Where are we up to with the review of Australia's environment laws?

In July, Professor Graeme Samuel released the interim report from his independent review of Australia’s failed national environment law, the EPBC Act. The independent review is still ongoing and is expected to wrap up in October.

Professor Samuel found that our national environment laws are failing our wildlife, precious places and biodiversity (no surprises there!). The report also found communities don’t trust the EPBC Act to deliver effective protection of the environment (nor should they based on the evidence). 

To rebuild community trust, Professor Samuel said that:

• the Australian Government should set strong national standards and clear rules for decision-making for nature protection.
• we need an “independent compliance and enforcement regulator” (an independent watchdog) to enforce these standards and the law.
• the knowledge or views of First Nations Australians should be fully valued in decision-making.
• communities should be able to properly participate in decision-making. This includes having all the information they need to understand the impacts of government decisions and having the ability to challenge bad decisions.

The review is not yet done and it’s really missing some key pieces. For example, there was not much in this interim report about how we tackle major drivers of extinction like deforestation and logging. Hopefully, the final report has Professor Samuel’s recommendations for dealing with these major problems.

The Government response is …… not great

Unfortunately, the Morrison Government response to this review has been less than stellar. They’ve cherry-picked some of Samuel’s interim recommendations - like handing over their environmental responsibilities to the states, a policy they've tried and failed to get up since 2014. 

While they have now also agreed to develop national environmental standards, they’re rushing their planned handover to the states

• before strong national environmental standards are in place
• before clear plans and funding to ensure state governments can implement and enforce them, 
• without an independent watchdog to oversee and enforce the laws, and
• before the Independent Review itself is finished and we see its final recommendations.  

They are asking us to trust them to handball their responsibilities to the states with no standards or checks in place.

Environment Minister Sussan Ley gazetted plans to develop new bilateral agreements with all states and territories last week, and has said she aims to introduce legislation to support those bilaterals to Federal Parliament in the August-September sitting period.

Australia is the extinction nation because of years of government inaction, poor enforcement of laws and watering down of environmental protections. Handing environmental responsibilities over to the states - often themselves proponents of major destructive projects (think the Franklin Dam or the actions of state logging agencies) - without and safeguards or oversight will exacerbate, not fix, these many problems.

To protect our wildlife and natural heritage, we need strong national environment safeguards that tackle the major drivers of extinction, deal with the climate crisis and protect our world and cultural heritage. We also need an independent watchdog to enforce the law fairly for all, and robust community oversight in the form of participation in decision making and the right to challenge bad decisions by the Government.

Unless the Morrison Government does the work necessary to fix the major problems with the EPBC Act highlighted by the Samuel report, communities cannot trust that our environment laws will protect our wildlife, our world and cultural heritage or our environment. Without this, we’re simply locking in more loss and more extinction.