Federal government accused of watering down proposal to protect Australia’s threatened species and ecosystems | Australian politics
Green groups accused the Albanian government of watering down a proposal to protect threatened species and ecosystems.
National environmental standards formed the basis of reforms to Australia’s natural laws passed by parliament in November.
The government is consulting on a draft standard for projects of national environmental importance, including endangered wildlife, world heritage sites and great barrier reefs.
Environmentalists criticized the final draft, which they said eliminated the need for developments to meet specific environmental targets.
Changes to the draft standards published on Thursday mean developers will be deemed to have met the targets if they follow specific processes or “principles” in their environmental assessments, rather than directly demonstrating that required environmental outcomes can be met.
The Wilderness Society said the changes undermined the purpose of national standards aimed at reversing the decline of plants, animals and ecosystems.
“The draft standard is a step backwards and will not protect wildlife from extinction or stop deforestation,” said biodiversity policy and campaigns manager Melanie Audrey.
Audrey said the draft standards on issues of national environmental importance were “poorly worded, full of loopholes and failed to set clear red lines for protecting nature.”
WWF-Australia said the latest version of the standard was weaker than the first draft published last year and was further away from the clear, measurable standards proposed by Graeme Samuel.
The former competition watchdog’s 2020 review of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act found Australia’s laws were failing nature, in part, by being too process-oriented. The review recommended national standards that mandate measurable results so the environment can reverse this decline.
The publication of the draft standard comes the same week that Anthony Albanese announced at a mining conference in Western Australia that he would give $45 million to state and territory governments to advance plans to allow them to decide on federal environmental assessments.
This change would, in theory, streamline environmental approvals by allowing states to decide whether projects meet the requirements of national natural laws and evaluate these projects against new national standards.
Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt said on Thursday that the government would publish further standards proposals in the coming weeks and hoped to have the first set finalized by mid-year. He said the draft, on issues of national environmental importance, “sets out clear and actionable expectations regarding impacts on our most valuable species, habitats and heritage sites”.
But the Australian Conservation Foundation said its initial concerns that the standard “does not raise the bar for nature” were raised by the latest update.
“As currently proposed, the statutory test for consistency with the standard will be met if the developer can only confirm that it complies with certain principles and follows certain processes,” said national biodiversity policy officer Brendan Sydes.
“There is no requirement that these processes actually deliver the results and objectives expressed in the standard.”
Lis Ashby, policy and innovation lead at the Biodiversity Council, said Australia’s threatened species population had declined by an average of 50% over the past two decades.
“This will not address this issue at all,” he said.
“Watt said his government’s commitment to tackling extinctions required legislative reform that would tip the dial in favor of the environment; this is not the case.
“He gives people a gold star for their effort, even if the results are terrible.”
Watt told Sky News on Friday that the standards would lead to “more clarity around what kind of requirements there will be to get environmental approval rather than the choose-your-own-adventure approach we have at the moment”.
