Environment minister says cutting delays in project approvals could save the economy $300m a year
The Morrison government has promised a review of national environmental laws will “tackle green tape” and reduce delays in project approvals that it said costs the economy about $300m a year.
Hundreds of scientists have asked the government to use a legally required review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) to strengthen the legislation so it could be used to stem a worsening extinction crisis.
Announcing the review on Tuesday, Sussan Ley, the federal environment minister, emphasised the government’s goal was to deliver greater certainty to business groups, farmers and environment organisations.
The review, a once-a-decade examination required under the 1999 act and expected to take a year, is headed by Graeme Samuel, a businessman, Monash University professorial fellow and former chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
Ley said the review was not about ideology, and all sides in
environment debates agreed complexities in the act were leading to
unnecessary delays in reaching decisions about development proposals.Hundreds of scientists have asked the government to use a legally required review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) to strengthen the legislation so it could be used to stem a worsening extinction crisis.
Announcing the review on Tuesday, Sussan Ley, the federal environment minister, emphasised the government’s goal was to deliver greater certainty to business groups, farmers and environment organisations.
The review, a once-a-decade examination required under the 1999 act and expected to take a year, is headed by Graeme Samuel, a businessman, Monash University professorial fellow and former chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
“The act has been a world benchmark in environmental protection but needs to be adapted to changes in the environment and economy,” she said. “I’ve asked Professor Samuel to look at how we can improve efficiency and make clear and simple decisions that deliver strong, clear and focused environmental protection.”
Samuel said he came to the review as “a clean skin” and the review would aim to consult “every person in Australia who has an interest in the environment and in the issues of regulation”.
“I come with a clean sheet of paper, I have no preconceived views,” he said.
The expert panel working alongside Samuel is: Wendy Craik, the chair of the Climate Change Authority and a former National Farmers’ Federation chief; Erica Smyth, a geologist with decades of experience in the minerals and petroleum industry; Bruce Martin, a Wik Ngathan man and community leader from Cape York peninsula; Andrew Macintosh, an environmental law and policy expert at the Australian National University.
Environment groups noted the panel did not include anyone with a history of working to save endangered species. Craik previously headed a review of how conservation laws could better serve the agriculture industry that was completed earlier this year.
The future of the act was a point of difference at this year’s federal election, which saw a concerted campaign by environment groups for stronger environmental laws that was backed by Labor but rejected by the Coalition.
Green groups, academics and lawyers want tougher laws overseen by an independent environment protection authority, but business, minerals industry and farming representatives want the development approval process to be streamlined and fast-tracked.
This week more than 240 Australian conservation scientists signed an open letter to the prime minister, Scott Morrison, that said Australia’s environment laws were failing because they were too weak, had inadequate review and approval processes and were not overseen by an effective compliance regime.
They urged him to lift spending on conservation and back laws to address an extinction crisis under which three native species became extinct in the past decade and could lead to another 17 being lost in the next 20 years. More than 1,800 Australian plants and animals are listed as threatened with extinction.
Basha Stasak, a nature campaign manager at the Australian Conservation Foundation, said the group looked forward to working with Samuel and the panel to ensure the review left “an environmental legacy Australians can take pride in”.
She said the review must be seen through the lens of the extinction crisis: “In that light, we are disappointed the review panel does not include a conservation scientist.”
Suzanne Milthorpe, from the Wilderness Society, agreed. “We are concerned that the government has overlooked the vast level of scientific and practical conservation experience available by not appointing ecologists or conservation practitioners to the expert panel,” she said.
Andrew McConville, chief executive of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, said the oil and gas industry believed there did not need to be a trade-off between environmental outcomes and economic growth.
“[The association] supports the consideration of reducing regulatory burden while delivering equivalent or enhanced levels of environmental protection,” he said.
Labor’s environment spokeswoman, Terri Butler, urged the government must use the review to restore community and industry confidence in environmental processes, and linked delays in approval decisions to environment department budget cuts.
Greens environment spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said Ley was in denial about the extinction crisis and accused her of planning to use the review to water down the laws to favour of miners and developers.
A Guardian investigation last year found most campaigners and political veterans believed environmental protection was harder to win in Australia than at any time since before the wave of landmark 1980s decisions to save Tasmania’s Franklin river, recognise the Daintree rainforest and Kakadu national park and block mining in Antarctica. Some described the EPBC Act as legislation designed to manage developments, not protect the environment.
Less than 40% of nationally listed threatened species had recovery plans in place to secure their long-term survival. The federal environment department admitted earlier this year it did not know whether the recovery plans that were in place were being implemented. Conservation groups found spending on environment department programs has been cut by nearly 40% since the Coalition was elected in 2013.
A United Nations global assessment released in May found biodiversity across the planet was declining at an unprecedented rate, with 1m species across the globe at risk of extinction and human populations in jeopardy if the trajectory was not reversed.
Ley said Samuel would release a discussion paper in November before meeting interest groups. The government has set up a dedicated website for the review here.
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