Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Labor is the party of the environment. It's Labor that has delivered every single major environment reform in Australia's history—Landcare, saving the Franklin, protecting the Daintree and Kakadu, building the largest network of marine parks in the world and meaningfully addressing the threat of climate change.

And now it's Labor that wants to reform our national environment laws to ensure that we are protecting nature for generations to come.

The truth is our environment laws are broken.

They're not working for the environment, business, the economy or for the community.

That was the clear assessment delivered by Professor Graeme Samuel when he handed down his independent review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), a review that was delivered five years ago today to the then minister for the environment and now opposition leader.

And five years later where are we? With laws that are enabling the decline of our precious natural environment—the iconic creatures and beautiful places that are fundamental to the Australian character.

They are also not facilitating the important projects we need—the housing, renewable energy, critical minerals we need for Australia's economic future.

This government has listened and the message is clear: we need change.

The law is broken. We have to fix it.

That's the challenge for everyone in this place now.

I acknowledge the presence in the chamber of Australia's Minister for the Environment, Senator Murray Watt. His work has made sure that we now have before us a package of bills that will finally deliver the reforms to our environment laws that Australians have long demanded.

Our a pproach

Five years ago today the Samuel review was handed down to the then coalition government, outlining a blueprint for reform.

It provided a clear set of recommendations to fundamentally reform the way that environment impacts and approvals are managed in this country.

This package of bills remains faithful to our commitment to follow the spirit of the Samuel review in reforming this legislation.

In crafting these reforms we have looked to three key pillars.

Firstly, there is stronger environmental protection and restoration—to not just look after our special places, but to restore and regenerate them for future generations.

Secondly, there is more efficient and robust project assessments and approvals, delivering a system which can better respond to big national priorities like the renewable energy transition, a future made in Australia and the housing that we need.

And finally, there is greater accountability and transparency in decision-making, so that all Australians can have confidence in these laws, including delivering our election commitment for Australia's National Environment Protection Agency.

Pillar 1: stronger environmental protection and restoration.

The Samuel review clearly articulated the necessity of better protecting the environment.

It found that 'Australia's natural environment and iconic places are in an overall state of decline and are under increasing threat.'

There are a number of key new measures in these bills.

E nvironmental s tandards

This bill will deliver a new framework for national environmental standards, which would allow clear standards for critical environmental protection measures to be set out in regulations—this was the centrepiece of the Samuel review.

Standards are aimed at delivering both improved environmental outcomes and better certainty for businesses through setting clear and enforceable expectations.

The bill establishes the ministerial power to make national environmental standards which will be made in similar ways to other regulations.

Priority standards include those for matters of national environmental standards and offsets, with other standards, including for first nations engagement and data and information, to follow.

Draft priority standards will soon be available for consultation so that there is clarity on the direction of new protections before the passage of this legislation.

To ensure protections are not eroded over time, the standards framework includes a 'no regression' clause, meaning that standards cannot be changed or updated unless the new standard would deliver equivalent or improved environmental outcomes.

Unacceptable impacts

The EPBC Act currently includes a 'clearly unacceptable' category for decisions at the referral stage, however, the term unacceptable is undefined.

This was identified in the Samuel review which found that 'strong protections are needed for those matters most at risk of being lost, including clear rules about unacceptable impacts'.

This bill sets clear, upfront criteria for what constitutes an unacceptable impact to give clarity and certainty to business, while safeguarding our most precious natural assets.

It is designed to set a responsible standard, used in very limited circumstances, to protect those nationally protected matters that cannot ever be replaced.

Protection statements

A new ability to make protection statements will reduce ambiguity around what a decision-maker must consider during the approval of actions in protecting threatened species, providing greater clarity for proponents.

This results in strengthened protections for threatened species as well as more efficient decisions, meaning better environmental outcomes and faster assessments.

Stronger powers and penalties

The Samuel review recognised that for some bad actors, breaching the law is just the cost of doing business.

This bill package introduces tougher penalties and new compliance and enforcement powers to deter breaches and respond swiftly to serious environmental harm.

While we know that most proponents follow the law, we need modern, fit-for-purpose tools to respond to the most serious breaches.

The way to avoid these penalties is simple—follow the law, refer for assessment when appropriate and abide by the conditions of your approval, because once some things are gone, they are gone for good.

'Net gain'

This bill ensures that projects must leave the environment better off by introducing the concept of 'net gain' for environmental offsets, a shift from the current rules threshold which is 'no net loss'.

This is also a clear principle from the Samuel review.

Impacts to protected matters would need to be avoided and minimised, with residual significant impacts offset to leave the environment in a better state than what was there in the absence of a project.

This will shift the dial towards avoided impacts and restoration and give our natural environment the opportunity to regenerate, recover and become more resilient.

To support the shift in the offsets framework and deliver time savings for proponents, a new restoration contribution framework will be introduced. This framework will allow proponents to meet their obligations by either delivering their own offsets or by an upfront payment into a government restoration fund, or both.

The new Restoration Contributions Holder will be able to use the funds to strategically deliver offsets to have greater environmental benefits, including through pooling funds for similar impacts.

This approach is better for the environment and better for business.

Pillar 2: more efficient and robust decision-making

This bill package recognises that a more efficient regulatory system is also needed to enable better, faster decisions.

We have heard loud and clear that assessments under the EPBC Act are unpredictable, take too long, and that the impacts of long approval timeframes are being felt across the economy.

These reforms address this challenge head on.

Accreditatio n

Central to the Samuel Review were recommendations around reducing duplication between state and territory processes and Commonwealth processes.

While the act currently enables assessments and approvals under the EPBC Act to be undertaken by states and territories under bilateral agreements, these agreements are inflexible, unresponsive and easily broken over time.

The bill package seeks to improve the operation of bilateral agreements with states and territories, making the framework more responsive to change and more durable in the long term.

The changes will also ensure that state and territory processes accredited under bilateral agreements meet national environmental standards and have ongoing assurance mechanisms to ensure that environmental protection requirements are being met.

Ultimately, we want states and territories to be able to work with us towards less duplicative assessments, and ultimately, approvals while meeting our environmental standards.

Landscape scale approaches

In addition to increasing the efficiency of project-by-project approvals, we are focused on delivering proper landscape-scale approaches to environmental restoration and approvals.

Close cooperation between the Commonwealth, states and territories is critical to aligning regulatory systems and implementing these important national reforms.

These reforms provide the potential for us to plan together, at a landscape scale, delivering better environmental outcomes and more certainty for proponents.

Bioregional planning provisions will also be improved to unlock better government led planning and facilitate faster approvals.

By doing the work upfront to map areas of higher and lower biodiversity we can give certainty to industry and the community about where development can occur, while protecting areas of high environmental value.

This means that projects covered by a bioregional plan development zone will simply register to comply with the bioregional plan without needing to seek project level approval under the act.

Bioregional plans will, at the same time, give clear signals about where development is inappropriate with conservation zones where certain activities can't be undertaken.

Strategic assessments will also be made more flexible and efficient, better enabling state or territory governments or a partner to gain a strategic assessment approval.

Streamlined assessment pathways

The reforms create faster and clearer environmental assessments through a new streamlined pathway for proponents who provide sufficient upfront information and design their proposals in line with the environmental and other requirements of this bill.

It rationalises three existing pathways and is responsive to a recommendation of the Samuel Review.

The new pathway would reduce assessment and approval timeframes by 20 days, cutting the current 70-day statutory period to 50 days or less.

Analysis has shown that faster approvals through this pathway are estimated to save over half a billion dollars across the economy, and potentially as much as $7 billion.

Rulings

The bill introduces a new power for ministerial rulings, assisting in the interpretation and clarity of decision making under the act.

Rulings will clarify how laws, regulations or subordinate instruments apply in specific circumstances and would be made publicly available so that assessments are predictable, and everyone has visibility of how the law will be applied.

National interest pathways

A new national interest approval pathway would also be included in the act to allow critical projects to proceed in the national interest under strict transparency conditions, even if they do not meet all environmental standards—responding to a recommendation in the Samuel Review.

It is designed to be used rarely, where projects are demonstrably in the national interest and require the Minister to publish a statement of reasons in support of the decision.

The reforms would also make the current national interest exemption a more responsive mechanism, particularly in emergency situations, like where roads need to be made safe following natural disasters.

Reconsiderations changes

This bill package also addresses out-of-date reconsideration provisions—balancing environmental protection with certainty for industry.

These changes will include imposing a 28-day time limit for third parties to request a reconsideration of a controlled action decision, while the action is under assessment, aligned with timelines and other administrative review provisions in the act and increasing certainty for business.

Pillar 3: greater accountability and transparency in decision - making

Finally, these reforms deliver on this third pillar of the government's environmental law reform agenda: as I said, greater accountability and transparency in environmental decision-making.

This brings us to the Environmental Protection Agency.

EPA

A cornerstone of this third pillar is the establishment of an independent National Environmental Protection Agency, through the subsequent bill I will introduce, the National Environmental Protection Agency Bill 2025.

This has been a Labor commitment at the last two elections, endorsed by the Australian people, and will be delivered through this bill.

This is a landmark step in restoring transparency and effectiveness in environmental governance.

I want to take the opportunity here, as well as acknowledging the minister, to acknowledge Labor Party members, particularly the Labor Environment Action Network, who have advocated so strongly for this reform for many years. The establishment of the EPA will be a true Labor legacy—and I indicate thanks to those involved in that campaign over such a long time.

The National EPA will be Australia's first national, independent environmental protection agency.

As a national environmental regulator, the National EPA would not duplicate the role of state and territory EPAs.

By establishing a National EPA, we are creating a transparent, accountable, and unified regulator to oversee environmental protections.

The development of a National EPA model has been informed by extensive—indeed, years—of engagement with stakeholders.

Under current laws, decision-making on EPBC Act environmental assessments and approvals is the responsibility of the minister, who is democratically accountable.

This will not change.

The National EPA will also have a wholly independent role as a regulator of compliance and enforcement under the EPBC Act.

They will have access to stronger new powers, such as new environment protection orders, and will be tasked with holding serious environmental rule breakers to account for the environmental harm they have caused.

Integrated regulatory functions, spanning compliance, enforcement, assessment, monitoring and auditing, would deliver a more consistent and effective approach for stakeholders and the regulated community.

The National EPA will also provide guidance and education to both businesses and the public, in order to raise awareness and proactively support compliance with environmental laws.

The EPA will also have an important role to play in ensuring compliance with the national standards through bilateral agreements, providing advice to the minister about how accredited arrangements are complying with the national standards, with the minister ultimately responsible for signing off on accreditations.

There's also Environment Information Australia.

EIA

Currently, we know that national environmental information is fragmented. It's inconsistent in quality, and it's difficult to access and it's difficult to use.

To solve this problem, the Environment Information Australia Bill 2025 would establish the Head of Environment Information Australia.

This is a new statutory position within the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, with a mandate to provide environmental data and information to the National EPA, to the minister, and to the public.

The head of the EIA will be tasked with transparently reporting on trends in the environment, collecting information and producing consistent tracking of the state of Australia's environment.

Better data means better, faster decisions by government and business while protecting areas of high environmental value.

Emissions disclosure

The Environment Protection Reform Bill requires proponents to disclose estimates for scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions as part of the information requirements for a controlled action.

This will improve transparency and accountability for new developments under the act and support the effective operation of the safeguard mechanism, without duplicating it.

First Nations engagement in decision - making

The reforms codify the involvement of First Nations people in environmental governance and decision-making through the Indigenous advisory committee.

The reforms also create statutory advisory functions for the committee in the development of national environmental standards and in species listings and conservation planning.

Charges

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (Restoration Charge Imposition) Bill 2025 provides a legislative framework for cost recovery arrangements of restoration contributions to support project approvals, bioregional planning and national interest approvals and exemptions.

These changes support a new robust offsets regime. This contributes to simplified and streamlined environmental assessment processes, reducing uncertainty and delay for proponents.

This bill is one of four imposition bills that would establish a charging framework and provide for potential future appropriate cost recovery arrangements for environmental matters under the EPBC Act, subject to the decision of government.

Administrative fixes

Finally, the Environment Protection Reform Bill introduces a range of administrative fixes to address duplicative or inefficient processes in the legislation.

This includes streamlining wildlife trade laws to align with international standards, making permits more flexible and processes more efficient and making changes to reduce the need for separate approvals of offshore petroleum projects where regulations meet national standards, reflecting current practice under the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority strategic assessment.

The bill would also refine the scope of the nuclear trigger to focus on radiological exposure, which will avoid unnecessary referrals for critical minerals projects which are encountering trace elements of radioactive material, while maintaining strict oversight of uranium and nuclear facilities.

Conclusion

This package of bills is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reform our environmental laws.

We've been down this path before—under governments of both sides—and we cannot afford to wait any longer.

This bill is the product of work over many years by countless people, all of whom I know are keen to see this done.

It's a bill that clearly responds to the Samuel review and balances the need for stronger environmental protections with the imperative to ensure Australia's prosperity and deliver the critical projects we need.

It would deliver on the expectations of Australians for a system that is faster, fairer and fit for the future.

And now everyone who has the privilege of representing their community or their state or territory has the opportunity to be part of the solution.

We can get this done to deliver on what the Australian people put us here to do.

That is the priority of the Albanese government, and our door is open to make it happen.

Every day we delay is a day our environment is degrading further.

And every day we delay is one we could be building the renewable energy and the housing we need for the future.

I commend this bill to the chamber.

Debate adjourned.