Once again, we’re trying to fix Australia’s nature laws and as an environmental lawyer, alarm bells are ringing. Because this time there’s no genuine consultation. No transparency. And it all seems to be heading in the wrong direction.
Leaked Treasury documents reveal the federal department recommends a “national artificial intelligence plan” to speed up environmental approvals – letting AI algorithms, not experts, decide whether a project can bulldoze a forest or drain a wetland.
The Albanese government appears to be backing away from a decade of exhaustive consultation and taking up the rallying cry of industry to streamline, “fast track” and hand its responsibilities over to the states.
Unsurprisingly, industry voices are loud. They don’t want government asking inconvenient questions or scrutinising their plans. The old playbook is back: Pit the environment against people, forgetting that everyone needs clean air, safe water, a stable climate
and living nature.
Hundreds of people have spent thousands of hours over the past few years genuinely engaging with the reform processes the Labor government set up. Now it looks like so much of that work will be
tossed aside in favour of changes that appease the fossil fuel industry, developers and industrial agriculture. To tick the reform box, and take us back 25 years.
We have one very important set of federal nature laws in Australia – the Environment Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act). These laws are supposed to ensure the government properly scrutinises new developments for environmental harm.
We need protection for the air we breathe, the water we drink from local catchments and the animals that visit our back yards. We also need to protect internationally-recognised wetlands in Kakadu, animals threatened by extinction like the beautiful Gouldian
finch and irreplaceable Aboriginal heritage at the Burrup Peninsula rock art in Western Australia.
Local communities, including our clients at Environmental Justice Australia, frequently turn to these laws when industry tries to open damaging mines in precious bushland, bulldoze an internationally-recognised wetland, or dig up 50 years of greenhouse gas-polluting
coal for export.
After working with these laws for 20 years, it’s very clear where they fail and what needs reform. But the signals we are getting from government show they’re heading in the opposite direction.
Will we get an independent Environment Protection Agency, the “tough cop on the beat” that the government promised? Will we finally get environment laws that address climate change and end deforestation? Will they put approval decisions in the hands of an independent, science-backed body – or hand them over to politicians and AI?
Yes, these laws can be improved to give more certainty to industry on the outcome of development applications. But the focus of reforms should be to end extinction, protect our air and water and precious natural places, champion Indigenous knowledge and do
something about the damn climate crisis.
We don’t need pretend reform. We need leadership from this government to make strong and sensible reforms that will protect nature, allow our precious wildlife to flourish and help Australia become a global leader in reducing climate emissions.
The window to influence these reforms is right now – and it’s closing fast.
Nicola Rivers is the co-CEO of Environmental Justice Australia
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