The Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 and six related bills (together, the Bills) are a once in a generation opportunity to meaningfully address critical issues with the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).
Key aspects of the Bills have the potential to make positive, enduring systems change and must be retained. These include a new National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA), stronger penalties for those who break the law, definitions within the EPBC Act of “unacceptable impact” and “critical habitat” and the initial steps towards a system grounded in National Environmental Standards (NES).
However, the Bills must be amended in five essential areas, if they are to ensure that our
national environment laws are fit-for-purpose and can protect nature, climate and people.
These amendments are known, clear and already prepared.:
- The Bills are unacceptably weakened by discretionary and non-mandatory drafting - they must be amended to increase certainty and reduce discretion.
- The Bills fail to address Australia’s deforestation crisis – amendments must be made to
close deforestation and land clearing loopholes.. - The Bills would entrench outdated regulatory decision-making about new fossil fuel projects and the climate crisis – amendments must be made to embed and respond to climate change.
- The Bills propose inappropriate devolution of Commonwealth government responsibility to the States and Territories – amendments must be made to ensure the Commonwealth
Government is responsible for national laws. - The Bills would create a risky offsets scheme without sufficient safeguards to ensure
environmental outcomes for threatened species and their habitat – amendments must be made to ensure an offsets scheme with integrity.
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