The landmark reforms to Australia's national nature protection law, passed by the parliament in the final sittings of 2025, are like a giant lego set: the building blocks provided for in the new legislation can be assembled in multiple ways with very different outcomes.
The details that will sit under the legislation - and whether the new system will be adequately funded - now loom as critical tests for the Albanese government's commitment to national environmental law reform.
The reforms are needed because nature is not being adequately protected in Australia.
The 2020 review of the legislation by Graeme Samuel found the Act was not fit for purpose - in essence the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act was not doing what it said on the tin.
Rather than protecting the environment or conserving biodiversity, the law has been overseeing its ongoing decline.
Many people think land clearing was a problem in Australia in decades past, but it isn't anymore. Research by ACF shows otherwise. The federal government gave the green light to more than 57,000 hectares of threatened species habitat destruction last year, making it the worst 12-month period in 15 years.
The reforms to the legislation add a massive amount of detail and complexity to the legislation, but it's the detail and the actions to follow that will determine whether the government is serious in its intention to turn the situation around for nature protection.
The new laws create a framework to develop a long list of new regulatory tools which could, if done well, deliver effective nature protection.
The core recommendation from the Samuel review - which the government embraced and which is supported in principle by almost everyone involved - is to move from a system heavy on process but light on outcomes to one where the outcomes are set out up front with clarity.
Delivered in the form of new National Environmental Standards, this approach is intended to deliver a win-win. Nature benefits because the need to protect and recover threatened species is a clear requirement. The economy benefits from the same clear up-front requirements and the certainty and efficiencies this brings with it.
In this new world the standards will be critical in making sure the much-needed improvements to nature protection are actually delivered.
Even though the Samuel review recommended an initial set of standards more than five years ago, accompanied by an exhortation to get on with the process of implementing them, the actual form of the initial standards under the new system is yet to be finalised. Two drafts of proposed standards have been released for consultation.
They need significant improvement if the government before Environment Minister Murray Watt can credibly claim they will deliver better nature protection.
As presently proposed they are simply high-level statements of outcomes that could be used to justify almost any decision.
Minister Watt needs to correct course and commit to delivering a full suite of standards that include the clarity and detail needed to actually protect and restore nature.
The risk is that in the headlong rush to streamline approvals and accredit State and Territory governments to deliver the outcomes specified in the standards, the promised nature protection gains fall by the wayside.
The other key test looming for the Albanese government is making sure the implementation of the reforms is adequately funded in the upcoming May budget.
Key reforms like the new National Environmental Protection Agency and the development of all new rules and regulations under new system are not currently funded.
Similarly, welcome restrictions to exemptions to nature protection laws, which bring the agricultural sector in under national environmental laws, need to be supported by funding to raise awareness with landholders who have grown accustomed to the idea that national threatened species protections do not apply to their activities.
Beyond the dollars and cents, the key thing the government needs to deliver here is an increase in the capacity of the new National Environment Protection Agency.
Simply rolling over existing Departmental staff into the new independent regulator will not deliver the major change in capacity and regulator attitude necessary to tackle the legacy of woeful enforcement under the old Act. Substantial new funding is critical.
The Prime Minister and Minister Watt were right to claim the deal reached with the Greens to get reforms to our national nature protection laws through the Senate as a significant achievement.
But the real test of the Albanese government's ability to deliver promised improvements to nature protection starts now.
Striated pardalote pic by Brendan Sydes
