Laws for nature

Not since 1972 have the states controlled Australia’s environmental decision-making. Now the Commonwealth intends to hand this responsibility to Premiers with clear anti-environmental credentials. Instead of the national leadership required to look after an entire continent, its surrounding seas and unique wildlife, responsibility under an already weak law will be fragmented amongst eight jurisdictions. This is a giant step backwards, the most serious attack on Australia’s environment in over 40 years.

Plans for the Commonwealth to vacate environmental decision making were foreshadowed in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act 1999 which includes provisions for ‘bilateral approval agreements’.  Like Regional Forest Agreements under which decisions about native forest logging are delegated to the states (see One stop chop report), bilateral approval agreements potentially give the states control of environmental decisions affecting everything from World Heritage to threatened species. The hand-over plan was picked up by the Labor government in 2012 then abandoned following a sharp campaign (see briefing note below). It re-emerged as the Coalition’s ‘One Stop Shop‘ policy in the run up to the 2013 election.

The first One Stop Shop agreements were to be concluded by September 2014. None have yet been finalised; EPBC amendments to facilitate the handover are blocked in the Senate; and it is likely that any completed agreements would meet the same fate (they have to be tabled in both houses and can be disallowed).

If the One Stop Shop is indeed stalled, Australia is left with weak national environment laws in the face of an escalating extinction crisis. If our wildlife and natural places are to survive and thrive we need new laws, independent institutions and adequate resources.

Read:
Chris McGrath Conversation article (3 October 2014)
Margaret Blakers Guardian article: Threatened species: we do have time to turn it around if there is political will (August 2013)