Peter Burnett’s last blog green tape and lawfare). However, they have been repeated so often they have become articles of faith to some groups.

On the other hand, there are a substantial number of studies showing the EPBC Act is failing to protect the things it was established to protect. For example, a new analysis by WWF Australia shows that more than a million hectares of threatened species’ habitat was cleared for agriculture in New South Wales and Queensland without referral to the federal environment department for assessment, one of the main purposes of the EPBC Act.

The Australian Conservation Foundation found that in the past 20 years, the period during which the EPBC Act was in force, an area of threatened species habitat larger than Tasmania (7.7 million hectares) has been logged, bulldozed and cleared. And they cite numerous case studies of where the government has failed to act even when something is referred under the EPBC Act.

Those who see the EPBC Act as a hindrance would simply discount such evidence no matter how well researched – “well, they would say that, wouldn’t they!” Then they’d probably follow up with something like “but we’re here for jobs and growth!”

Possibly harder to dismiss (on ideological grounds) is the review undertaken by the Australian National Audit Office. Just released, it found the government’s administration of the EPBC Act to be inefficient, ineffective and had failed to manage environmental risk. It also found funding cuts to the department since 2014-15 had slowed down the assessment and approval times for developments. It is a scathing reflection on the Government’s management of the Act.

4. How could we make it work better?

It’s been pointed out by many people that the existing EPBC Act could operate with fewer delays while still affording the same level of protection simply by providing more resources for its operation. Between 2013 and 2019, the federal environment department’s budget was cut by 40%, according to an assessment by the Australian Conservation Foundation. So it’s little wonder approval processes slowed.

Underlining this, at the end of last year the Government put $25 million towards speeding up environmental approvals, in effect simply reversing part of their cost cutting over the years.

In addition to resourcing, more effort towards coordinating assessments between the federal and state governments would go some way towards speeding up the approval process.

Changing the law itself is another approach but this is a chancy approach because it’s hard to negotiate anything through the unpredictable numbers in the Senate. Towards this end, the Act itself requires that it be independently reviewed every 10 years. The first review in 2009 came up with a comprehensive set of reforms to improve the operation of the Act but amidst the political turmoil of the time nothing every materialised.

Today we are waiting on the interim report of the second EPBC review led by Graeme Samuel, former Chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Much rides on this report and everyone is wondering what it will say so close on the release of so many other damning reports on the EPBC Act’s inability to protect Australia’s environmental values.

5. What’s right about the EPBC Act?

The EPBC Act is a strong piece of legislation. It gives the Minister for the Environment the power to block actions and developments that threaten environmental values that the Government has said it would protect. It causes developers to consider the environmental impact of their projects and hopefully modify their plans to ameliorate potential impact. These things are good.

However, if the Minister chooses to use her (or his) discretion to determine a development isn’t threatening ‘matters of national environmental significance’, and the government starves the Department of Environment (currently sitting in the Department of Agriculture) of resources making it impossible to collect the evidence and assess the true nature of any potential development, the Act is disempowered.

At the end of the day, every piece of law is only as good as its implementation. If the government is failing in its duty of care for the nation’s natural heritage then we should be holding the government to account, not blaming the law that is supposed to protect that heritage.

Which begs the question, when will we demand our Government be true to its stated claim that it does care for our environment? Will it be before the predicted extinction of koalas in NSW by 2050? What about the impending destruction of the last remaining habitat of the stocky galaxias, a critically endangered native fish threatened by the Snowy 2.0 project (a project that has just been given the green light by Environment Minister Sussan Ley)? These are just two stories in the news this week. Thousands of other environmental values are similarly at risk, awaiting the Government’s next move on how it deals with Australia’s premier environmental law.

Image by Bruce McLennan from Pixabay