New Environment Laws a Win for Both Conservation and Industry

Since 1996, the review of Commonwealth environmental laws has been the subject of a wide-ranging and often confused public debate. Everyone agreed that the laws, dating back to the early 1970s, were long past their use-by date.

Industry was faced with a maze of environmental approvals, never certain which level of government was required to give the final tick. The Commonwealth, meanwhile, was forced to rely on ad hoc reasons, such as foreign investment approval, to trigger its involvement in environmental approvals.

After endorsement by the Council of Australian Governments, and lengthy consultation with stakeholders, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Bill emerged. Suddenly, opinion divided along the old ideological lines of "industry versus the green movement".

The old guard of the green movement branded the laws a sell-out of Commonwealth responsibility, claiming they were a blanket handover of Commonwealth power to the States. Industry and some State governments, meanwhile, were claiming the new laws were a power grab by the Commonwealth.

At different times, the proposed law has been attacked in the media along both of these opposed lines.

Industry, to its credit, remained "inside the tent", choosing to argue its case and seeking to have its concerns addressed.

The old guard of the green movement chose to remain completely opposed to the bill. It argued that the whole process, now three years old, should start again.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Senate. Respected green groups such as the World Wide Fund for Nature, the Humane Society International, and some State conservation councils recognised that the bill embodied goals for which they had been campaigning for years.

The result was significant improvement to the bill negotiated by the Democrats, with the support of those green groups.

Groups such as the Australian Conservation Foundation claim they were locked out of the process by the Democrats, when the reality is that the ACF effectively locked itself out.

The ACF leadership was twice offered briefings by my office on the proposed changes in the weeks leading up to the finalisation of the agreement with the Democrats. If it had taken up the offers, the ACF might have been better informed on what the bill had to offer.

For example, existing Commonwealth endangered species laws apply only on Commonwealth land - approximately 1 per cent of the continent. Since 1992 the ACF has described this as a "crucial flaw" with ACF president Peter Garrett saying the existing law was "weak, discretionary and unenforceable".

The new bill fixes this "crucial flaw" by protecting threatened species across the whole continent. The ACF would have preferred to throw out this and other major Improvements in the bill and return to years more talking. Talk keeps Environmental lobbyists in work but doesn't do too much for the environment.

The new bill allows the Commonwealth to "accredit" State environmental approvals. The ACF and others claim this would see the Franklin dammed, the Daintree logged and Fraser Island mined. That's nonsense.

The bill allows State decisions to be accredited only when a management plan is agreed to with the Commonwealth, and either House can disallow the management plan. This reflects an appropriate balance that requires Commonwealth agreement on the "rules" to be applied but respects the States' role in implementing on-ground management.

And there is increased protection for World Heritage areas such as Fraser Island, the Daintree and the Tasmanian wilderness. The existing world heritage Legislation has applied to only five activities in 16 years.

In contrast, the EPBC Bill will ensure that all activities likely to have a significant impact on world heritage properties are subject to assessment and approval. Maximum penalties for non-compliance are increased from zero to $5.5 million.

Along with increased environmental protection, the Bill delivers major benefits to industry through less duplication of effort, the up-front certainty of the approvals process, and the guarantee of a specific time-frame for decisions by the Commonwealth.

Overall, the proper balance has been struck between Commonwealth Responsibility to protect the environment and the need to provide industry with scope to responsibly grow the economy and create jobs.