No Climate, No Koalas: Australia's Broken Environment Protection Laws

Australia’s making another supposed attempt to improve its ineffective environment protection laws. But this week Environment Minister Murray Watt confirmed the government’s re-write won’t include a “climate trigger”. Greenhouse gas pollution won’t be considered in project approval decisions. There will be no power to refuse projects on climate grounds.

Let’s tell it like it is. Broken laws mean broken Country. No climate test means no protection, for Country or community.

What is a climate trigger - and why does it matter?

The EPBC Act (that’s the fancy technical name for our national environment protection law) requires assessment if a project is likely to significantly impact “matters of national environmental significance”. That includes World Heritage properties or listed threatened species like our koalas. But despite climate change being the biggest threat to all of us on this planet, it’s conveniently written out as one of those triggers. That means the government can allow new coal or gas projects to slip past scrutiny so long as localised impacts are addressed - displaced koalas, birds, etc. A climate trigger would fix this. It would make high-emitting projects subject to federal approval on climate grounds.

The government argues climate change should be handled by other policies like the Safeguard Mechanism. But this assumes these “other” policies are safe and adequate. They clearly aren’t. If they were, Australia wouldn’t have escalating emissions from huge coal and gas project approvals. And our koala populations wouldn’t be collapsing.

By also signalling a deal with the Coalition to get its package through, the government is sending a dangerous - and frankly dodgy - signal about its priorities. The reforms are clearly focused on business development and faster approvals rather than environmental integrity. The centre of gravity is shifting to “streamlining” to win Coalition votes. Development comes first, Country and community are poor seconds.

Ground truth: the environment is already losing under today’s law

Australians are constantly told the EPBC is “broken”. The data agrees. Koala habitat destruction has surged under the current regime. This year is the highest year of approvals since koalas were listed as endangered - demonstrating how weak national protections are even before you add climate stress. A “repair” that ignores the driver making every drought, fire and flood worse is at best a patch, not a fix.

Trust also matters. Without being cynical, it’s impossible to ignore the pattern of coal and gas approvals while we’re told stronger nature laws are coming. The decision to extend Woodside’s whopping North West Shelf LNG project through to 2070 demonstrates that the government is not interested in making climate harm a decisive factor in approvals. And revelations that the Santos-run Darwin LNG hub has been leaking methane for nearly 20 years - kept from the public and effectively nodded through by regulators - show why neither gas companies nor governments can be trusted to police themselves.

At best, this latest reform proposal looks like a green-wash: new language and processes that leaves underlying biodiversity and climate collapse unchecked.

What a real fix would look like

If our government were serious about “ending extinctions” and securing a safe climate, its EPBC Act reform would include three things:

1. An explicit climate duty: A climate trigger so decision-makers must assess - and can refuse - projects with unacceptable emissions or significant climate harm.

2. Independent, well-resourced decision-making: An Environment Protection Authority with teeth that sets conditions, audits compliance, and enforces penalties. Not a box-ticking secretariat.

3. Credible carbon rules: Where projects do proceed, binding limits on residual emissions, strict offset integrity (no junk credits), and regular reviews that tighten over time in line with Australia’s carbon budgets. “Tell us your plan” disclosure is insufficient without a statutory lever.

The bottom line

We’re sinking fast and you can’t fix a leaking boat by repainting the hull. Our national environment laws are decades out of date and dysfunctional. They were written before climate became the immediate dominant threat to Country and communities. And they were legislated under a PM who was, and still is, a climate change denialist - John Howard!

Ruling out a climate trigger keeps the hole wide open. And seeking Coalition votes to rush the bill through tilts the balance even further towards business and development. Unless our environment laws align with environmental realities, the EPBC “fix” will fail the only test that matters: keeping Country and communities safe in a rapidly heating world.

Photo from Australian Conservation Foundation.