Anthony Albanese has backed new legislation, which will correct “Australia’s broken environmental laws,” giving Australia’s Environment and Water Minister, for the first time, “the power to make national environmental standards, which simply aren’t there at the moment.”
Speaking in favour of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act this morning, the Prime Minister said the new Act – a 25-year update on the 2000-era legislation – is part of a suite of reforms to be debated all day, “which are all about delivery, building new homes, connecting new energy, creating new jobs.”
“At the centre of this legislation,” Albanese said, “is the creation of Australia’s first National Environmental Protection Authority. The Independent National EPA will have stronger powers to impose tougher penalties.”
It comes as Murray Watt, Australia’s Minister for Environment and Water, revealed that a strong and indepedent EPA – in effect a watchdog that policies environmental activity – was a non-negotiable for the Albanese government – telling ABC’s Insiders: “I think it’s really that a national EPA has a high degree of independence from the government of the day, which is why we have specified that when it comes to who they prosecute and who they investigate, what sort of finds they dish out for environmental damage, that should be independent of ministers. We don’t tell the DPP who they can prosecute for murder or assault; it’s an independent process.”
In the same interview, Watt confirmed that the Albanese government does not intend to fully exit from native forest logging, but instead wants to ensure that the 10 regional forest agreements (RFAs) are subject to the new environmental standards. “Our government does not have a policy of ending native forestry,” Watt said. “What we have said is that we’ll follow the recommendations from Graeme Samuel and apply the national environmental standards to regional forestry agreements.”
“What that means in practice is that native forestry would need to meet higher environmental standards than currently required under legislation,” Watt said. “That’s a big step forward in terms of the environmental management of native forestry,” but it falls short of an outright ban.
Please note: Wood Central will have additional coverage on the EPBC and its impact on Australian forestry in the coming days.
