The Albanese Government's revised draft National Environmental Standards will not deliver better protection of Australia's ocean, coasts and wildlife as the new national environment laws were intended, the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) said after these standards were released yesterday.
The revised draft standards for Matters of National Environmental Significance (MNES) - which includes threatened species, threatened ecological communities and migratory species - have been weakened since the draft standards were released earlier this year, and they no longer aim to protect threatened and migratory species habitat.
AMCS Campaigns Director Alexia Wellbelove said: "A key element of the reforms passed last year was clear, measurable outcome-based National Environmental Standards under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act. These standards are neither clear nor measurable.
"Strong outcome-based standards would provide transparency on the performance of decision making under the reformed EPBC Act. This is particularly important given the Commonwealth proposes to delegate decision making to state and territory governments and other authorities, such as the offshore oil and gas regulator, NOPSEMA.
"However these proposed standards fail to articulate any outcomes for Matters of National Environmental Significance (MNES) at all, so we have no way of measuring performance against them. They will fail to do the things they were designed to do - actually protect our most threatened wildlife and their habitats.
"The proposed standards are so vague that they could be met if a proponent says they complied with some principles and followed certain processes. There is no requirement that these processes deliver the objectives expressed in the standard, let alone deliver better outcomes for the environment. Outcome-based standards were one of the few steps needed to deliver stronger laws and better decision making in the reforms.
"The Albanese Government promised to deliver improved environmental outcomes, and has failed to deliver on this critical step. AMCS calls on the government to listen to feedback, and ensure major changes are made to the draft."
