EPBC Act amendments before the Senate
Urgent law reform
11 September 2024
Right now, the Albanese Government is furiously trying to make a deal to get some important reforms to Australia’s national environment laws through the Australian Senate.
This is our last chance – likely for a few years – to get any meaningful nature protection reforms into federal law.
Over the next 48 hours, together, we need to visibly demonstrate to the Albanese Government that there’s an enormous wave of public pressure to make meaningful “nature positive” reforms (and not nature negative ones).
And it’s a critical time to stop the big mining and logging lobby from bullying our government into gutting the reforms so they can lock in even more logging and fossil fuel projects without oversight.
In a frustratingly undemocratic act, the office of the Prime Minister is not taking phone calls right now.
But they are watching social media and their inboxes closely to see what the people want.
There are two critically important actions you can take right now (and again and again over the next few days):
- Flood social media by tagging the Prime Minister (@albomp) on this Facebook post, this Instagram post, and this X post – to call on his government to work together with the Senate crossbench to pass important reforms that actually protect nature
- Send a quick email to the Prime Minister so his team knows there’s an enormous wave of voters who are watching closely and demanding law reform for nature
The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act 1999 is Australia's national environment law.
We're calling on the Albanese government to work together with the crossbench and Greens to pass four (in our view, essential) reforms to our national environment laws:
However – if they think they can get away with it – the Albanese Government could instead choose to side with the Coalition and succumb to the bullying tactics of big logging and mining lobby (with no “nature positive” outcomes for nature, however they try to spin it.)
The next 24-48 hours are critical because this law is the central piece of Australia’s national environment protection framework – and it’s broken, outdated and full of holes.
For example?
- The EPBC Act doesn’t even mention the word “climate change” – let alone protect our climate from damage. In the 25 years since it came into force, environment ministers have approved more than 740 new coal mines and gas projects and rejected only one.
- This law also lets decision makers ignore widespread native forest logging and deforestation and it fails to protect habitat that’s critical for the survival of threatened species.
Everyone agrees the EPBC Act needs a complete overhaul.
It’s clear that won’t happen in this election cycle – so these amendments are urgent improvements. Nature can’t wait.
This next 24 to 48 hours is a critical window to fix the most broken bits of our environment laws – and give our climate, forests, wildlife and communities some protection and care.
