Press conference in Sydney, NSW, with Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek

Subjects: Wakeley church incident, Bondi Junction incident, environment and business to benefit from Nature Positive Plan.  

MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER, TANYA PLIBERSEK: Just before we get into the announcement I've got to make today, I think it's really important that we acknowledge that it's been a truly terrible week for many people living in Sydney, and particularly after the attacks in Bondi Junction over the weekend, which obviously affected my constituents, as well, both people who are related to victims of the attack, but also more broadly, anybody who might have been visiting the shopping centre working in the shopping centre, or, you know, would commonly be there on a Saturday, and then to follow up again with the violence overnight at the Assyrian church, and it has been a truly terrible time, and my thoughts go out to all of the victims and all of the people who have been affected by that.

But I did today, I want to make a couple of really important, and I think, very happy announcements about the environment. I'm very pleased today to be saying that the Government is launching the next phase of our Nature Positive Plan, which I'll introduce into the parliament in a few week's time.

Today's changes are a big win for the environment, and they're a big win for business. They'll better protect the environment while supporting sensible development. They'll deliver stronger environment protection powers, faster, clearer, decisions for business, as well as more transparency.

When I first announced the Nature Positive Plan, I said it would take a bit of compromise a bit of common sense and a bit of cooperation to get the changes that we need. And that's exactly how we're approaching this rollout.

The Labor Government is doing more than ever, to protect the environment, and to look after our native plants and animals. Australians love our bush, they love the ocean, and they really want to protect it for their kids and their grandkids. So this is an historic day for the environment.

I'm very pleased to announce that Australia will soon have its first ever independent national Environment Protection Agency. It will have strong new powers to better protect nature. The new EPA will be a regulator with teeth. In the first instance, I'll be asking the regulator to focus on illegal land clearing and offsets. The EPA will be able to issue environment protection orders or stop work orders to any person or business suspected of breaking the law. It'll be able to audit and monitor businesses to make sure that they're doing the right thing. And it will have the resources to do so.

We're increasing penalties too so that the punishment for seriously damaging the environment is in line with crimes like insider trading or market manipulation. For extremely serious, intentional breaches of federal environment law, the courts would be able to impose fines of as high as $780 million or send people to prison for seven years. These penalties are very strong, but I think it's important that we have this deterrent in place. I know that most businesses want to do the right thing, but not all of them do and by cracking down on businesses that do the wrong thing, we better support the businesses that are doing the right thing.

Last year, I commissioned an audit to find out if businesses are doing what they promised to do with their developments. The audit found that one in seven developments could be in breach of their offset conditions. It shows that whether intentionally or accidentally compliance with existing environment laws is not as good as it should be. And it shows why the extra enforcement measures that I'm announcing today are necessary. As a result, for the first time, a dedicated team has been set up within the department to proactively monitor offset compliance and projects that have been approved under national environment law. This function will transfer to the new EPA, Environment Protection Australia, when it's established.

We're also establishing another new body called Environment Information Australia. EIA will be like the Australian Bureau of Statistics but for nature, and it will do even more than that. EIA will make publicly available and publish high quality up to date information and data on the environment. It means that businesses will have easy access to the data that they need to help them put in their environmental applications.

More importantly, it will give all Australians access to honest up to the minute data on the state of our environment. So Australians have the right to know how clean the air is, how we're protecting our oceans, how plants and animals are doing, threatened species are doing particularly in the face of climate change. The new EIA will be required by law to put together the State of the Environment report every two years instead of every five years as it's done currently, and the Environment Minister will have to by law publish that report within six months. Future governments won't be able to hide the state of the environment like the last Liberal government did.

Environment Information Australia will also publicly report on progress towards the environmental goals that we've set ourselves as a nation. Like protecting 30% of our land and 30% of our oceans by 2030. And it will work on the publication of environmental economic accounts that we'll be releasing alongside our economic accounts to show how we're treating our natural environment.

The EPA, the Environment Protection Australia will be resourced to give businesses better guidance and information, making sure that industry are clear about the rules of environment protection right up front at the beginning of a development application. We've already taken on-time approvals from an average of 46% under the previous government, to 84% on time under my watch, but I think we can do even better than this. Under our plan, businesses will get a boost of close to $100 million dollars designed to speed up environmental approval decisions.

The new investment includes more support for staff to assess project proposals, including in particular renewables and critical minerals, more tailored support for businesses to help them navigate environmental laws, more funding for research into threatened species so that sensitive areas can be more easily avoided, and more planning work with states and territories so suitable projects can be more quickly approved, so that it's clearer to businesses where the no go areas are and where with the right conditions, they'll get a fast yes.

We're also making it better for business by updating what's called the stop-the-clock provisions that currently allow my department to unilaterally pause timelines for assessments. When requesting additional information from a business. This change will allow project proponents to refuse requests to stop the clock so that decisions are simply made on the information that they've already provided. In some cases, this will mean it faster, no. But in many cases, it will mean a faster yes, while continuing to maintain high environmental standards.

Our Nature Positive Plan is a win for the environment. And it's a win for business. We're delivering stronger protections for our land, for our waterways, for our plants and animals. And at the same time, faster, clearer decisions for business.

More certainty will help drive the investment we need in nation building projects. It's about the right kind of development, in the right places, done in the right way.

And, as I said, we're getting on with the job. In coming weeks, we'll introduce this new legislation into the Parliament, delivering the second stage of our Nature Positive Plan. And we'll continue to work with all of the same stakeholders we've been working with extensively up till now on a third stage of environmental law reform, as we promised in our Nature Positive Plan. We're absolutely committed to getting the job done.

It's a big job, but it is vital that we do it because, whether it's surfing or boating or bushwalking or camping, Australians love being out in nature. We need to protect it better for the future. And at the same time, give those faster clearer decisions that we need for economic development.

Federal Labor is doing more than ever before, to protect more of what's precious, to fix more of what's damaged, and to look after our precious places better for the future.

Any questions?

JOURNALIST: Minister, this is one of the recommendations of the Samuel Review which started in 2019. Why separate these things out? In particular, you're setting up these bodies, now you haven’t actually said when you're going to introduce environmental standards, is that still going to happen? And why not do it all together?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Laura, thanks for the question. The job of environmental law reform is big and it’s complex. As you said, Professor Graeme Samuel released his report in 2020 that said our environment laws aren’t working for nature and they're not working for business. So, we're seeing environmental decline at the same time as businesses report being frustrated with the bureaucratic and slow processes of environmental approval. So, we know that we need to make change.

Professor Graeme Samuel has given us a good blueprint for that change. And I have to remind people, the government responded with our Nature Positive Plan in December 2022, which lays out the direction of our law reform. We've done the first tranche of our law reform. That was in December last year when we introduced our Nature Repair Market and expanded the water trigger to all forms of unconventional gas, so that we had greater protections for our water resources in the face of expanded mining proposals.

This is the next tranche of our law reform. We’ll establish Environment Protection Australia, we’ll establish Environment Information Australia, and we’ll invest more in faster decision making.

Our third tranche of law reform will include those other elements that you've mentioned - things like the National Environment Standards. The reason we're not doing that today is because we're still consulting with environment groups and business to make sure that we get this right. This is large, complex once-in-a-generation change. The existing Act is about 1000 pages long. It’s likely that the new Act will be similar in length. With drafting it, we've had hundreds of hours of consultation with more than 100 organisations. We've had webinars where more than 2000 people have participated.

Environment groups and business groups keep giving me feedback on the sort of detail that they want to see in the new set of laws. I think it's important to respect the level of detail and engagement that those stakeholders are providing me with and to carefully and thoughtfully consider the suggestions that they're making. So, it's taking time to do the consultation, to get it right, and to do the drafting.

JOURNALIST: Minister, the third stage of rules that you're referring to, including the National Environmental Standards. Will they be introduced in this term of government?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, they'll be introduced when they're ready. And as I've said, we've done hundreds of hours of consultation already. In the first instance, on the detail of the policy to make sure we get the policy detail right. And then on the detail of the legislation as it's drafted, section by section. We'll have a third tranche of environmental law reform that we'll release as an exposure draft of legislation. We want to make sure we get this right. I know that there will be people at the extremes of the argument on both sides. We've got environmental groups who never want anything built anywhere, anytime. We've got businesses who say we should be able to do whatever we like, whenever we like, wherever we like. What we're aiming for is a legislative package that has the mainstream environment movement and the mainstream business community saying this is an improvement on what we've got. We've got better environmental protections and faster, clearer decision making for business. When we get that package right, we'll release the exposure draft of the legislation, and I hope we'll get the support of the parliament to pass those laws.

JOURNALIST: Minister a fourth mass global bleaching event was declared overnight, the Great Barrier Reef was singled out. It's currently experiencing another bleaching event. Environmental groups and scientists are saying it’s caused mostly by warming oceans and say that Australia needs stronger emissions targets to address the issue. What's your response to that?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I am very concerned about this fourth global bleaching event and it really, backs in what the government's been saying about the Great Barrier Reef of course we’re concerned, very concerned about the bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef. But it's in line, sadly, with what's happening with reefs all around the world. Northern hemisphere, southern hemisphere, reefs of all different types are experiencing this fourth global bleaching event.

It shows why it's absolutely vital that Australia is a good global citizen when it comes to climate change. And it's why as soon as we were elected Australia stood up and said, we're back when it comes to action on climate change and action to protect the environment, we're back. It's why we've got our target to get to net zero by 2050. It's why we've legislated the safeguard mechanism. That's why we've got our 82% renewable energy target. And by the way, why we're making sure that we approve those renewable energy projects as effectively as we can. I've, ticked off on 45 renewable energy projects already, that give us enough power to power two and a half million homes, and I've got another 128 ahead of me. It's one of the reasons we need to get a wriggle on with environmental approvals. But it's also why we're investing in green hydrogen, it's why we're doing vehicle emission standards, why we're working with aviation, on better aviation fuels. It's why we're acting across all sections of our economy to get us on that trajectory to net zero. We know that we have to be a good Global Citizen, our environment depends on it and the global environment depends on it.

JOURNALIST: You mentioned people at the extremes will never be happy with these outcomes. Does that mean you include the West Australian Premier amongst extreme people? He has expressed his concerns about this and says that given the mix of industries in Western Australia, it's going to be hit much harder. How would this new EPA work with the states and their approval processes?

PLIBERSEK: Well, of course, we've been working very closely with the states and territories. And there's a lot in here for the states and territories to like. One of the things in particular that we're focusing on with the states and territories is better regional planning. So, our objective is to look at a landscape and say, across this region, these are the areas that we should avoid, because they're heavy with threatened species. These are the areas where if a development complies with these basic rules, they'll get a fast yes. So, we're keen to work with state and territory governments on more regional planning, and we're keen to work with the WA Government to do that as well. Faster approvals are something that the WA Government are often talking to us about. We're putting $100 million into faster approvals, but we're doing it without reducing environmental standards. We know that the state of the environment in Australia has been declining for decades. We've got to turn that around. I know, this is, you know, an extreme example in some ways, but the New South Wales Parliament did a report a couple of years ago saying if we don't change what we're doing, koalas will be extinct in the wild in New South Wales by 2050. We can't let that happen in Australia. We have to change the trajectory of environmental decline in this country. We can do it while continuing to support the right development done in the right way, in the right places. This package balances those two objectives.

JOURNALIST: Minister just on the legislation for the EPA, I was just wondering if you could outline a couple of things. First of all, how independent will this agency be? And secondly, you spoke about a compliance and enforcement role, but it had been proposed as having a role [inaudible] in the environment assessments process as well. Will your legislation, will that be an aspect of your legislation and decision-making function.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: So I think it's really exciting that Australia will get its first independent national Environment Protection Agency, we're going to call it Environment Protection Australia, and it will have tougher powers. It'll be, as I mentioned earlier, it'll be able to issue the same sort of fines as it does now, but it’ll also be able to take organisations or individuals to court and apply for much tougher penalties to be applied in the case of deliberate wrongdoing. It'll get the opportunity to issue environment protection orders - which are effectively stop work orders - if there's a situation where they think environmental laws are being broken.

It will be an independent statutory organisation. In the first instance, we will set it up within the Department of Environment, but from the first of July next year, it will become an independent statutory authority. Setting it up earlier in the Department of Environment allows us to do things like do the global search for the new head of the EPA, that person will be appointed by the Governor General on the recommendation of the government. Rhat person because they are an independent statutory appointment, like that will not be able to be interfered with the government. We had a situation under the last government where some illegal land clearing took place. It was a company associated with a Minister of the then government, they had public servants under pressure to actually change the law and say that the, the threatened environment that had been illegally cleared wasn't a threatened environment anymore. We don't want that sort of political interference to happen under a future EPA. So it'll be an independent statutory appointment of a CEO heading an independent agency.

JOURNALIST: And sorry, will it have a decision-making function?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yes, it will have the decision making function. Currently, I am the decision maker for every decision that gets made under environmental law and I delegate those powers to the to the Department of the Environment so a lot of decisions are made under the delegation, my delegated powers. The EPA CEO will become the delegate for decision making.

JOURNALIST: And just on the question of costs to business, you say that it can be significantly improved for whatever, sped up is that just because you're going to be putting more money into the number of people who can process these things? I mean, you mentioned that there's gonna be all this new data available. Will the actual approval process chain change at all? And you know [inaudible] we get quicker yeses and noes. Is that going to change?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: The new EPA, in the first instance, will be applying the current laws. So it's not so much that the approvals processes will change, but the resourcing elements that you're talking about, Laura, will change. We're putting an extra $100 million dollars in. It means more support and more people doing the assessment. It means more guidance to project proponents upfront. One of the things that project proponents often say is that the process is quite opaque to them, they don't really understand how the decisions are made. If we can better explain the information that they're required to collect, the science they're required to do before they put in their applications. If we get more fully formed and more comprehensive applications, we can make much faster decisions.

Also, the collection of environmental data over time by Environment Information Australia will build up a really rich database that project proponents will be able to look at, they'll be able to say, ‘look, I was thinking about building a wind farm in this particular region, I see that in this area, there's a lot of threatened species. So I might go to this area over here, I see that that's, for example, degraded farmland and not as environmentally sensitive, it makes more sense to build here, not there.'

Also, over time, as we enrich this data, project proponents will be able to rely more on the data instead of doing multi-year environmental impact statements, as many of them have to do now. So, all of those things together with the regional planning mean that we'll be able to make faster assessments of environmental approvals, without compromising the standard of environmental protection. I think that's really important here, because to continue to have social licence to do these big developments, communities want to know that the environment that they value so much is being protected for the future. We need to get that balance right.

JOURNALIST: Minister, you mentioned earlier the NSW inquiry that found that the koala could be extinct in this state by 2050. What will the announcements that you put on the table today do to address things like logging in the boundaries of the proposed Great Koala National Park in northern New South Wales?

MINSITER PLIBERSEK: Well, one of things - of course - that we're doing as a commitment coming out of our Nature Positive Plan is the new laws will apply to Regional Forestry Agreements. But that work is in stage three of our environmental law reform, not in this stage of environmental law reform. Today's announcement, however, does - by setting up Environment Protection Australia, the independent EPA - we do get better enforcement opportunities. EPA will have stronger enforcement opportunities, it will have the stop work orders, the environment protection orders, there will be stronger penalties for businesses and individuals that are deliberately doing the wrong thing. And, of course, with the Environment Information Australia being set up, we're going to have much richer data.

One of the really exciting elements of this work is the very substantial extra investment in collecting information about threatened species, where they are, and how we can protect them at the same time as doing environmentally sustainable development. I've already started the work on using new technologies to gather some of this data, as well. So, we already use in the Environment Department, open-source satellite technology to look at things like land clearing. We're also examining how we better use satellite technology, how we better use drones, how we better use artificial intelligence to keep an eye on really large areas of landscape, without people having to pour over maps as human beings with two photos next to each other. Actually getting that investment into collecting the data, making it usable for project proponents, so they designed better projects, making it usable within the Environment Protection Agency to do better compliance and monitoring - that's a big part of the reforms that we're announcing today.

JOURNALIST: Given that the national standards are for the third tranche, and it's those standards that will apply to things like Regional Forestry Agreements, what do you think of say a precautionary step, such as a moratorium on logging in koala habitat until those things are ready?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, I think it's really a question for the New South Wales government at this stage. I know that the Minister for the Environment Penny Sharpe in New South Wales is absolutely committed to protecting the amazing environment that we have here in New South Wales. I know that she's absolutely committed to better protection for koalas, but you've seen the courage and the you know, the attitude of Penny Sharpe, she's not wasting any time and what she's doing in the Kosciuszko National Park to make sure that it's better protected from invasive species like feral horses. And you can see the commitment that she has for the environment.

JOURNALIST: Have you secured support from the crossbench or the Greens for this legislation?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, I'm very hopeful of support from the crossbench, from the Greens political party and frankly, also, I would think that the Liberals and the Nationals would see this as a step forward for business. There is something in this package for the environment movement, there is something in this package for the business community. It is a very balanced package that better protects nature and gives faster, clearer decisions for business. Ideally, the whole Parliament would get behind the legislation. At the end of the day, I think it will be very difficult for people who care about the environment to explain why they are voting against the establishment of Australia's first national independent Environment Protection Agency and massive new investment in data, resources for compliance, to make sure that people aren't doing the wrong thing by our environment. And it would be, you would think, quite difficult for the Liberals and Nationals to explain why they're voting against faster decisions for business, when they're putting in big nation building projects, you would think it would be hard for them to oppose that although given Peter Dutton’s usual demeanour, perhaps, you know, perhaps they will find a way to complain about faster, clearer decisions for business.

JOURNALIST: (INAUDIBLE) you said that that will be a focus of the new EPA but there are obviously issues related to offsets that go beyond the enforcement of environmental conditions, for example, problems with additionality. We've also seen cases where conditions are just varied to delay offsets for years and years. What's being done about that, and when can we expect to see policy announcements around those really systemic issues related to offsets?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Okay, so there's some immediate things we're doing. And then there's some longer-term things we're doing. The immediate thing we're doing is acting on the offset audit that I asked for last year. As I mentioned earlier, this offset audit says that around one in seven projects that have been audited, look like they may not have complied with their offset commitments. We've already taken action on a number of those projects, we looked at 222 approved projects, it looked like 32 per cent of those may have been non-compliant. And of those 13 have already had compliance action taken, four infringement penalties have already been paid, we'll continue to work through whether the commitments that have already been made are being properly implemented. That's the first thing that we need to do hold people to account for the promises that they've already made, make sure that those promises to better look after the environment are actually delivered.

What we what we need to do going forward is make sure that offsets genuinely look after the environment and improve the environment. And that's what the new offset standard in stage three of our environmental law reform will do.

One of the things that we made clear in our response to Graham Samuel's review in our Nature Positive Plan is that the avoided loss offsets that have been really used in a very kind of fast and loose way, can't continue to be used in this fast and loose way that they've been used. And having a national standard for environmental offsets, that makes sure that when - so, offsets are a last resort, what we're trying to do is avoid damage to nature, mitigate any damage, and then in the final instance, if damage can't be avoided or mitigated, to provide offsets, those offsets actually have to be of a quality that improves and protects nature. We'll do that through a new standard for offsets.