Dr Phillipa McCormack on Reforming Australia’s Outdated Environment Laws

The Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) is now 25 years old — and widely regarded as outdated. With major reviews completed in 2009 and 2020, both found that the EPBC Act was too repetitive and complex.

In recent news, the Albanese Government has indicated it is close to striking a deal with the Coalition on new environmental laws, which must deliver substantial improvements.

Environment Institute Future Making Fellow Dr Phillipa McCormack co-authored a recent article for The Conversation, outlining key recommendations for how Australia’s environment laws should be reformed.

The laws are hoped to be reworked by the end of the year as a single package reducing delay, shares Environment Minister Murray Watt. As it stands, the EPBC Act doesn’t serve either the environment or the economy.

They provided various recommendations for the reform, covering topics like an independent watchdog, habitat protection, climate change, First Nations voices, logging, and the need for defined targets.

Reforming the Act would establish clear National Environmental Standards, legally binding rules to guide better national outcomes while removing duplication between state and federal processes.

An independent and well-resourced Environment Protection Agency (EPA) is critical to ensure transparent assessments and enforce legal compliance across industries. It’s still unsure as to how the EPA will perform, whether it be an independent body or as an approvals and regulatory function.

The review also recommends clearly defining what constitutes “unacceptable impacts”, ensuring irreplaceable habitats are legally protected from destructive developments. Under the existing Act, “unacceptable impacts” refers to actions that have substantial negative effects on Matters of National Environmental Significance (MNES) referring to habitat destruction, threatened species, and protected places, to name a few.

It was recommended that it be illegal to abolish or damage the habitats of rare and endangered species, creating a list of exempt areas that cannot be developed. The new laws would need to address the “unacceptable impacts” to habitats of new projects and save irreplaceable land from new developments.

There has been a minimum of ten attempts to introduce a “climate trigger”, all of which have been unsuccessful. If a climate trigger were added to the Act, projects could be rejected based on their direct emissions or contribution to climate change, a proposal that has been attempted and failed. As it stands, the Safeguard Mechanism legislates limits on greenhouse gas emissions for Australia, helping achieve our emission reduction targets by 2030, however it applies only to direct or scope 1 greenhouse gas emissions.

Regardless, the EPBC Act must serve to mirror the impacts of climate change on our environment.

First Nations voices are to be involved, and displaying genuine Indigenous engagement is “a required standard” for environmental decision-making. This would extend to creating new laws to protect culturally significant species.

Another recommendation is to end any regional forestry agreements, as “they’ve allowed logging for too long”.

Clear targets should be in place to prevent new extinctions, however these targets will need to protect what is at risk. With this comes the need for more funding and a better understanding of endangered species and ecological communities.

Australia still has a long way to go to reclaim leadership in nature conservation. The EPBC Act reforms should set the standard for recovery strategies and environmental laws.

To read the full article written for The Conversation, click here.