The Australian government’s proposed nature law reforms still include loopholes that would allow mass deforestation and must be closed, a coalition of environmental groups warned Thursday.

The Labor government is currently holding closed consultations with stakeholders on its reforms to the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, with a meeting being held with groups on Thursday.

However, a joint statement released by Environmental Justice Australia, the Wilderness Society, and the Environment Centre NT ahead of the meeting raised a number of concerns with the reforms.

“The draft laws, as currently written, are simply not strong enough to protect nature from needless destruction,” Sam Szoke-Burke, campaign manager at the Wilderness Society, said.

“Science demands, and the community expects, nature laws that work— including by stopping deforestation. And delivering these laws is well within Labor’s grasp.”

Chiefly, the groups said the reforms offer no clear solution to large-scale land clearing that is occurring across multiple states and territories.

They noted that Australia is one of the only developed countries that is considered a deforestation hot spot, and called for the government to introduce a so-called “land-clearing trigger”.

This would help make sure any plan to clear significant pieces of land is assessed by the federal government, they said.

Several Australian states, such as Victoria and Western Australia, have recently phased out native logging, but widespread native land clearing is still prevalent in New South Wales, Queensland, and the Northern Territory.

Some 18,000 hectares of native savanna in the Northern Territory was approved for clearing in 2022 alone, according to the groups.

Other concerns raised by the groups was that the draft EBPC laws remove legal protections available for critical habitat in favour of narrower, ambiguous new terms like “irreplaceable”.

“Instead, the laws need to strengthen protection for critical habitat and make it mandatory to ensure species like the koala don’t become extinct,” the groups said.

SPECIES DECLINE

The draft laws also don’t mention halting the decline of threatened species, despite the government declaring a goal of no new extinctions.

Laws must be put forward that rule out impacts that reduce the population numbers and critical habitat of species that are already facing extinction, according to the groups, noting that there is substantial evidence that deforestation is driving threatened species to extinction.

The groups also highlighted previously-raised concerns that the proposed reforms give the minister of the day unchecked call-in powers, allowing the government to veto decisions made by the yet-to-be-established agency National Environment Protection Australia.

They said decisions should be based on scientific evidence, rather than a subjective decision that “satisfies” the minister.

“Ministers will continue to have wide personal discretion when deciding whether projects will harm thousands of plants, animals, and places across Australia. It’s giving the minister God-like powers with little transparency or accountability,” Environment Centre NT Executive Director Kirsty Howey said.

“The Albanese government has talked a big game when it comes to fixing the nature crisis, but as they currently stand, the new laws won’t fix the rampant land clearing happening across Australia.”

The danger of perverse outcomes also extends to the new EPA body itself, with the groups saying the draft laws leave too much space for political interference and arbitrary decisions that ignore community feedback.

Currently, it is proposed that decisions about whether impacts are unacceptable will be a subjective decision that “satisfies” the EPA, the groups said, saying this decision must reflect science.

The groups called on the EPA CEO to be accountable to an independent board with qualified members, in order to safeguard the new position from political interference.

The groups noted the government has a “have your say” survey on the proposed laws available on the department’s website, but the laws themselves have yet to be shared with the public.

Rights groups have raised issue with the way the government is conducting its consultation process on the EPBC laws, saying the approach lacks transparency.

The government has previously defended its consultation process, saying it was designed for groups to carefully examine the detail of the reforms “to make sure the laws will be as effective as possible”.

The current EPBC laws are universally considered to be inefficient and outdated, the Labor government promising to strengthen them as part of its broader Nature Positive Plan.

By Mark Tilly – mark@carbon-pulse.com

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