Three of the country's biggest environment groups have welcomed the confirmation from Environment Minister Murray Watt that the federal government's soon-to-be introduced amendments to the country's national environment laws will include significant increases in fines and new enforcement powers.
The Australian Conservation Foundation, WWF-Australia and Greenpeace Australia Pacific said the prospect of significant fines and proposed new Environment Protection Orders will help stop potential offenders in their tracks, and stop the excuses for not acting on complaints.
Widespread breaches of Australia's nature protection law, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, must be fixed. Too often complaints in relation to compliance are met with measly penalties or more frequently no enforcement action at all.
When the Samuels Review of the EPBC was presented in 2021, a total of 22 infringements had been issued by the regulator since 2010 for breaches of its conditions. A paltry $230,000 in fines had been issued over that period.
New penalties and enforcement powers are especially important to tackling deforestation by the agricultural industry. Despite the EPBC Act being in place for over 25 years, Australia is still seeing hundreds of thousands of hectares of valuable habitat being destroyed every year, including in the Great Barrier Reef catchment, where agricultural deforestation is effectively unregulated under our national nature protection law.
Increased penalties and new enforcement powers are critically important to dealing with deforestation, but we are only halfway there. These reforms need to be backed in by a powerful and independent EPA, and by closing deforestation loopholes which support a widespread misconception that clearing habitat for agriculture is not covered by our national nature laws.
Dr Paul Sinclair, Acting CEO for the Australian Conservation Foundation said: "Every two minutes a football field's worth of forests and bushland is bulldozed, displacing threatened species and destroying their homes. In NSW alone over the last decade, we've seen millions of hectares of precious koala habitat knocked over, with no referral under the EPBC. Nobody has been actively enforcing this law, so the onus has fallen on community and environment groups to draw the government's attention to breaches of the law. We think that's absolutely crazy. Some local governments and councils issue more parking fines than the federal government fines people for breaches of our national nature protection law."
David Ritter, CEO of Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: "Our current nature law is broken. Big businesses are bulldozing our native forests and bushlands and get away with it scott-free through loopholes that allow for rampant deforestation in the current Act. The nature law reforms will be one of the most significant pieces of legislation to cross our parliament in decades, and they will shape the future and survivability of our forests, bushlands and oceans. Our nature law must do what they are supposed to do: protect nature."
Dermot O'Gorman, CEO of WWF-Australia said: "One of the greatest failings of the EPBC Act has been the absence of genuine enforcement. In the 25 years since the Act was introduced, millions of hectares of threatened species habitat have been destroyed—most without ever being referred for assessment under the law. The impact on our iconic species and places like the Great Barrier Reef has been devastating. For those who are caught wrecking nature, it's often cheaper to pay the fine than to follow the law. This undermines the integrity of the legislation and makes a mockery of its purpose. In this reform process, the parliament must seize the opportunity to close these loopholes, have strong enforcement and regenerate nature."
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