News

Tuesday 4 November 2025 

Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025

National Environmental Protection Agency Bill 2025

Environment Information Australia Bill 2025

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (Customs Charges Imposition) Bill 2025

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (Excise Charges Imposition) Bill 2025

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (General Charges Imposition) Bill 2025

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (Restoration Charge Imposition) Bill 2025

Second Reading

Ms STEGGALL (21:44): At the outset I have to say how incredibly disappointed I am with the Labor government in the process they have followed, even just the contributions by Labor members in this debate with the greenwashing that is going on around this legislation. For the merit of those observing, this bill, the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025, was provided in full on Thursday last week, and this is the explanatory memorandum that was provided on Thursday as well. I would challenge any backbenchers of government on whether they have actually read this legislation—some 1,500 pages. The question is: are we supposed to take the government on good faith that what is said to be in this legislation actually is in the legislation? There is no way, unless there have been months of consultations with backbenchers by the minister, members in this place have properly digested this legislation to be in a position to genuinely vote on its merits.

This is the biggest reform to Australia's environmental laws in 25 years. It's a major opportunity to better protect nature and the environment and ensure efficient and clear approvals for projects. We know that the current laws are broken. No-one is disputing that. Australia's rate of biodiversity loss has reached crisis point. The government's own recent State of the environment report found that at least 19 Australian ecosystems have shown signs of collapse or near collapse. These ecosystems span the entire Australian continent and include Antarctic and sub-Antarctic ecosystems. Of all Australian mammals, 21 per cent were listed as threatened under the EPBC Act. Of the 7.7 million hectares of land habitat cleared between 2017, 93 per cent was not referred by the Australian government for assessment under the EPBC Act. To suggest that this is going to change the biodiversity crisis that we have is ludicrous.

Australia is the only developed nation that is considered a deforestation hot spot, yet this is silent on the very problem. To suggest that the Albanese government, since its second term, approving 31 new fossil projects is not having an impact on our environmental and biodiversity crisis is ludicrous. When the North West Shelf Project was approved in this term of government, just after election, my community and I were outraged. You cannot talk about caring and protecting the environment or the climate and go ahead and approve projects like that. According to climate analytics, the emissions from the north-west shelf gas plant from now to 2070 will likely cause the loss of around 11,000 square kilometres of Arctic sea ice, yet this legislation does nothing to stop these kinds of projects. I've sat here and listened to members of the government talk about how this is going to help the climate crisis and this is going to help address biodiversity and environmental protection. Seriously? It's astounding that that is the level of integrity that has been put into this assessment. We know through the national climate risk assessment that the government released a few weeks ago that nature protection and climate action cannot be separated. It found Australia's unique ecosystems are under serious threat from climate change. By 2050, for example, up to 70 per cent of native plant species could face conditions outside their current climate range, and it found that ecosystems that performed critical functions, such as providing habitat and storing carbon, are at risk. Yet this legislation does nothing to address that.

Environment and climate are top concerns of Warringah and many, many voters around the nation. Our office has received so many messages from people from Warringah and across Australia who are concerned about the current state of our nature laws and the need to get on with protecting our environment and biodiversity, and improving these laws. This Albanese government was elected twice on a platform to reform environmental laws, yet it's clear that this bill is not delivering. Nature and our environment need a better system, and this bill is not the saviour that's required. It's been a long time coming. I was in this place when the Samuel review was first handed down, and we know that for too long it's been a political football. But, rather than genuinely create an open process with an exposure draft and consultation, the government has chosen a course of secrecy—the last-minute dumping of a massive bill, with no respect for this chamber, allowing only a curtailed debate with no proper consideration of this legislation and its effects. The Australian public deserves better. The Australian environment deserves better. Australian business deserves better—to properly understand how this legislation will in fact work.

There are good new concepts in this bill, but, unfortunately, we can't even properly give them the real consideration they deserve. A commitment to enforceable national environmental standards—I strongly agreed with and welcomed that recommendation from the Samuel review, and for too long they haven't been implemented. But the problem is there are still exemptions—and I will get to that—so that they are not universal. They are not, ultimately, a promise that they will protect the environment.

There is a definition of unacceptable impact for nationally protected matters, where environmental destruction cannot be offset and which therefore should not be touched. But there's always this provision that it can always be offset—can we pay to destruct first? There's an inclusion of a hierarchy of mitigation in the offset regime. Again, that always raises the question—can we always pay to offset the impacts and the destruction of the environment?

The inclusion of a net-gain test is welcome, but, again, there are exceptions to it. It would mean that any damage to nationally important environmental assets can't be offset by buying land with a similar habitat but can be offset by actually creating more. A net gain would be good, but this bill does not create an absolute certainty that you will get a net gain.

The creation of a federal EPA—I strongly support that because we don't currently have a watchdog, and I acknowledge there are stronger compliance powers and penalties in this legislation. But there is still, peppered through this legislation, ministerial discretion, and what we've seen is all too often ministerial discretion involves decisions that go towards approving environmental destruction, not protecting the environment.

We see there's a failure to address the compounding effect of multiple applications. This is intended to be addressed, I understand, by bioregional planning for development and conservation, which should identify clear yes and no zones, and it's being put to the House that this creates certainty for business and the environment. But, again, there are exemptions to that and there are ways in which the minister, through discretion, can actually get around those provisions.

With other members of the crossbench, in the limited time we've had, we've already identified so many weaknesses in this bill. Discretionary and subjective language is peppered all throughout the bill: an approval must not be inconsistent with national environmental standards—subject to the minister's satisfaction; there's a net-gain test, an important guardrail of offset principle—again, subject to the minister's satisfaction; and there are declarations or bilateral agreements.

The implementation of an offset fund through a pay-to-destroy model is incredibly concerning. It's been shown not to work in other jurisdictions, in state laws. Why are we replicating this again here? In briefings with the minister, there's been no satisfactory answer to say that the mistakes and the ways in which that offset fund has not worked in other examples would be any different in this situation. There's the divesting of ministerial approvals to state governments when we know we have state governments with incredibly poor records when it comes to approvals and environmental protections. I'm told the Premier of WA is in the parliament today. Jeez, I wonder why he is in this parliament—other than to make sure we do not have strong environmental protection laws that would get in the way of numerous gas approvals in WA!

We know that there is a national interest exemption that allows the minister to override any existing standards, unacceptable impacts or even an impact on matters of national significance. Again, there is no definition of natural interest in this legislation. It's identified in the explanatory memorandum—our nice little doorstop here—as potentially applying to defence matters, national emergencies or even compliance with international agreements. There is no certainty, and we are being asked to just take on good faith that somehow that discretion, those exemptions, will be okay. Ken Henry has warned that this could result in a conga line of developers seeking to exploit the exemptions. Concerns have been raised that the current government has shown a willingness to approve projects. We see that with the regular approval of fossil fuel projects.

A major issue that we continue to have is the land clearing on agricultural land, and that relies on the continuous use and prior exemption provisions of the EPBC Act. This isn't addressed in any way in this bill. In New South Wales, agriculture remains the biggest driver of land clearing, with 77 per cent of all clearing in 2024 due to agriculture. However, the absence of reform of this provision means that this land clearing will continue under this EPBC Act. Following this, a removal of the existing exemption for regional forestry agreements under the EPBC Act remains completely absent from this bill. So we talk about protecting the environment, but there is nothing about that exemption for regional forestry agreements. Again, I ask all the members of the government that have waxed lyrical about the benefits of this legislation: where is the removal of that existing exemption?

We cannot seriously talk about protecting the environment without talking about the impact on the environment from climate change. We know one of the biggest threats to biodiversity loss is the changing environment. The government adamantly tries to artificially separate climate from the environment when one is the biggest threat to the other. The environment and the climate cannot be treated separately. The government repeatedly relies on the safeguard mechanism as somehow addressing climate impacts, but that's fundamentally flawed because so many projects and impacts are not caught. We also know the current measurement of emissions is profoundly flawed. We know under the NGER Act review that there is so much work to be done.

Then, of course, the process around this legislation has been so deeply flawed that, under the current circumstance, it is simply impossible to support this legislation. I have no way of being satisfied that, on the balance of the explanatory memorandum and this legislation, I cannot in good faith say to the people of Warringah that this is good legislation that deserves support.

I note that the opposition and crossbench in the other place have voted for an inquiry into this legislation to report back by March 2026. So what is the rush in this place other than a complete disrespect and disregard for a due process and due scrutiny of this legislation? If it's as good as you say it is, let it be scrutinised. Let us actually properly consider it. Let not-for-profit groups and all interest groups properly analyse it. Respect for this chamber would be to allow proper consultation and proper analysis of this legislation.

There will be amendments, and who knows how much time we will be granted for the consideration in detail process. I'll be moving amendments to this legislation around cumulative impacts because we know that too often proponents break up components of projects to seek individual approval so that the sum of the environmental impact is not truly known. We know there have to be clear lines in the sand for unacceptable impact. There has to be a consideration of stranded assets. I'll move an amendment to propose that proponents should disclose greenhouse gas emissions to be in line with sustainability reporting requirements that this very government passed themselves previously and that such disclosure should be a matter for consideration by the minister because, if a proposal is going to lead to a stranded asset, it should not be granted approval. It cannot be offset by becoming a stranded asset.

We also need to see a review of an environmental protection order. There's currently power for the National Environmental Protection Agency to issue an environmental protection order which could result in a stop work order. The organisation should be able to appeal this decision, and there should be a natural justice and review framework. This would align with the New South Wales EPA's current review provisions.

Unfortunately for the people of Warringah, these environmental reforms seem to reflect a profound compromise due to the intensely political environment and past failures to progress reform. At its heart, there's a real disconnect about what we can achieve, so I urge the government to rethink its approach and respect this chamber.