tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/tanya-plibersek-5336/articlesTanya Plibersek – The Conversation2023-11-27T04:12:56Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2170022023-11-27T04:12:56Z2023-11-27T04:12:56ZThe government’s Murray-Darling bill is a step forward, but still not enough<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561714/original/file-20231126-21-rluebs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C0%2C3058%2C2032&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sunrise-on-murray-river-near-kingstononmurray-1207917046">Philip Schubert, Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This week, the Senate is debating changes to Australia’s most important water laws. These changes seek to rescue the ailing A$13 billion Murray-Darling Basin Plan to improve the health of our nation’s largest river system. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r7076">Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023</a> is a crucial step forward. It proposes to lift the Coalition-era cap on water buybacks, allowing the federal government to recover more water for the environment through the voluntary purchase of water entitlements from irrigators.</p>
<p>It also proposes to extend the deadlines for the many beleaguered water-offsetting projects put forward by state governments.</p>
<p>Through the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists – an independent group working to secure the long-term health of Australia’s land, water and biodiversity – we strive to restore river health for the basin’s communities, industries and ecosystems. Here we ask whether the bill can fulfil the Albanese government’s <a href="https://anthonyalbanese.com.au/media-centre/labors-plan-to-future-proof-australias-water-resources-butler">2022 election promise</a> to deliver the plan.</p>
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<h2>Securing support of the Greens and crossbenchers</h2>
<p>The bill is central to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s <a href="https://anthonyalbanese.com.au/media-centre/labors-plan-to-future-proof-australias-water-resources-butler">five-point election promise</a> to deliver the plan, and Federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek’s <a href="https://www.tanyaplibersek.com/media/media-releases/media-release-plibersek-decade-of-liberal-national-sabotage-puts-murray-darling-basin-plan-behind/">subsequent commitment</a> to implement the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in full.</p>
<p>With the Coalition <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r7076">voting against the bill</a> in the lower house, the federal government <a href="https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/plibersek/media-releases/joint-media-release-strengthening-restoring-our-rivers-bill">secured the support</a> of the Greens with measures that considerably strengthen the bill.</p>
<p>It is now up to key crossbench Senators to secure passage through parliament. But they have said the bill doesn’t go far enough, citing serious concerns it <a href="https://www.lidiathorpe.com/mr_water_legislation">excludes First Nations water rights and interests</a> and <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/MDBAWaterBill2023/Report">ignores climate change</a>.</p>
<p>The federal government must pass the bill in the next two sitting weeks to avoid triggering a statutory deadline, after which unfinished water offset projects would be cancelled and water recovery would be required instead.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/labors-new-murray-darling-basin-plan-deal-entrenches-water-injustice-for-first-nations-212261">Labor’s new Murray-Darling Basin Plan deal entrenches water injustice for First Nations</a>
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<h2>Water Act and Basin Plan: where are we at?</h2>
<p>Born of the crisis of the Millennium drought, the Water Act 2007 was announced by the Howard government to “<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/howards-full-speech-to-the-national-press-club/news-story/cfd6aa4761027929545602a96dc04254">once and for all</a>” address over-allocation of water in the Murray-Darling Basin.</p>
<p>Five years later, the Basin Plan 2012 was established to recover 3,200 billion litres of water for the environment from other uses, or to implement projects that deliver “equivalent” outcomes. That includes securing 450 billion litres for the health of the River Murray, Coorong and Lower Lakes.</p>
<p>But this volume of water fell substantially short of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s best estimate of what was needed to “<a href="http://www6.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/wa200783/s3.html">ensure the return to environmentally sustainable levels of extraction</a>”, and did not take climate change into account.</p>
<p>All water recovery targets were expected to be met by June 2024. But while some progress has been made, water recovery has <a href="https://wentworthgroup.org/2017/11/review-of-water-reform-in-the-murray-darling-basin/">almost stalled</a> in the past decade.</p>
<p>Only <a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/water/policy/mdb/progress-recovery">26 billion litres have been recovered</a> of the crucial 450 billion litres. </p>
<p>Of the 36 water offset projects meant to be operational by 2024, <a href="https://www.mdba.gov.au/sites/default/files/publications/2023-sdlam-annual-assurance-report.pdf">16 are not likely to be complete</a>, contributing to a likely shortfall of between 190 billion and 315 billion litres.</p>
<p>No onground work has commenced to alleviate flow “constraints”, leaving thousands of hectares of floodplain forests in the River Murray disconnected from their channels and at risk of drying out and dying.</p>
<p>The Water Act and the plan <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-14/lawyers-academics-first-nations-rights-murray-darling-basin-plan/103098066">do not provide for First Nations people’s water rights and interests</a>. And they <a href="https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/67496/2/01_Pittock_The_Murray-Darling_Basin_Plan_2015.pdf">fail to deal with climate change</a>.</p>
<p>Reforms to both the legislation and the plan are desperately needed to address these major shortcomings.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/murray-darling-basin-plan-to-be-extended-under-a-new-agreement-without-victoria-but-an-uphill-battle-lies-ahead-212002">Murray-Darling Basin Plan to be extended under a new agreement, without Victoria – but an uphill battle lies ahead</a>
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<h2>Voluntary buybacks are necessary</h2>
<p>The new bill represents a clear step towards the first of the Albanese government’s <a href="https://anthonyalbanese.com.au/media-centre/labors-plan-to-future-proof-australias-water-resources-butler">five-point promises</a> to “deliver on water commitments” by removing the cap on buybacks.</p>
<p>Without buybacks, it is unlikely the federal government will be able to deliver the 3,200 billion-litre plan in full.</p>
<p>While the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/MDBAWaterBill2023/Report">Senate Committee</a> acknowledged the impacts of buybacks on communities, the committee found some concerns were “overinflated and not supported by the high-quality evidence base”, referring to a <a href="https://www.mdba.gov.au/sites/default/files/publications/mdb-outlook-economic-literature-review2.pdf">literature review</a>.</p>
<p>The Wentworth Group has <a href="https://wentworthgroup.org/2010/06/sustainable-diversions-in-the-murray-darling-basin/">long argued</a> for funding to establish a regional transition fund to support impacted communities through these reforms. As part of these reforms, “significant transitional assistance” was <a href="https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/plibersek/speeches/speech-introducing-restoring-our-rivers-bill">announced</a> by Plibersek.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/water-buybacks-are-back-on-the-table-in-the-murray-darling-basin-heres-a-refresher-on-how-they-work-200529">Water buybacks are back on the table in the Murray-Darling Basin. Here's a refresher on how they work</a>
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<h2>Statutory guarantees are needed</h2>
<p>The bill requires <a href="https://wentworthgroup.org/2023/10/submission-to-senate_inquiry_water_amendment_bill_2023/">additional measures</a> to guarantee the unfinished business to which parliament agreed more than a decade ago:</p>
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<li><p><strong>a legally binding 450 billion litre water recovery target</strong>. The public needs a legal recourse if governments fail to deliver the full volume. We understand the intent of today’s <a href="https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/plibersek/media-releases/joint-media-release-strengthening-restoring-our-rivers-bill">announcement</a> is to make the target a statutory requirement, in line with other water recovery targets under the plan.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>improved integrity of the water offset method and withdrawal of unviable water offset projects</strong> The <a href="https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/plibersek/media-releases/joint-media-release-strengthening-restoring-our-rivers-bill">agreement</a> reached today allows the Commonwealth to remove non-viable projects. <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/mf/Fulltext/MF22082">Significant flaws</a> in the method used to calculate water offsets still need to be addressed. </p></li>
<li><p><strong>milestones in the bill’s proposed “constraints roadmap”</strong> which specify targets linked to incentive payments.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>transparency and accountability measures</strong> to restore public confidence in water reform, such as whole-of-basin hydrological modelling, water accounting and auditing, and validation of annual permitted take models. </p></li>
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<p>Several of these measures were <a href="https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/plibersek/media-releases/joint-media-release-strengthening-restoring-our-rivers-bill">announced today</a>. We’re yet to see details but the high-level agreement is encouraging.</p>
<h2>Urgent reforms can’t wait to 2027</h2>
<p>Australia’s water laws have <a href="https://theconversation.com/labors-new-murray-darling-basin-plan-deal-entrenches-water-injustice-for-first-nations-212261">failed to address</a> the rights and interests of Indigenous people. Indigenous peoples <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837719319799">own a mere 0.2%</a> of surface water entitlements in the Murray-Darling Basin.</p>
<p>In 2022, the Albanese government <a href="https://anthonyalbanese.com.au/media-centre/labors-plan-to-future-proof-australias-water-resources-butler">committed</a> to “increasing First Nations ownership of water entitlements and participation in decision making”.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/MDBAWaterBill2023/Report">Senate Committee</a> found “overwhelming support […] that significantly more needs to be done to incorporate the values and interests of First Nations people in Basin Plan management”.</p>
<p>Many solutions can be readily incorporated into the bill. It should be amended so the legislation is consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and recommendations of Indigenous organisations, such as the Murray-Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations.</p>
<p>The $100 million <a href="https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/plibersek/media-releases/joint-media-release-strengthening-restoring-our-rivers-bill">announced</a> today for the Aboriginal Water Entitlement Program is welcome, although much was already <a href="https://www.tonyburke.com.au/media-releases/2019/5/6/media-release-labornbspwillnbspget-the-basin-plan-back-on-tracknbsp">committed</a> and the remainder won’t make up for the lost value given entitlement prices, according to <a href="https://mldrin.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/WEB_20230829-MLDRIN-Slide-Deck-FINAL-STC.pdf">analysis</a> commissioned by the Murray-Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations.</p>
<p>The bill also needs to provide greater clarity for basin communities on how climate change will be incorporated into the Basin Plan review, and strategies for adapting to climate change. This cannot wait until 2027 – communities need to prepare now for their future.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/victorias-plans-for-engineered-wetlands-on-the-murray-are-environmentally-dubious-heres-a-better-option-204116">Victoria’s plans for engineered wetlands on the Murray are environmentally dubious. Here’s a better option</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Celine Steinfeld is Director of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Vanderzee is a Water Policy Analyst with the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists. He is a former water policy adviser to the Victorian goverment with more than 12 years experience in national and Murray-Darling Basin water reform.</span></em></p>With the support of the Greens, there’s a chance the ‘Restoring Our Rivers’ Bill will pass. Will it be enough to put the Murray-Darling Basin Plan back on track?Celine Steinfeld, Director, Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists & Adjunct Lecturer, UNSW SydneyMichael Vanderzee, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2172712023-11-16T19:04:35Z2023-11-16T19:04:35Z5 things we need to see in Australia’s new nature laws<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559816/original/file-20231116-24-u8tdzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C9%2C6006%2C3998&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sunrise-over-shady-camp-billabong-mary-1625640262">Shane Bartie, Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australia’s abysmal rates of <a href="https://theconversation.com/gut-wrenching-and-infuriating-why-australia-is-the-world-leader-in-mammal-extinctions-and-what-to-do-about-it-192173">extinctions</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-must-assess-cumulative-impacts-to-protect-nature-from-death-by-a-thousand-cuts-215988">land clearing</a> since European colonisation are infamous globally. Our <a href="https://theconversation.com/labors-plan-to-save-threatened-species-is-an-improvement-but-its-still-well-short-of-what-we-need-191845">national environmental legislation has largely failed</a> to protect biodiversity, including many threatened plants, animals and ecological communities. But change is afoot.</p>
<p>The federal government is <a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/epbc/epbc-act-reform">reforming our national environmental law</a>. Following a <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-major-report-excoriated-australias-environment-laws-sussan-leys-response-is-confused-and-risky-154254">scathing review</a> in 2021, the legislation is being rewritten. While amendments to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2016C00777">(EPBC Act)</a> are yet to be tabled in parliament, the government says “<a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/epbc/epbc-act-reform">rolling consultation</a>” has begun. </p>
<p>About 30 <a href="https://twitter.com/tanya_plibersek/status/1718781979070791826">environment, business and industry groups</a> attended “targeted stakeholder workshops” last month. Public consultation begins with two webinars, on November 23 and 28. Government officials are offering to “explain how the proposed changes are designed to work and how they compare to existing laws”. But they are not sharing the draft legislation yet. </p>
<p>How can we assess whether these new laws can prevent further species loss and habitat destruction? Here’s an essential checklist of five things the law must include if we are to avoid calamity and hasten environmental recovery.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/labors-plan-to-save-threatened-species-is-an-improvement-but-its-still-well-short-of-what-we-need-191845">Labor's plan to save threatened species is an improvement – but it's still well short of what we need</a>
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<h2>1. A climate trigger</h2>
<p>The EPBC Act does not explicitly discuss and account for climate change and its impacts. So the federal environment minister is not legally bound to consider – or authorised to refuse – new or expanded coal mines and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-beetaloo-gas-field-is-a-climate-bomb-how-did-csiro-modelling-make-it-look-otherwise-215711">fossil gas fields</a> based on their future climate impacts. </p>
<p>But climate change clearly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/14/five-biggest-threats-natural-world-how-we-can-stop-them-aoe">threatens biodiversity</a> and special places such as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/out-of-danger-because-the-un-said-so-hardly-the-barrier-reef-is-still-in-hot-water-210787">Great Barrier Reef</a>, as well as <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-08/australian-climate-case-torres-strait-court/103081738">human communities and culture</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-should-use-australias-environment-laws-to-protect-our-living-wonders-from-new-coal-and-gas-projects-214211">We should use Australia's environment laws to protect our 'living wonders' from new coal and gas projects</a>
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<h2>2. Habitat means homes for wildlife</h2>
<p>Protection of sufficient and connected habitat must be central to Australia’s national environmental law. If homes for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/02/australia-swift-parrot-extinction-fears-logging">swift parrots</a>, koalas, <a href="https://theconversation.com/greater-gliders-are-hurtling-towards-extinction-and-the-blame-lies-squarely-with-australian-governments-186469">greater gliders</a> and other threatened species <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/13/enough-is-enough-former-coalition-environment-minister-joins-push-for-a-national-ban-on-native-forest-logging?CMP=share_btn_tw">continue to be destroyed</a> and fragmented, it is all but guaranteed Australia will fail in its stated quest to avoid further extinctions. </p>
<p>Northern Australia is home to exceptional but declining biodiversity that is increasingly <a href="https://territoryrivers.org.au/a-fork-in-the-river/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw1_SkBhDwARIsANbGpFvOo6KLE0SjyU54tV8tlZJyU4Xf2vYE0HGhRlI_F897xp-9WqjqDaAaAiBJEALw_wcB">threatened</a> by <a href="https://theconversation.com/land-clearing-and-fracking-in-australias-northern-territory-threatens-the-worlds-largest-intact-tropical-savanna-208028">development of pastoral, cotton and fracking industries</a>. </p>
<p>Significant increases in <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-24/nt-agribusiness-strategy-2030-crops-land-clearing-cotton-gins/102382600">land clearing</a> and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-14/nt-water-plan-released-georgina-wiso-oil-gas-cotton-sectors/103099618">water extraction</a> are seldom referred under the EPBC Act, let alone assessed. </p>
<p>Environmental law reform must stem the <a href="https://theconversation.com/existential-threat-to-our-survival-see-the-19-australian-ecosystems-already-collapsing-154077">accelerating loss of biodiversity</a> in this region <a href="https://theconversation.com/this-is-australias-most-important-report-on-the-environments-deteriorating-health-we-present-its-grim-findings-186131">and elsewhere</a>. Reforms must include <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-16/water-trigger-bill-to-close-fracking-loophole-introduced/102982456">expanding the water trigger to apply to shale gas fracking</a>, and ensuring significant land clearing is referred and assessed. </p>
<p>It is also crucial that federal approval powers are not <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/10/coalition-prepared-transfer-of-environmental-powers-to-states-months-before-epbc-review-reported">devolved to states and territories</a>, particularly in remote regions where so much damage occurs <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-11/land-cleared-for-cotton-farming-northern-territory/101651092">out of sight and out of mind</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/land-clearing-and-fracking-in-australias-northern-territory-threatens-the-worlds-largest-intact-tropical-savanna-208028">Land clearing and fracking in Australia's Northern Territory threatens the world's largest intact tropical savanna</a>
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<h2>3. Setting clear objectives and measuring outcomes</h2>
<p>The new laws must state policy objectives such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/04/australia-announces-plan-to-halt-extinction-crisis-and-save-110-species">no new extinctions</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-should-use-australias-environment-laws-to-protect-our-living-wonders-from-new-coal-and-gas-projects-214211">no actions that accelerate climate change</a>. </p>
<p>Decision-makers must be required to address direct, indirect and <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-must-assess-cumulative-impacts-to-protect-nature-from-death-by-a-thousand-cuts-215988">cumulative</a> threats that undermine these objectives. </p>
<p>The new <a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/epbc/epbc-act-reform/standards">National Environment Standards</a> (the centrepiece of this law reform) must stipulate red lines not to be crossed, such as no clearing of any critically endangered ecological communities or critical habitat of threatened species. </p>
<p>We should always seek first to avoid harm, then keep harm to a minimum, and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118568170.ch7">only as a last resort, offset remaining impacts</a> – and then only with credible offset plans that fully account for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1526-100X.2008.00382.x">uncertainties in delivering environmental compensation</a>. </p>
<h2>4. An independent umpire</h2>
<p>We need a well-resourced, independent umpire, operating at arms length from government. This “<a href="https://epbcactreview.environment.gov.au/news/media-statement-professor-graeme-samuel-ac-releases-interim-report">independent cop on the beat</a>” will need powers to prevent activities and developments deemed too harmful for biodiversity. </p>
<p>The government has vowed to create a national <a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/epbc/epbc-act-reform#toc_2">Environmental Protection Agency</a>. The functioning and powers of such an entity risk being severely undermined if the environment minister of the day has the ability to “call-in” projects and make unilateral decisions over whether they can proceed. That would also create concern regarding industry influence and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global/2023/nov/14/australias-sea-dumping-legislation-what-is-it-what-does-it-mean-marine-life-changes">pressure on ministers to approve projects</a>.</p>
<p>It’s essential ministers not only have regard for environmental standards but also follow them to the letter of the law.</p>
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<h2>5. A Voice for Country and culture</h2>
<p>Our national environment laws must make room for <a href="https://theconversation.com/another-assault-on-country-and-its-precious-species-has-begun-at-binybara-lee-point-209335">genuine Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders participation</a> in how matters of cultural and environmental significance are managed. </p>
<p>Our new nature laws must interact with federal cultural heritage laws, which are also under reform. Entities of cultural significance, <a href="https://theconversation.com/humpback-whales-hold-lore-for-traditional-custodians-but-laws-dont-protect-species-for-their-cultural-significance-213073">such as humpback whales and dingoes</a>, must be cared for in a way deemed appropriate by Indigenous Australians. Such a mechanism must be co-designed with Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders. </p>
<p>Policy must continue to be developed in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people. We suggest a Land and Sea Country Commissioner, “a Voice for Country”, could lead this ongoing collaboration. We also need to ensure groups are adequately resourced and supported to Care for Country. </p>
<h2>We must do better</h2>
<p>The time has come to lift our ambitions and truly protect our nation’s precious environment and biodiversity. </p>
<p>Australians <a href="https://biodiversitycouncil.org.au/media/uploads/2023_6/202305_biodiversity_concerns_survey_report.pdf">want effective, urgent action</a> from government. For cultural, social, economic and environmental reasons, biodiversity conservation should be treated as a public good and receive bipartisan support. It’s not an optional extra. We simply must invest in nature. We cannot <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/03/federal-budget-2023-australia-being-unable-afford-greater-environmental-protection-myth-refuses-die">afford not to</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217271/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Euan Ritchie receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Department of Energy, Environment, and Climate Action. Euan is a Councillor within the Biodiversity Council, and a member of the Ecological Society of Australia and the Australian Mammal Society.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jack Pascoe is Co-Chief Councillor of the Biodiversity Council and a member on the Ecological Society of Australia and the Australasian Wildlife Management Society. He receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kristy Howey is the Executive Director of the Environment Centre NT.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Terry Hughes receives competitive funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yung En Chee receives funding from an Australian Research Council linkage grant. She also receives funding and research contracts from Melbourne Water through the Melbourne Waterway Research-Practice Partnership 2023-28.</span></em></p>A group of prominent environmental scientists devised this list of 5 things we must see in Australia’s new national environmental laws, if we are to avoid calamity and hasten recovery.Euan Ritchie, Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin UniversityJack Pascoe, Research fellow, The University of MelbourneKirsty Howey, Charles Darwin UniversityTerry Hughes, Distinguished Professor, James Cook UniversityYung En Chee, Senior Research Fellow, Environmental Science, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2031422023-11-13T02:49:40Z2023-11-13T02:49:40ZMurray-Darling water buybacks won’t be enough if we can’t get water to where it’s needed<p>When it was clear the Murray-Darling Basin Plan could not be completed on time, Federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek <a href="https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/plibersek/media-releases/historic-deal-struck-guarantee-future-murray-darling-basin">announced a new agreement</a> (without Victoria) to deliver in full the plan’s aim of restoring the health of this vast river system.</p>
<p>The new agreement required changes to the Water Act to allow more water for the environment to be purchased from irrigators (<a href="https://theconversation.com/water-buybacks-are-back-on-the-table-in-the-murray-darling-basin-heres-a-refresher-on-how-they-work-200529">water buybacks</a>). Concerns about these changes prompted a Senate inquiry. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Tabled_Documents/4142">report</a> from that inquiry, released on Friday, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2023-11-10/murray-darling-senate-inquiry-more-offset-project-scrutiny/103084420">supports buybacks</a> but also makes key recommendations to remove “constraints” to water delivery. These are physical constraints or limits to the movement of water through the river system. Managers can only deliver so much water before it spills out of the river onto private land. </p>
<p>The report goes so far as to ask whether constraints should be removed before more water is recovered. This is a question we have been asking in our research. And our results suggest the answer is yes.</p>
<p>Currently, we cannot physically deliver all of the water recovered from other uses for the environment (known as <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780128039076000012">environmental water</a>) to where it’s needed without flooding private property along the way. And the government is not prepared to do that. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/murray-darling-basin-plan-to-be-extended-under-a-new-agreement-without-victoria-but-an-uphill-battle-lies-ahead-212002">Murray-Darling Basin Plan to be extended under a new agreement, without Victoria – but an uphill battle lies ahead</a>
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<h2>Basin health is improving but challenges remain</h2>
<p>Under the <a href="https://www.mdba.gov.au/water-management/basin-plan">Basin Plan</a>, about 20% of water used for irrigation a decade ago is now used for environmental purposes. This has improved river health, encouraging fish to spawn and plants to grow, and reduced salt levels in the Lower Lakes and Coorong. </p>
<p>These benefits rely on the river’s <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1313099">flow regime</a>, not just the annual volume. Higher flows inundate wetlands, move sediment down the river, and provide natural triggers for various species to breed or migrate. </p>
<p>But raising water levels in the river channel isn’t enough to get environmental water everywhere it’s needed. Sometimes larger flows are required. Unfortunately, sending more water down the river runs the risk of inundating private property or damaging infrastructure such as low-lying pumps on floodplains. </p>
<p>Restoring the river’s health requires not only recovering water but also completing projects that allow more of this water to flow despite physical constraints such as a narrow stretch of river. These <a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/water/policy/mdb/policy/sdl-adjustment-mechanism">projects</a> might involve modifying or improving infrastructure such as low-lying roads and bridges, as well as working with communities to limit damage and compensate for flooding of private property.</p>
<p>The Senate inquiry report highlights the challenges for these projects. It also supports improving the approach to delivering these projects across the southern basin. </p>
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<h2>Challenges, priorities and solutions may differ</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2021.789206/full">Our research</a> on the Goulburn River in Victoria’s part of the Murray-Darling Basin shows recovery of additional water for the environment does not guarantee environmental outcomes. </p>
<p>This is because the amount of water that can be sent down the river is constrained. So having more environmental water at your disposal does not help, because it is physically impossible to get all the water to where it is needed, when it is needed, without risking inundation of private property.</p>
<p>Current river system operations, including rules and physical constraints, prevent the full volume of environmental water held in Goulburn River being delivered at the right time and in the right way to achieve the best environmental outcomes.</p>
<p>Narrow sections of the river and adjacent private development limit releases from Lake Eildon. River managers are not allowed to deliberately inundate the floodplain if it risks private property. </p>
<p>So the volume of environmental water available in the Goulburn River is not the issue – delivering this water is the challenge. In this regard, <a href="https://theconversation.com/murray-darling-basin-plan-to-be-extended-under-a-new-agreement-without-victoria-but-an-uphill-battle-lies-ahead-212002">Victoria’s refusal</a> to sign up to the new basin deal is understandable, because more water buybacks would potentially cause more pain to the local community than gain to the local environment. </p>
<p>However, neither Victoria nor New South Wales has addressed these capacity constraint issues, significantly limiting the ability to get better environmental outcomes with less water. So the challenge is much more complex than simply redistributing entitlements and buying back environmental water. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/water-buybacks-are-back-on-the-table-in-the-murray-darling-basin-heres-a-refresher-on-how-they-work-200529">Water buybacks are back on the table in the Murray-Darling Basin. Here's a refresher on how they work</a>
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<h2>The elephant in the room: climate change</h2>
<p>Temperature, rainfall and streamflow have already changed in parts of the Murray-Darling Basin. Over the coming decade these changes will become more pronounced, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002216942300313X">widespread and entrenched</a>, causing more frequent floods and droughts. </p>
<p>While the precise consequences for water availability remain to be seen, the impact on the basin will be immense. </p>
<p>But climate change simply adds to the need to have difficult conversations around the future of communities along the Murray-Darling. Focusing on whether buyback targets have been achieved does not resolve this. In many regions, there will not be enough water, with or without buybacks, to achieve <a href="https://cdn.environment.sa.gov.au/environment/docs/6.8.1-Preliminary-adaptation-pathways-for-the-Coorong-Lower-Lakes-and-Murray-Mouth.pdf">current management objectives</a>. </p>
<p>Buybacks should be placed in the context of this imminent threat. In rivers like the Goulburn, addressing capacity constraints provides the <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2021.789206/full">single best climate adaptation option</a> to improve environmental outcomes in the short and medium term. </p>
<p>Removing these constraints would allow more water onto the lower Goulburn River floodplain, with due care for land and infrastructure that could be affected. For example, projects may offer landholders <a href="https://www.gbcma.vic.gov.au/our-region/waterway-floodplain-management/waterways/constraints-management-strategy">options to avoid or compensate for any water damage and associated costs</a>. </p>
<p>This is because removing constraints gives river managers more flexibility, which can increase the resilience of the environment to a wider range of future climates. More water from buybacks provides very limited additional benefit because it doesn’t change how environmental water can be delivered. </p>
<p>The senate report emphasises the need to embed consideration of climate change in the Water Act and Basin Plan. The decisions we are making now on water recovery and constraints relaxation will have big impacts on communities.</p>
<p>Our work shows considering climate change is essential to ensuring lasting benefits and resilient outcomes for the rivers and communities that rely on them.</p>
<p>The first basin plan took a big step towards sustainable management of the vast Murray-Darling river system. But it was always meant to be the first step in an adaptive policy process. Priorities and solutions will look different across the basin. We need a holistic approach where buybacks may very well be part of the solution, but are not the whole solution. We also need to ensure we can deliver this water where and when the environment needs it. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/victorias-plans-for-engineered-wetlands-on-the-murray-are-environmentally-dubious-heres-a-better-option-204116">Victoria’s plans for engineered wetlands on the Murray are environmentally dubious. Here’s a better option</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203142/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Avril Horne receives funding from the Victorian Government Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action.
Avril has recently been appointed as a member of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority Advisory Committee on Social Economic and Environmental Sciences.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew John receives funding from the Victorian Government Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action. </span></em></p>Buying back water from irrigators across the Murray-Darling Basin will not be enough to restore river health because we have big problems getting this ‘environmental water’ to where it’s needed most.Avril Horne, Research fellow, Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of MelbourneAndrew John, Research fellow, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2169072023-11-02T09:30:33Z2023-11-02T09:30:33ZGrattan on Friday: Treasurer Jim Chalmers pumps up his role in energy transition<p>Jim Chalmers – as if he doesn’t have enough on his plate – is marching into the centre of energy policy. </p>
<p>This is probably a good thing for the government, because the transition to renewables isn’t going as well as it needs to. </p>
<p>There’s a general recognition Australia is not on track to achieve the government’s commitment to have renewables deliver 82% of electricity by 2030. </p>
<p>Chalmers was blunt in a major speech on Thursday, declaring: “We know further action is required to meet our targets […] It’s important for me to acknowledge that without more decisive action across all levels of government, working with investors, industry and communities, the energy transition could fall short of what the country needs.”</p>
<p>In his address, titled “Energy, the Economy and This Defining Decade”, to the 2023 Economic and Social Outlook Conference, Chalmers said he will put work on the energy transition at the centre of the agenda of the reformed Productivity Commission, which comes under his portfolio. </p>
<p>He is providing the commission with a “Statement of Expectations” – the first in its quarter-century history. This will be agreed with the PC’s new head, Danielle Wood, and will be released by the time she starts on November 13. </p>
<p>The statement “will make clear that guiding our country towards a successful net-zero transformation will be one of the key focus areas for a revamped and renewed Productivity Commission”, which Chalmers wants to have a more influential role. </p>
<p>He said “more practical and relevant advice” would complement advice from bodies such as the Climate Change Authority, “to ensure we realise the economic potential presented by the net-zero transition”. </p>
<p>Elaborating on radio, Chalmers said the PC was the “think tank for the Australian people”. It needed to be engaged in a bigger way with the energy transformation because that was “one of the biggest challenges and opportunities that we face”. </p>
<p>“We want to put the energy transformation front and centre in our economic reform efforts. We see it as crucial to the future and that means it should be absolutely central to the work of the PC too,” he told the ABC.</p>
<p>Chalmers’ speech unabashedly stepped into the policy areas of multiple ministers. He acknowledged this himself, mentioning Chris Bowen (Climate and Energy), Ed Husic (Industry), Madeleine King (Resources), Tanya Plibersek (Environment) “and a number of others”.</p>
<p>Chalmers is always careful about consultation with colleagues and this was the case before his speech, which also had input from Albanese’s office. </p>
<p>The official line is everything is hunky-dory with the colleagues, and Chalmers has been very involved in energy policy all along, including with the government’s gas and coal price caps and the energy rebates last year. And he has worked closely with Bowen.</p>
<p>That said, we don’t know what some of the ministers may think privately about Chalmers’ foray, especially Bowen, who these days is quite feisty (and reportedly is willing to push back in the cabinet on occasion).</p>
<p>The PC does inquiries the government formally asks it to do, as well as some work it initiates. Chalmers’ determination to more actively guide its work could present its challenges for Wood, who this week delivered a major speech of her own – on tax reform.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-cost-of-living-crisis-is-the-dragon-the-government-cant-slay-216441">Grattan on Friday: Cost-of-living crisis is the dragon the government can't slay</a>
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<p>In one of her final addresses as the Grattan Institute’s CEO, Wood said that, despite all the obstacles, she remained optimistic tax reform could be achieved. </p>
<p>“I don’t think we have much choice,” she said. “A slow-burning platform is still on fire, and over the coming decade the gap between our spending needs and our tax system’s capacity to meet them without ever higher taxes on employment income will be stretched to breaking point.</p>
<p>"More and more, questions of sustainability and intergenerational fairness are raised about our current tax mix. Expect them to get louder and louder over the coming decade without action.”</p>
<p>Wood added that tax must be part of the conversation if policy objectives were to be delivered in areas including the “green transition”. </p>
<p>One might think Wood would want to use the PC to provide some research backing on the need for tax reform. Chalmers, however, is extremely cautious about substantial tax reform, not least because of his experience in the office of the then treasurer, Wayne Swan, when the tax push ended badly.</p>
<p>Leaving aside his unsuccessful 2022 bid to recalibrate the stage 3 tax cuts, Chalmers’ approach to changing the tax system is to tread lightly, with incremental changes. Wood’s observation that “history shows that reform packages can work well” might have sent a slight shudder down the treasurer’s spine. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-economist-chris-richardson-on-a-likely-interest-rate-rise-and-the-fall-in-living-standards-216836">Politics with Michelle Grattan: Economist Chris Richardson on a likely interest rate rise and the fall in living standards</a>
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<p>Wood (who is personally not an energy policy specialist) was the second choice for head of the PC (Chris Barrett, the initial appointee, pulled out when offered a better job). She is a leading economist and has been used to driving a wide-ranging program at Grattan. Following Chambers’ priorities while keeping the PC with a level of independence – important to its retaining credibility – will require her to strike a fine balance.</p>
<p>More immediately, another test of judgment and independence for another new Chalmers’ appointee, Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock, will play out on Tuesday, when the bank considers whether interest rates should rise. </p>
<p>Many economists believe there should be another increase. This view was reinforced this week when the International Monetary Fund <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2023/10/31/cs103123-australia-staff-concluding-statement-of-the-2023-article-iv#:%7E:text=Australia's%20economy%20has%20been%20resilient,after%20a%20correction%20in%202022.">said rates should go up</a>, to lower inflation faster. “Although inflation is gradually declining, it remains significantly above the RBA’s target,” the IMF said. </p>
<p>The government doesn’t want a rate rise. Chalmers repeatedly stresses he respects the bank’s independence but has also made it clear he does not think the latest inflation data necessitate an increase. He repeated on Thursday that, while inflation is likely to be more volatile at the moment, “there was nothing additional or unexpected in the September quarter CPI which materially altered Treasury’s expectations for when inflation will return to the target band”. </p>
<p>The dynamics of the RBA board are presently unclear, with two new appointments, both with their roots in the trade union movement. </p>
<p>Although there is always the possibility of differing opinions within the board, Bullock will be the one publicly in the hot seat on Tuesday afternoon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216907/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This is probably a good thing for the government, because the transition to renewables isn’t going as well as it needs toMichelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2159882023-10-29T19:11:58Z2023-10-29T19:11:58ZWe must assess ‘cumulative impacts’ to protect nature from death by a thousand cuts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556264/original/file-20231027-19-kul9qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=165%2C134%2C4332%2C2659&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/red-sand-dunes-ghost-gums-west-1676734210">Cam Laird/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australia’s national environment protection law ignores the big picture. Like a racehorse wearing blinkers, decision-makers focus on a single project in isolation. If they dropped the blinkers and considered the combined effects of multiple projects, they might shy away from allowing so many harmful impacts. </p>
<p>Urgent reform is needed because nature is suffering death by a thousand cuts. We have <a href="https://www.anao.gov.au/work/performance-audit/management-threatened-species-and-ecological-communities-under-the-epbc-act#:%7E:text=As%20of%20February%202022%2C%20there,1595%20items%20of%20conservation%20advice.">more than 2,000</a> threatened species and ecological communities – groups of plants and animals that live together and interact, such as Western Australia’s iconic Banksia woodlands. That number is likely to grow, as hundreds more <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-not-just-victorias-iconic-mountain-ash-trees-at-risk-its-every-species-in-their-community-214582">await assessment for listing</a>. </p>
<p>Today, the <a href="https://wentworthgroup.org/">Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists</a>, which includes one of the authors of this article, is releasing a <a href="https://wentworthgroup.org/2023/10/preventing-death-by-a-thousand-cuts/">report outlining the practical steps needed to fix the law</a>. It draws on both international and Australian experience to recommend pragmatic solutions that also minimise the administrative burden for landholders.</p>
<p>The report finds <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-beat-rollout-rage-the-environment-versus-climate-battle-dividing-regional-australia-213863">regional planning can help</a>. But rolling out regional planning won’t happen fast, nor will it alone fix this problem. Addressing cumulative impacts on already threatened biodiversity means every impact must be counted, and countered.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-should-use-australias-environment-laws-to-protect-our-living-wonders-from-new-coal-and-gas-projects-214211">We should use Australia's environment laws to protect our 'living wonders' from new coal and gas projects</a>
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<h2>Our national environmental laws are lagging</h2>
<p>“Cumulative impacts” arise when multiple actions or environmental conditions together cause greater overall impact than threats considered in isolation. </p>
<p>When it comes to regulating the cumulative environmental impacts of new developments, <a href="https://www.unswlawjournal.unsw.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/2-Nelson.pdf">our national environmental law is lagging</a>. </p>
<p>Around the world, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/transnational-environmental-law/article/latent-potential-of-cumulative-effects-concepts-in-national-and-international-environmental-impact-assessment-regimes/2219738FCAA04243F83CAFEE02DB4610#fig01">almost two-thirds of national environmental laws</a> require a decision-maker to consider cumulative impacts. This includes laws in high-income economies in Europe and North America, as well as our Asia-Pacific neighbours such as Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Indonesia and the Solomon Islands. First Nations peoples often lead the charge for <a href="https://www.icce-caec.ca/about-icce/">more focus on cumulative impacts</a>. </p>
<p>Recent legal reforms in some Australian states, such as <a href="https://www.allens.com.au/insights-news/insights/2020/04/10-key-things-about-proposed-changes-to-the-wa-epa/#anchor3">Western Australia</a>, <a href="https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/4772747/03-Lindsay,-Marsh-and-Nelson-422.pdf">Victoria</a> and the <a href="https://www.edo.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Environmental-impact-assessment-under-the-EP-Act-2019.pdf">Northern Territory</a>, and <a href="https://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-03/cumulative-impact-assessment-guidelines-for-ssp.pdf">policy advances in New South Wales</a>, do the same. But they are not set up to protect matters of national environmental significance. That’s a job for national law. </p>
<p>Tasmanian environmentalists sought to fix this major flaw in a legal challenge that ended in the Full Federal Court in 2015. They argued that, in approving a haematite mine that would harm the habitat of vulnerable Tasmanian devils, the federal environment minister had unlawfully failed to consider cumulative impacts. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://jade.io/article/398617">the challenge failed</a>. The court decided there was no requirement to consider cumulative impacts. The then environment minister Tony Burke could continue to ignore how serious the mine’s impacts really were for the devils when combined with other major projects such as logging and neighbouring mines.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556259/original/file-20231027-15-zt2j9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A stout black animal with a white band across its chest and a pointy snout looks at the camera" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556259/original/file-20231027-15-zt2j9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556259/original/file-20231027-15-zt2j9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556259/original/file-20231027-15-zt2j9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556259/original/file-20231027-15-zt2j9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556259/original/file-20231027-15-zt2j9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556259/original/file-20231027-15-zt2j9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556259/original/file-20231027-15-zt2j9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Tasmanian devil habitat is impacted by logging and mining.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/tasmanian-devil-australia-659406127">Oleksii G/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>Both big and small cuts matter</h2>
<p>Cumulative impacts are not just about major projects (such as mines) that already reach decision-makers’ desks, but also small projects that are rarely scrutinised. </p>
<p>Notably, <a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/epbc/publications/review-interactions-epbc-act-agriculture-final-report">very few agricultural developments</a> seek approval. Yet for koalas, which are endangered, the cumulative effects of many land–clearing operations – <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/threatened/species/pubs/85104-conservation-advice-12022022.pdf">mostly for grazing</a> – is a major ongoing threat, <a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/recovery-plan-koala-2022.pdf">compounded further by disease and climate change</a>. </p>
<p>The federal environment department’s <a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/biodiversity/threatened/publications/referral-guidelines-endangered-koala#:%7E:text=This%20guidance%20has%20been%20developed%20to%20support%20proponents%2C,Protection%20and%20Biodiversity%20Conservation%20Act%201999%20%28EPBC%20Act%29.">own advice</a> is “even small areas of habitat loss (as little as 1 hectare) can have a significant impact” on koalas. But more than a million hectares of potential koala habitat have disappeared since the law came into force in 2000 - most with no consideration under environment law. <a href="https://www.wilderness.org.au/protecting-nature/watch-on-nature#:%7E:text=In%20November%20last%20year%2C%20Watch%20on%20Nature%20users%20identified%20broadscale%20deforestation%20of%20likely%20koala%20habitat%20taking%20place%20in%20Far%20North%20Queensland.">Most land clearing continues</a> unscrutinised. </p>
<p>Without attention to cumulative impacts, policy commitments to “<a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/environmental-markets/nature-repair-market">repair nature</a>” or be “<a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/epbc/publications/nature-positive-plan">nature positive</a>” can’t work. It’s like trying to fill a bucket while gaping holes at the bottom are draining it.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556260/original/file-20231027-22-qzcvvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A grey animal asleep high up on a eucalyptus tree" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556260/original/file-20231027-22-qzcvvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556260/original/file-20231027-22-qzcvvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556260/original/file-20231027-22-qzcvvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556260/original/file-20231027-22-qzcvvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556260/original/file-20231027-22-qzcvvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556260/original/file-20231027-22-qzcvvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556260/original/file-20231027-22-qzcvvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Koalas are threatened by agricultural land clearing, disease and the effects of climate change.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/australian-koala-asleep-on-branch-gum-1800418618">Jackson Stock Photography/Shutterstock</a></span>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/land-clearing-and-fracking-in-australias-northern-territory-threatens-the-worlds-largest-intact-tropical-savanna-208028">Land clearing and fracking in Australia's Northern Territory threatens the world's largest intact tropical savanna</a>
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<h2>In a crisis, change is possible</h2>
<p>In some cases, public pressure and ecological catastrophe have forced national action on cumulative impacts. </p>
<p>In response to international concern for the Great Barrier Reef, a <a href="https://elibrary.gbrmpa.gov.au/jspui/bitstream/11017/3389/9/Reef-2050-cumulative-impact-mngt-policy.pdf">cumulative impact policy</a> was introduced - but it only relates to the reef. </p>
<p>Public protests and inquiries drove Commonwealth <a href="https://rebeccanelsonorg.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/nelson_bigtime_authorversion.pdf">regulation of the impact of coal seam gas and coal mining projects on water</a>. This is currently the only “matter of national environmental significance” that requires cumulative impact assessment. </p>
<p>And the Commonwealth <a href="https://www.unswlawjournal.unsw.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/2-Nelson.pdf">capped cumulative withdrawals of water</a> in the Murray-Darling Basin during the Millennium Drought. For the first time across the basin, total withdrawals could not exceed an “environmentally sustainable level”. Implementation <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-08/rivers-missing-environment-flows-in-murray-darling-basin-plan/102805636">is not easy</a>, but at least there’s now a crucial legal safeguard in place. </p>
<p>Overall, though, our current law is failing. The <a href="https://epbcactreview.environment.gov.au/resources/final-report">2020 statutory review</a> of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act confirmed “cumulative impacts on the environment <a href="https://epbcactreview.environment.gov.au/resources/final-report/executive-summary">are not systematically considered</a>” and that this contributes to environmental decline.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/get-the-basics-right-for-national-environmental-standards-to-ensure-truly-sustainable-development-201092">Get the basics right for National Environmental Standards to ensure truly sustainable development</a>
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<h2>What’s holding us back?</h2>
<p>Assessing cumulative impacts can be complex, so some developers and politicians will resist. But other developers will welcome better environmental performance. They know cumulative impacts can threaten an industry’s social licence to operate. </p>
<p>Globally, diverse industry sectors support considering cumulative impacts, from <a href="https://tethys.pnnl.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Cumulative-Impact-Assessment-Guidelines.pdf">offshore wind farms in the United Kingdom</a>, to the <a href="https://wsdot.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-10/ENV-NSEPA_AASHTOCummHndbk.pdf">transport sector in the United States</a> and the <a href="https://minerals.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Cumulative_Environmental_Impact_Assessment_Industry_Guide_FINAL_0.pdf">mining industry in Australia</a>.</p>
<p>Dealing with cumulative impacts will also mean scrutinising types and sizes of impacts that currently fly under the national radar, but seriously impact nationally important environments.</p>
<p>That means cooperating with states and territories to avoid duplication of assessment and creating innovative approaches – beyond simple regulatory “sticks” – for small but cumulatively significant impacts.</p>
<h2>Now is the time</h2>
<p>Once-in-a-decade reforms to our national environmental law present an opportunity to protect nationally important species and places from cumulative impacts. </p>
<p>We know the Commonwealth can regulate cumulative impacts when the pressure is on. Now is the time for the Commonwealth to step up and join Australia’s states – and most of the world’s nations – in taking the legal blinkers off decision-makers assessing developments under our national law. Nature depends on it.</p>
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<p><em>The authors acknowledge the contributions of Debbie Medaris, Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, and expert attendees of a workshop on cumulative impacts held by the Wentworth group, which have informed this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215988/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Louise Nelson receives funding from Watertrust Australia, and has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Native Title Council. She is a member of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority's Social and Economic Advisory Group, and has been a member of its Advisory Committee on Social, Economic and Environmental Sciences. She is a director of the Board of Bush Heritage Australia. The views expressed in this Editorial are her own.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martine Maron is a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists and co-authored the report mentioned in this article. She has received funding from various sources including the Australian Research Council, the Queensland Department of Environment and Science, and the Australian Government's National Environmental Science Program, and has advised both state and federal government on conservation policy. She is a director of BirdLife Australia and the Australian Wildlife Conservancy, a councillor with the Biodiversity Council, a governor of WWF-Australia, and leads the IUCN's thematic group on Impact Mitigation and Ecological Compensation under the Commission on Ecosystem Management.</span></em></p>Australia has a once-in-a-decade opportunity to fix environmental law. A new Wentworth Group report says the cumulative impacts from multiple projects must be considered.Rebecca Louise Nelson, Associate Professor in Law, The University of MelbourneMartine Maron, Professor of Environmental Management, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2138632023-10-22T19:01:21Z2023-10-22T19:01:21ZHow to beat ‘rollout rage’: the environment-versus-climate battle dividing regional Australia<p>In August, Victoria’s Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny <a href="https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/environmental-assessments/browse-projects/willatook-wind-farm">made a decision</a> that could set a difficult precedent for Australia’s effort to get to net-zero emissions by 2050.</p>
<p>In considering the environmental effects of the proposed $1 billion <a href="https://www.willatookwindfarm.com.au/">Willatook wind farm</a> 20km north of Port Fairy in southwest Victoria, the minister ruled that the developers, <a href="https://windprospect.com.au/">Wind Prospect</a>, had to build wider buffers around the wind turbines and observe a five-month ban on work at the site over each of the two years of construction. </p>
<p>Her reason? To protect the wetlands and breeding season of the <a href="https://www.wildlife.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/91383/Brolga.pdf">brolga</a>, a native crane and a threatened species, and the habitat of the critically endangered <a href="https://www.environment.vic.gov.au/conserving-threatened-species/threatened-species/southern-bent-wing-bat">southern bent-wing bat</a>. </p>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-973" class="tc-infographic" height="400px" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/973/534c98def812dd41ac56cc750916e2922539729b/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The decision shocked many clean energy developers. Wind Prospect’s managing director Ben Purcell said the conditions imposed by the minister would reduce the planned number of 59 turbines <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2023-08-04/willatook-wind-farm-proposal-doubt-government-recommendations/102691028">by two-thirds</a> and make the project “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2023-08-04/willatook-wind-farm-proposal-doubt-government-recommendations/102691028">totally unworkable</a>”. </p>
<p>Kilkenny acknowledged that <a href="https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/environmental-assessments/browse-projects/willatook-wind-farm">her assessment</a> might reduce the project’s energy output. However, she said “while the transition to renewable energy generation is an important policy and legislative priority for Victoria”, so was “protection of declining biodiversity values”.</p>
<p>The military uses the term “blue on blue” for casualties from friendly fire. In the environmental arena we now risk “green on green” losses, <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4443474&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Intelligencer%20-%20August%208%2C%202023&utm_term=Subscription%20List%20-%20Daily%20Intelligencer%20%281%20Year%29">and agonising dilemmas</a> as governments try to reconcile their responses to the world’s two biggest environmental problems: climate change and biodiversity loss. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-human-factor-why-australias-net-zero-transition-risks-failing-unless-it-is-fair-214064">The human factor: why Australia's net zero transition risks failing unless it is fair</a>
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<h2>The green vs green dilemma</h2>
<p>The goal of achieving net zero by 2050 requires nothing less than an economic and social transformation. That includes extensive construction of wind and solar farms, transmission lines, pumped hydro, critical mineral mines and more. </p>
<p>Australia needs to move fast – the Australian Energy Market Operator says <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-17/aemo-maps-10,000km-of-high-voltage-transmission/102833156">10,000km of high-voltage transmission lines</a> need to be built to support the clean energy transition – but we are already <a href="https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/the-energy-transition-gridlocked-regulators-have-no-answers-20231009-p5eapd">lagging badly</a>. </p>
<p>The problem is that moving fast inflames what is often fierce opposition from local communities. They are especially concerned with the environmental impacts of vast electricity towers and lines running across land they love. </p>
<p>In southern New South Wales, <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/trandgrids-humelink-the-anguish-and-anger-behind-australias-clean-energy-plan/news-story/2a64de7aaffcd3462adaff39c9f5d485">organised groups are fighting to stop</a> the construction of a huge infrastructure project, <a href="https://www.transgrid.com.au/projects-innovation/humelink">HumeLink</a>, that seeks to build 360km of transmission lines to connect <a href="https://www.snowyhydro.com.au/snowy-20/about/">Snowy Hydro 2.0</a> and other renewable energy projects to the electricity grid. </p>
<p>Locals say the cities will get the power, while they pay the price. “No one should minimise the consequences of ‘industrialising’ Australia’s iconic locations – would we build power lines above Bondi Beach?” <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/trandgrids-humelink-the-anguish-and-anger-behind-australias-clean-energy-plan/news-story/2a64de7aaffcd3462adaff39c9f5d485">the Snowy Valleys Council asked</a> in a submission to a parliamentary inquiry.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-australia-urgently-needs-a-climate-plan-and-a-net-zero-national-cabinet-committee-to-implement-it-213866">Why Australia urgently needs a climate plan and a Net Zero National Cabinet Committee to implement it</a>
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<p>Clean energy developers are caught in a perfect storm, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-22/michelle-grattan-uphill-road-angry-locals-renewables/102887426">at loggerheads with environmentalists and landholders alike</a> over environmental conditions, proper consultation and compensation, while grappling with long regulatory delays and supply chain blockages for their materials. </p>
<p>They see a system that provides environmental approval on paper but seemingly unworkable conditions and intolerable delays in practice. Does the bureaucracy’s left hand, they wonder, know what its right hand is doing?</p>
<p>Net zero, nature protection and “<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/rollout-rage-power-struggle-and-a-shocked-minister/news-story/21aeebffca06cd116d6b077ca5a02624">rollout rage</a>” feel like a toxic mix. Yet we have to find a quick way to deliver the clean energy projects we urgently need. </p>
<h2>What is to be done?</h2>
<p>The major solution to climate change is to electrify everything, using 100% renewable energy. That means lots of climate-friendly infrastructure.</p>
<p>The major regulatory solution to ongoing biodiversity loss is to stop running down species and ecosystems so deeply that they cannot recover. Among other things, that means protecting sensitive areas, which are sometimes the same areas that need to be cleared, or at least impinged upon, to build new infrastructure.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/made-in-america-how-bidens-climate-package-is-fuelling-the-global-drive-to-net-zero-214709">Made in America: how Biden's climate package is fuelling the global drive to net zero</a>
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<p>To get agreement, we need a better way than the standard project-based approval processes and private negotiations between developers and landowners. The underlying principle must be that all citizens, not just directly affected groups, bear the burden of advancing the common good. </p>
<p>As tough as these problems look, elements of a potential solution, at least in outline, are on the table. </p>
<p>These elements are: good environmental information, regional environmental planning and meaningful public participation. The government’s <a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/nature-positive-plan.pdf">Nature Positive Plan</a> for stronger environmental laws promises all three.</p>
<h2>The Albanese government’s plan</h2>
<p>Australia lags badly in gathering and assembling essential environmental information. Without it, we are flying blind. The government has <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_departments/Parliamentary_Library/Budget/reviews/2023-24/Environment">established Environment Information Australia</a> “to provide an authoritative source of high-quality environmental information.” Although extremely belated, it’s a start.</p>
<p>The Nature Positive Plan may also improve the second element – regional planning – by helping it deal with “green on green” disputes through <a href="https://www.kwm.com/global/en/insights/latest-thinking/federal-environmental-law-reform-what-you-need-to-know-in-2023.html#:%7E:text=Regional%20plans%20will%20be%20built,development%20will%20be%20largely%20prohibited">its proposed “traffic light” system</a> of environmental values. </p>
<p>Places with the highest environmental values (or significant Indigenous and other heritage values) would be placed in “red zones” and be protected from development, climate-friendly or not. </p>
<p>Development would be planned in orange and green zones, but require <a href="https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/topics/animals-and-plants/biodiversity-offsets-scheme#:%7E:text=The%20Biodiversity%20Offsets%20Scheme%20is,gains%20through%20landholder%20stewardship%20agreements.">biodiversity offsets</a> in orange zones. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/too-hard-basket-why-climate-change-is-defeating-our-political-system-214382">Too hard basket: why climate change is defeating our political system</a>
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<p>The catch is that most current biodiversity offsets, which commonly involve putting land into reserve to compensate for land cleared, are environmental failures. </p>
<p>The government has promised to tighten these rules, but advocates ranging from <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/environment/sustainability/development-could-be-banned-in-certain-areas-amid-sweeping-recommendations-20230824-p5dz5t.html">former senior public servant Ken Henry</a> to the <a href="https://www.acf.org.au/what-the-governments-plan-to-overhaul-our-national-environment-laws-means-for-nature">Australian Conservation Foundation</a> are pushing for more. A strict approach would make offsets expensive and sometimes impossible to find, but that is the price of becoming nature-positive. </p>
<h2>The need for regional planning</h2>
<p>Good regional planning – based, say, on Australia’s <a href="https://nrmregionsaustralia.com.au/nrm-regions-map/">54 natural resource management regions</a> – would deal with a bundle of issues upfront. That approach would avoid the environmental “deaths of a thousand cuts” that occur when developments are approved one by one. </p>
<p>But regional planning will only succeed if federal and state governments allocate significant resources and work together. Australia’s record on such cooperation is a sorry one. Again, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek is attempting a belated <a href="https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/plibersek/media-releases/regional-plans-transform-environmental-protection">fresh start</a>, but this will be a particularly rocky road.</p>
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<p>The third element – meaningful public participation – involves restoring trust in the system. This requires transparency, proper consultation, and the public’s right <a href="https://www.wilderness.org.au/news-events/epbc-act-must-enshrine-a-fair-say-for-community">to challenge decisions in the courts</a>. </p>
<p>Meaningful consultation requires time, expertise, and properly funded expert bodies that can build a culture of continuous improvement. Again, Australia’s record to date has been piecemeal and poor.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-road-is-long-and-time-is-short-but-australias-pace-towards-net-zero-is-quickening-214570">The road is long and time is short, but Australia's pace towards net zero is quickening</a>
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<p>These reforms – better information, planning and public participation – will take time. In the meantime, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle">precautionary principle</a> suggests a three-pronged approach to keeping us on track for net zero. </p>
<p>One, work proactively with developers to find infrastructure sites that avoid environmentally sensitive areas. </p>
<p>Two, speed up regulatory approvals. Fund well-resourced taskforces for both, as the gains will vastly outweigh the costs.</p>
<p>Three, be generous in compensating landowners where development is approved. Fairness comes at a cost, but unfairness will create an even higher one.</p>
<p>All this makes for a political sandwich of a certain kind. Why would government even consider it? </p>
<p>The answer lays bare the hard choice underlying modern environmental policy. We can accept some pain now, or a lot more later. The prize, though, is priceless: a clean energy system for a stable climate, and a natural environment worth passing on to future generations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213863/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Burnett is a member of the Biodiversity Council, which has the object of communicating accurate information on all aspects of biodiversity to secure and restore the future of Australia’s biodiversity.</span></em></p>If Australia is to meet its net zero targets it must move fast and build massive industrial infrastructure. But those projects are provoking fierce hostility. Is there a way through the green dilemma?Peter Burnett, Honorary Associate Professor, ANU College of Law, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2145882023-10-05T19:03:32Z2023-10-05T19:03:32ZWhy the ‘drug dealers defence’ doesn’t work for exporting coal. It’s actually Economics 101<p>In defending a Federal Court case brought by opponents of her decisions to approve two export coal mines, Environment Minister <a href="https://thewest.com.au/news/environment/minister-faces-court-action-over-climate-harms-c-11934083">Tanya Plibersek</a> is relying in part on what critics call the “<a href="https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/2022/07/23/drug-dealers-defence">drug dealer’s defence</a>”.</p>
<p>It’s reasoning that argues: <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/environment-minister-resorts-to-drug-dealers-defence-to-approve-coal-mines/">if we don’t sell this product, someone else will</a>. </p>
<p>Prime Minister Albanese has argued the same thing, telling <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/anthony-albanese-coal-ban-wont-cut-emissions/news-story/c44ac6b4ccad5d451638c34c30d8a508">The Australian</a></p>
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<p>policies that would just result in a replacement of Australian resources with resources that are less clean from other countries would lead to an increase in global emissions, not a decrease.</p>
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<p>Albanese’s reasoning is that saying no to new Australian coal mines wouldn’t cut global emissions, it would just produce “less economic activity in Australia”. </p>
<p>If it sounds like a familiar argument, it is – past <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/oct/27/malcolm-turnbull-coal-export-ban-would-make-no-difference-to-emissions">prime ministers</a> and the coal <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/king-coal-under-siege-20061202-gdoyl2.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap3">industry</a> have made similar claims for decades.</p>
<p>It’s possible to test this argument using economics, putting to one side the question of whether it is morally justifiable.</p>
<h2>The defence works for drug dealers</h2>
<p>Let’s look at how this defence works with retail drug dealers, many of whom are drug users themselves. </p>
<p>Street-level drug dealing is a job that doesn’t require much skill and pays above the minimum wage, even after allowing for the risk of arrest. </p>
<p>As a result, as soon as one dealer is arrested, someone will enter the market to replace the dealer. For this reason, drug policy has shifted away from traditional modes of street-level enforcement and towards <a href="https://www.campbellcollaboration.org/better-evidence/meta-analytic-review-street-level-drug-law-enforcement.html">community partnerships</a>. </p>
<p>But coal is different. Global markets are supplied by a range of producers, each with different costs. Some mines can cover their costs even when world prices are low, others require very high world coal prices to break even. </p>
<p>In the case of <a href="https://www.bhp.com/what-we-do/products/metallurgical-coal">metallurgical</a> (coking) coal used to make steel, Australia’s mines are mostly at the low-cost end of the spectrum as shown below:</p>
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<p><strong>Indicative hard coking coal supply curve by mine, 2019</strong></p>
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<p>Thermal coal, used in electricity generation, is more complex, since much of the variation in price relates to its quality, rather than extraction cost. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the fact remains that if one producer withdraws from the market or reduces output, it is highly unlikely to be replaced by an identical-cost producer.</p>
<p>It is likely instead to be replaced by a higher-cost supplier who needs a higher price to cover its costs. That’ll make the coal less attractive to the buyer who would have bought from the low-cost producer, making that buyer likely to buy less of it.</p>
<p>This is Economics 101, illustrated in the supply and demand diagrams in just about every <a href="https://www.core-econ.org/doing-economics/book/text/07-01.html">economics textbook</a>. </p>
<h2>Why Australia’s coal matters globally</h2>
<p>In most markets, the demand curve is downward sloping, meaning the higher the price, the less the buyer wants.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552252/original/file-20231005-17-fwqjgt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552252/original/file-20231005-17-fwqjgt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552252/original/file-20231005-17-fwqjgt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552252/original/file-20231005-17-fwqjgt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552252/original/file-20231005-17-fwqjgt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552252/original/file-20231005-17-fwqjgt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552252/original/file-20231005-17-fwqjgt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552252/original/file-20231005-17-fwqjgt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.fwf.com/supply-and-demand/">Fifth Wheel Freight, Supply and Demand in the Transportation Industry</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>And in most markets, the supply curve is upward sloping, meaning the higher the price, the more the seller is prepared to sell.</p>
<p>What’s bought, and for how much, depends on where those curves meet.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552253/original/file-20231005-21-jq6m7x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552253/original/file-20231005-21-jq6m7x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552253/original/file-20231005-21-jq6m7x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552253/original/file-20231005-21-jq6m7x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552253/original/file-20231005-21-jq6m7x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552253/original/file-20231005-21-jq6m7x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552253/original/file-20231005-21-jq6m7x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552253/original/file-20231005-21-jq6m7x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.fwf.com/supply-and-demand/">Fifth Wheel Freight, Supply and Demand in the Transportation Industry</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>If the supply curve moves up, because the cost of supply has increased, the price at which the good is bought will move up and the quantity bought will move down.</p>
<p>In the figure below, the supply curve S1 is the current global supply.</p>
<p>If Australia supplies less coal, the supply curve will shift from S1 to S2, resulting in the higher price P2.</p>
<p>The higher price will result in increased supply from competitors, but also a reduction in the total amount consumed, a cut from Q1 to Q2. </p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>This means that, contrary to government claims, our decisions will have an impact on global emissions and ultimately on global heating</p>
<p>Moreover, Australian decisions aren’t isolated.</p>
<p>All around the world, governments, financial institutions and civil society groups are grappling with the need to transition away from coal. </p>
<p>Proposals for new and expanded coal mines and coal-fired power stations face resistance at every step. In particular, the great majority of global banks and insurance companies now refuse to finance and insure new coal. </p>
<p>This means that the long-run response to a reduction in Australia’s supply of coal will involve less substitution and more of a drop in use than might be thought.</p>
<h2>For coal, the drug dealer’s defence is shoddy</h2>
<p>It makes the drug dealers defence for exporting coal especially shoddy. </p>
<p>It would be open to Plibersek to make another argument: that in the government’s political judgement, Australians are not willing to wear the short-run costs of a transition from coal, regardless of the impact on the global climate manifested every day in bushfires, floods and environmental destruction. </p>
<p>But instead, we are being told that if Australia cuts supply, other suppliers will rush in, without being told about their costs and what will happen next.</p>
<p>In markets like coal, with a fixed number of suppliers facing different costs, demand responds to the withdrawal of supply in the way the economics textbooks say it should.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/yes-environment-minister-tanya-plibersek-approved-a-coal-mine-but-save-the-angst-for-decisions-that-matter-more-205561">Yes, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek approved a coal mine. But save the angst for decisions that matter more</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214588/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Quiggin is a former Member of the Climate Change Authority.</span></em></p>The argument that “if we don’t sell it, someone else will” works for the street-level drug dealing. Coal exports are different – and here’s how.John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2142112023-09-27T23:43:13Z2023-09-27T23:43:13ZWe should use Australia’s environment laws to protect our ‘living wonders’ from new coal and gas projects<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550492/original/file-20230927-19-oympbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=161%2C175%2C2618%2C1818&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>From Kakadu and the Great Barrier Reef in the North, to the Snowy Mountains in the Southeast, and <a href="https://heartlandjourneys.com.au/about-us/ancient-wonderland/jarrah-and-marri/">jarrah and marri forests</a> in the Southwest, Australia is home to incredibly diverse ecosystems. Many of our plants, animals, birds and fish are found nowhere else in the world. </p>
<p>Our First Nations people protected these living wonders through their holistic approach to managing the land and caring for Country for more than 65,000 years. But the European settlers took a different approach and the land suffered. </p>
<p>Federal laws made in 1999 to better protect the environment are failing. Climate change is not explicitly mentioned in the legislation. These shortcomings have prompted a volunteer environment group to mount <a href="https://livingwonders.org.au/">a legal challenge</a> against federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek “to protect our living wonders from coal and gas”. The matter is currently before the courts.</p>
<p>This week’s <a href="https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/australias-national-environment-law-failing-climate-nature/">new report</a> from the Climate Council Australia (which I was an expert reviewer on) explains the problem with our environment law and charts a way forward.</p>
<p>The fundamental flaw in our national environmental law must be urgently addressed if we are to have any hope of protecting our wildlife and habitat into the future.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/times-have-changed-why-the-environment-minister-is-being-forced-to-reconsider-climate-related-impacts-of-pending-fossil-fuel-approvals-186715">Times have changed: why the environment minister is being forced to reconsider climate-related impacts of pending fossil fuel approvals</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Australia’s national environmental law</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2021C00182">Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999</a> (EPBC Act) should be designed to keep our living wonders safe from harm.</p>
<p>The primary objective of the EPBC Act is to: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>provide for the protection of the environment, especially those aspects of the environment that are matters of national environmental significance.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But it’s clear the environment is deteriorating. The EPBC Act requires a comprehensive assessment of Australia’s environment every five years. The <a href="https://soe.dcceew.gov.au/">latest assessment</a>, published in 2022, found the state of Australia’s environment is poor and getting worse. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/this-is-australias-most-important-report-on-the-environments-deteriorating-health-we-present-its-grim-findings-186131">This is Australia's most important report on the environment's deteriorating health. We present its grim findings</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Climate change was identified in that assessment as one of the greatest threats to all aspects of the Australian natural environment. Climate change is a compounding factor that increases the impacts of other pressures on our environment, such as land clearing, invasive species, pollution and resource extraction.</p>
<p>However, climate change is not considered directly in the EPBC Act as one of the factors affecting matters of national environmental significance. </p>
<p>According to the Climate Council report, since 1999, <a href="https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/australias-national-environment-law-failing-climate-nature/">740 new projects to extract coal, oil and gas</a> have been approved or passed, with 555 of them not having undergone detailed environmental assessment. Burning these fossil fuels increases greenhouse gas emissions and makes climate change worse.</p>
<p>In 2020, a <a href="https://epbcactreview.environment.gov.au/resources/final-report">scathing independent review of the EPBC Act</a> led by former competition watchdog chair Graeme Samuel found the act is ineffective, outdated and needs comprehensive reform.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550497/original/file-20230927-29-5688hz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A brown and grey bird with a black chest on a gum branch" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550497/original/file-20230927-29-5688hz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550497/original/file-20230927-29-5688hz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550497/original/file-20230927-29-5688hz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550497/original/file-20230927-29-5688hz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550497/original/file-20230927-29-5688hz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550497/original/file-20230927-29-5688hz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550497/original/file-20230927-29-5688hz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The habitat of the endangered southern black-throated finch has been threatened by coal mining projects in Queensland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/119701801">Geoff Walker/iNaturalist</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/our-laws-fail-nature-the-governments-plan-to-overhaul-them-looks-good-but-crucial-detail-is-yet-to-come-196126">Our laws fail nature. The government’s plan to overhaul them looks good, but crucial detail is yet to come</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Climate risks to Australia</h2>
<p>In 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the most recent comprehensive <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-ipcc-report-shows-australia-is-at-real-risk-from-climate-change-with-impacts-worsening-future-risks-high-and-wide-ranging-adaptation-needed-176691">global assessment of climate change risks</a>. </p>
<p>The special <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/outreach/IPCC_AR6_WGII_FactSheet_Australasia.pdf">fact sheet</a> about climate impacts on natural and human systems in Australia and New Zealand provides a helpful summary of that assessment. </p>
<p>It lists nine key risks in Australia associated with climate change. Of these, the top five risks for our living wonders are:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>“loss and degradation of coral reefs and associated biodiversity and ecosystem service values [what they are worth] in Australia due to ocean warming and marine heatwaves</p></li>
<li><p>loss of alpine biodiversity in Australia due to less snow</p></li>
<li><p>loss of natural and human systems in low-lying coastal areas due to sea level rise</p></li>
<li><p>increase in heat-related mortality and morbidity for people and wildlife in Australia due to heatwaves</p></li>
<li><p>inability of institutions and governance systems to manage climate risk”.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>That last one is particularly relevant to the EPBC Act.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550498/original/file-20230927-23-a77bl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A beige sand patch with a colourless coral in the centre" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550498/original/file-20230927-23-a77bl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550498/original/file-20230927-23-a77bl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550498/original/file-20230927-23-a77bl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550498/original/file-20230927-23-a77bl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550498/original/file-20230927-23-a77bl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550498/original/file-20230927-23-a77bl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550498/original/file-20230927-23-a77bl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef is a consequence of climate change induced ocean warming.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A legal challenge is underway</h2>
<p>To test the climate blindspot in the EPBC Act, the Environment Council of Central Queensland submitted 19 reconsideration requests to Plibersek in July 2022. </p>
<p>The minister was asked to reconsider the previous evaluation of 19 coal and fossil gas extraction projects under the former government, because they did not take into account potential harms on Australia’s living wonders. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/times-have-changed-why-the-environment-minister-is-being-forced-to-reconsider-climate-related-impacts-of-pending-fossil-fuel-approvals-186715">Times have changed: why the environment minister is being forced to reconsider climate-related impacts of pending fossil fuel approvals</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The environment council provided the minister with thousands of state and federal government reports listing the impacts of climate change on several thousand matters of environmental significance.</p>
<p>In November 2022, the minister <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-04/coal-projects-reassessed-after-legal-bid/101617118">accepted 18 reconsideration requests as valid</a>. However, in May 2023, the minister decided <a href="https://livingwonders.org.au/about-this-action/legal-updates/#Reconsideration">not to change the climate risk assessments</a> by the previous government for three of the projects she was asked to reconsider. In Plibersek’s <a href="https://livingwonders.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/2019-8427-Statement-of-Reasons-Narrabri.pdf">official</a> <a href="https://livingwonders.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/2020-8735-Statement-of-Reasons-Mount-Pleasant.pdf">responses</a> she determined that based on the new information provided to her in the reconsideration requests, it wasn’t possible to say the proposals would be a “substantial cause of the stated physical effects of climate change” on a matter of national environmental significance. </p>
<p>The matter is now in the Federal Court. Last week, the environment council <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/plibersek-accused-of-failing-to-protect-environment-as-case-against-her-coal-decisions-begins-20230918-p5e5g0.html">challenged Plibersek’s rejection</a> to reconsider two of the three coal mine expansion projects, both in New South Wales. A decision from the judge on this case is pending and should be provided in the next few months. A spokesperson for the minister has advised the media <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/plibersek-court-case/b1p2k97jf">they would not comment</a> “as this is a legal matter”. </p>
<h2>Protecting our living wonders means fixing Australia’s environment law</h2>
<p>We need to fix Australia’s national environment law, making sure it contains an explicit objective to prevent actions that accelerate climate change. We need a national environment law that genuinely protects our environment by stopping highly polluting projects and enabling ones that can help us rapidly switch to a clean economy instead.</p>
<p>Every fraction of a degree of avoided warming matters for preserving our environment. Every decision made under our national environment law can either help or hinder the urgent task to drive down greenhouse gas emissions. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-environment-law-doesnt-protect-the-environment-an-alarming-message-from-the-recent-duty-quashing-climate-case-179964">Australia’s environment law doesn’t protect the environment – an alarming message from the recent duty-quashing climate case</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214211/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Karoly is a Councillor on the Climate Council Australia.
He provided an expert report in support of the initial reconsideration request made by the Environment Council of Central Queensland to the Minister for the Environment.
David is also a Member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists.</span></em></p>Australia’s environment does not have sufficient legal protection from climate change, as outlined in a new report from the Climate Council Australia.David Karoly, Professor emeritus, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2093352023-07-12T20:04:03Z2023-07-12T20:04:03ZAnother assault on Country and its precious species has begun at Binybara/Lee Point<p>In federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s <a href="https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/plibersek/speeches/national-press-club-address">first major speech</a>, she said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If we continue on the trajectory that we are on, the precious places, landscapes, animals and plants that we think of when we think of home may not be here for our kids and grandkids. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet, as you read this, the bulldozers are poised to destroy habitat for threatened species, subvert traditional cultural values and jeopardise a fabulous aspect of Darwin’s natural environment at Lee Point/Binybara. The government’s decision to approve this loss shows a continuing disregard for nature, cultural heritage and the legacy our descendants will inherit.</p>
<p>The battle to protect Binybara – as it is known to its Traditional Owners – has galvanised the local community. But the issues at stake are much broader and expose the tick-a-box nature of our <a href="https://epbcactreview.environment.gov.au/">unsatisfactory environmental laws</a>.</p>
<p>The clearing of over 100 hectares of savanna woodland at Binybara for a defence housing development was first approved in 2019. When <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=413">endangered Gouldian finches</a> turned up <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-24/lee-point-darwin-gouldian-finches-defence-housing-development/101452040">in their hundreds</a> last year, Plibersek agreed to reconsider the approval. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-20/tanya-plibersek-lee-point-defence-housing-project-gouldian-finch/102493770">in June</a> this year the minister <a href="https://epbcpublicportal.awe.gov.au/all-referrals/project-referral-summary/project-decision/?id=89308a9b-85aa-e811-bae0-005056ba00a8">decided</a> the development could proceed with a few more conditions. Last week, Traditional Owners, Darwin locals and <a href="https://www.ecnt.org.au/scientific_expert_open_letter">ecologists from a nearby conference</a> watched as the first trees were felled.</p>
<p>On Friday there was a reprieve: a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-08/lee-point-land-clearing-cultural-heritage-application/102577448">ten-day pause</a> to consider the Larrakia people’s concerns.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1676830296170455047"}"></div></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/97-of-australians-want-more-action-to-stop-extinctions-and-72-want-extra-spending-on-the-environment-207811">97% of Australians want more action to stop extinctions and 72% want extra spending on the environment</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What’s at stake?</h2>
<p>The conflict between conservation or destruction at Binybara has global, national and local contexts.</p>
<p>The shoreline near the proposed housing is a <a href="https://ntepa.nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/460802/draft_eis_lee_point_urban_dev_appendixN_migratory_shorebirds.PDF">globally significant</a> site on the flyway of many shorebirds that migrate from eastern Asia to Australia each year. These birds face threats from habitat loss and degradation across their range. Their numbers are <a href="https://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/services/Download/vital:10675/SOURCE2">in steep decline</a>. </p>
<p>Northern Australia has to date provided some respite from disturbance for these travellers. But an 800-home development would increase human activity and disturbance at a site already under pressure. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="eastern curlews taking flight" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536736/original/file-20230711-29-ln4ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536736/original/file-20230711-29-ln4ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536736/original/file-20230711-29-ln4ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536736/original/file-20230711-29-ln4ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536736/original/file-20230711-29-ln4ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536736/original/file-20230711-29-ln4ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536736/original/file-20230711-29-ln4ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Critically endangered eastern curlews, which are highly sensitive to disturbance, are among the shorebirds found near the site.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>The national context is that most of our threatened species continue to decline. It’s often a result of an ongoing <a href="https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/csp2.117">series of small losses</a> – a patch of bushland cleared here, a population lost there. We cannot reduce the risks of extinction, let alone restore biodiversity, if these losses continue.</p>
<p>Binybara’s incredible richness of birds is valued by locals and tourists alike. Regarded as one of the world’s most beautiful birds, the Gouldian finch’s presence on the outskirts of Darwin is a particular blessing. The proposed development will jeopardise this population, particularly by destroying trees whose hollows provide potential nest sites. </p>
<p>The project’s environmental impact statement acknowledged it would also have a <a href="https://ntepa.nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/460773/draft_eis_lee_point_urban_dev.PDF">significant impact</a> on another endangered species, the <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=87618">black-footed tree-rat</a>. Tree felling would likely cause deaths of individuals and loss of hollows on which the species depends. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/land-clearing-and-fracking-in-australias-northern-territory-threatens-the-worlds-largest-intact-tropical-savanna-208028">Land clearing and fracking in Australia's Northern Territory threatens the world's largest intact tropical savanna</a>
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<h2>A deep cultural significance</h2>
<p>The Larrakia people’s deep and rich cultural ties to this area stretch back millennia. For them, Binybara is a sacred place. </p>
<p>It’s here that their ancestor Binybara transforms into a bird to fly out to see her husband <a href="https://dtc.nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/249041/ccr-management-plan2016.pdf">Darriba Nungalinya</a>. </p>
<p>The birdlife, from the migrating shorebirds to the owls, kites, eagles and Gouldian finches, is integral to the ecosystems and to the cultural fabric and story of this place. Generations of Larrakia people have lived, hunted, gathered foods, sourced materials and performed ceremonies here.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536430/original/file-20230710-187724-seno86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536430/original/file-20230710-187724-seno86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536430/original/file-20230710-187724-seno86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536430/original/file-20230710-187724-seno86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536430/original/file-20230710-187724-seno86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536430/original/file-20230710-187724-seno86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536430/original/file-20230710-187724-seno86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Binybara Traditional Owners speak at a rally on site.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Martine Maron</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>The woodlands provide foods such as the <em>bowit-jba</em> or bush potato (<em>Brachystelma glabriflorum</em>), <em>datbing-gwa</em> or sugarbag, green plum (<em>Buchanania obovata</em>), milky plum (<em>Persoonia falcata</em>), emu berry (<em>Grewia retusifolia</em>), possum (<em>gutjgutjga</em>), wallaby (<em>milulu-la</em>) and goanna (<em>damiljulberreba</em>). </p>
<p><em>Eucalyptus miniata</em> timber is used for didjeridoo, harpoons, walking sticks, digging sticks and good firewood. <em>Eucalyptus tetrodonta</em> provides medicine and bark canoes. The bark and timber are also used for traditional houses. <em>Erythrophleum chlorostachys</em> (<em>delenyng-gwa</em>) leaves are used for smoking ceremonies and the inner bark for medicine to treat sores and deep wounds.</p>
<p><em>Hibiscus tiliaceus</em> (<em>lalwa</em>) is a source of string for ropes, nets and harpoons. Its straight stems are used for fishing spears. <em>Casuarina equisetifolia</em> provides digging sticks for turtle eggs, firewood and beach shade. The paperbark from Melaleuca species (<em>gweybil-wa</em>) is used for cooking, bedding and roofing material, dugout canoes and rafts, while the leaves have medicinal uses. </p>
<p>Timber from the calendar plant, <em>Acacia auriculiformis</em> (<em>gwalamarrwa</em>), is used for clapsticks, while the pods are used medicinally. Dance practice for funerals happens here, using <em>gwalamarrwa</em> leaves.</p>
<p>It’s likely shell middens, artefact scatters and clay pits will need to be surveyed. There is a possible burial site in the area, a well and a <a href="https://www.dha.gov.au/docs/default-source/default-document-library/ehp_7793_eisleempud_final_02082018_part1.pdf?sfvrsn=22c96b22_0">registered sacred site</a> at the tip of Lee Point. Tree burials, where the deceased was placed in a tree, may have taken place, so there may be scarred trees here. </p>
<p>The ten-day reprieve is due to an emergency application sought by the Traditional Owners under the federal <a href="https://www.niaa.gov.au/resource-centre/indigenous-affairs/protection-indigenous-cultural-heritage-commonwealth-level">Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection (ATSIHP) Act</a>. They ask for a management plan to protect their cultural heritage to be developed with their input and that of experts and Darwin locals who value this place.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/recognising-indigenous-knowledges-is-not-just-culturally-sound-its-good-science-184444">Recognising Indigenous knowledges is not just culturally sound, it's good science</a>
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<h2>A(nother) failure of national environment law</h2>
<p>The main change to the approval was to require plans be developed to offset the loss of 94 hectares of Gouldian finch habitat. What those offsets are – or whether they are even possible – is not yet known. </p>
<p>This kind of “<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-8500.12581">backloading</a>” of offset conditions is highly risky. By the time the difficulty of finding a suitable offset site becomes clear, it is often too late – the habitat is gone. </p>
<p>Just two weeks ago, Plibersek ordered <a href="https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/plibersek/media-releases/government-launches-environmental-offsets-crackdown">an audit</a> of 1,000 environmental offset sites. “It’s not clear whether offset arrangements prevent environmental decline,” she said. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/developers-arent-paying-enough-to-offset-impacts-on-koalas-and-other-endangered-species-208587">Developers aren't paying enough to offset impacts on koalas and other endangered species</a>
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<p>What we do know is that old-growth habitat features, such as tree hollows, are irreplaceable. And inherently place-based cultural values cannot be offset. This is ever more important as the Northern Territory moves to <a href="https://theconversation.com/land-clearing-and-fracking-in-australias-northern-territory-threatens-the-worlds-largest-intact-tropical-savanna-208028">ramp up land clearing</a> for cotton growing and gas development.</p>
<p>Another new condition is to maintain a 50-metre buffer zone around a dam where the finches drink. It’s a tokenistic measure, as the finches disperse hundreds of metres to feed and further to nest in old-growth hollow trees, like those in the areas to be cleared. </p>
<p>The case of Binybara exemplifies many of the failings of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act identified by the <a href="https://epbcactreview.environment.gov.au/">Samuel review</a>. The test of the government’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/our-laws-fail-nature-the-governments-plan-to-overhaul-them-looks-good-but-crucial-detail-is-yet-to-come-196126">promised reforms</a> to the EPBC Act will be whether decisions like this continue to be made, leading to the loss of irreplaceable habitats and sacred cultural heritage.</p>
<p>Right now, the future of Binybara hangs by a thread.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/get-the-basics-right-for-national-environmental-standards-to-ensure-truly-sustainable-development-201092">Get the basics right for National Environmental Standards to ensure truly sustainable development</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209335/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Woinarski receives has received funding from the Australian government's National Environmental Science Program. He is a councillor with the Biodiversity Council and a member of the board of the Australian Wildlife Conservancy.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lorraine Williams is an elder of the Larrakia Danggalaba clan, the Traditional Owners who sought an emergency application under the federal ATSIHP Act to halt the development.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martine Maron has received funding from various sources including the Australian Research Council, the Queensland Department of Environment and Science, Bush Heritage Australia, and the Australian government's National Environmental Science Program. She is a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, a councillor with the Biodiversity Council, a member of the board of the Australian Wildlife Conservancy and BirdLife Australia, and a governor of WWF-Australia.</span></em></p>The Darwin woodland is home to endangered species and important for the Larrakia people. The development approval requires habitat offsets – yet the minister herself has publicly doubted offsets work.John Woinarski, Professor of Conservation Biology, Charles Darwin UniversityLorraine Williams, Larrakia Traditional Owner, Indigenous KnowledgeMartine Maron, Professor of Environmental Management, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2059332023-05-18T09:58:40Z2023-05-18T09:58:40ZGrattan on Friday: Albanese governs on softly-softly catchee monkey formula. Would Plibersek or Chalmers have been bolder?<p>Reading Margaret Simons’ recently released biography of Tanya Plibersek brought to mind an interesting question. What sort of Labor government would we have if Plibersek, rather than Anthony Albanese, had become Labor leader in 2019, and then won the 2022 election? </p>
<p>Or, indeed, what if Jim Chalmers – who like Plibersek (and Chris Bowen) flirted with a run in 2019 – had contested and secured the leadership and the election? </p>
<p>Plibersek and Albanese, both from the left and both holding inner-Sydney electorates, have been long-term rivals; Albanese looked over his shoulder at her when he was opposition leader. Then after the election the new prime minister surprised Plibersek by moving her out of education into the environment portfolio. </p>
<p>He also stripped her of the women’s portfolio, giving it to the incoming finance minister, Katy Gallagher, a decision hard to understand considering Plibersek’s background in the area and how demanding the finance job is. </p>
<p>Like Albanese, Plibersek is pragmatic, but probably hasn’t moved quite so far to the centre as he has. If she were running things, would this Labor government have a more radical tinge? </p>
<p>As it is, Plibersek finds herself in the unenviable position of being the minister deciding the fate of coal and gas projects, defending decisions from criticism from the Greens, who have been loudly demanding a ban on new fossil fuel projects and have their eye on Plibersek’s seat when she eventually leaves it. </p>
<p>A hypothetical Chalmers government raises the question of whether we’d have seen a bolder economic reform agenda early on. We can say, with a fair bit of certainty, that those controversial stage 3 tax cuts would have been refashioned in the October budget, because Chalmers wanted to do that but was overruled by Albanese. </p>
<p>Albanese will celebrate Sunday’s anniversary of his election victory in Japan, at the G7 meeting, to which Australia has been invited. That’s rather fitting, given that one – perhaps unexpected – feature of the PM’s first year in office is how enthusiastically he’s taken to the international stage, despite that not being his bailiwick when he was part of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. </p>
<p>His recent trip to London for the coronation wasn’t rushed, as he made the most of the chance for talks. He said at the time that “we don’t share land borders with anyone else so you have to take every opportunity at events such as this to develop relationships”.</p>
<p>Hosting the Quad meeting in Sydney next week was to culminate Albanese’s busy and successful foreign policy year, before President Joe Biden pulled out because of the US gridlock over the debt ceiling. While some commentators saw this as a snub to Australia, that seems a huge stretch, given Biden’s circumstances and the fact the Quad leaders will all be at the G7 meeting and can caucus together there. Albanese, however, was anxious to point out he has a state visit to the US coming up later this year. </p>
<p>In foreign affairs (and leaving aside AUKUS), the most notable feature of Labor’s first year has been the thaw in the relationship with China. It is starting to bring economic dividends with the loosening of the trade restrictions that country imposed - this week saw a breakthrough on timber exports - though it has a way to go. The better relationship has been driven partly by the change of government, and partly by a change in China’s wider foreign policy stance. </p>
<p>As foreign minister, Penny Wong has won wide praise over the past year, but she has also attracted the sharpest attack of any senior minister from within the wider Labor family. Who can forget Paul Keating’s very personal excoriation of her after a major address: “I never expected more than platitudes from Penny Wong’s Press Club speech and, as it turned out, I was not disappointed.”</p>
<p>Within foreign policy circles, people are divided over Wong’s depth as a policy thinker. Within the caucus she is seen as a star. </p>
<p>Chalmers’ first year in government has been especially closely watched not just because of his pivotal treasury role but because he is regarded as a potential successor to Albanese. </p>
<p>It’s been clear, from how he conducts himself, that he sees himself that way. He is a hyperactive (and effective) communicator. He interprets his economic brief widely and he lays down markers for the future, as with his Monthly essay on “values-based” capitalism. </p>
<p>Chalmers fights his battles within the tent and doesn’t let whatever frustrations he might have come out in his public demeanour. He’s there for the long haul, but economic factors beyond his control will be crucial in how that works out for him. </p>
<p>A feature of this initial year of the government has been the discipline in its senior ranks. There have been no ministerial scandals, let alone resignations, and any cabinet-level policy struggles been have been contained. (Significantly, however, we are starting to see some backbench stirring on issues – on welfare assistance before the budget, and negative gearing subsequently.) </p>
<p>Mostly, ministerial lips have been zipped. Leaks have been few. Plibersek must have been unhappy about how she was treated but you would never have known. The Albanese camp used to be suspicious of Bill Shorten and may still be. But Shorten, whatever his private political griefs, has been publicly a team player. And probably no other minister but Shorten, father of the NDIS, could get away with slashing the rate of growth of the scheme, to make it sustainable, as he has undertaken to do. </p>
<p>Labor’s review of the 2022 election laid down a prescription for the future. “By governing well, placing a high value on internal unity and stability, and drawing together voting constituencies around well-designed policies that attend to people’s needs, concerns and Australia’s national interest, the opportunity to establish a long-term Labor Government can be realised.” </p>
<p>This describes the Albanese softly-softy catchee monkey formula. Keep promises, build trust, don’t frighten the horses in the first term. Have the credibility to then take a more ambitious agenda to the election ahead of a second term. </p>
<p>It’s looking an effective way to operate. It is low risk. Except it does carry the risk that events might blow it off course so that by the time of the next election the government has to offer, not a bolder agenda, but another cautious one in order to survive.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205933/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Like Albanese, Plibersek is pragmatic, but probably hasn’t moved quite so far to the centre as he has. If she were running things, would this Labor government have a more radical tinge?Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2055612023-05-15T08:16:23Z2023-05-15T08:16:23ZYes, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek approved a coal mine. But save the angst for decisions that matter more<p>The outcry was loud and swift last week after Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/11/albanese-government-approves-first-new-coal-mine-since-taking-power">approved</a> a new coal mine in central Queensland. It’s the first coal mine Labor has approved since coming to power a year ago.</p>
<p>The project, the <a href="https://www.bowencokingcoal.com.au/isaac-river">Isaac River mine</a>, will extract metallurgical coal to be burned for steel-making. Environmental groups <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/11/albanese-government-approves-first-new-coal-mine-since-taking-power">decried</a> the potential damage the mine would cause to wildlife, water quality and the climate.</p>
<p>Any new coal mine is <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2021/05/18/end-new-fossil-fuel-development-iea-demands-in-groundbreaking-net-zero-plan/?sh=3343263c4678">inconsistent</a> with the global goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. But the Isaac River mine is probably the least bad of those recently under consideration. </p>
<p>The mine would produce only metallurgical coal, which is still needed by the steel industry, and would operate for just five years. Importantly, we shouldn’t let controversy over the approval of a small, short-lived mine distract from more consequential recent decisions on coal – and those still looming.</p>
<h2>A lesson in spin-doctoring</h2>
<p>Plibersek’s handling of recent coal mine announcements is a masterclass in egregious political spin-doctoring.</p>
<p>On May 5, Plibersek triumphantly announced she had rejected two Queensland coalmine proposals - the MacMines China Stone mine and the Stanmore Resources Range project – because the proponents failed to provide information about potential damage to the environment.</p>
<p>The decision was widely <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/05/tanya-plibersek-rejects-two-queensland-coalmines-over-failure-to-provide-detail-on-environmental-impact">welcomed</a>. But in reality, scuppering the mines was an easy and relatively uncontroversial decision for Plibersek. Both proposals had been moribund for a long time. Indeed, MacMines <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-23/macmines-abandons-mining-lease-applications/11138310">abandoned</a> its proposal in 2019 and the phone number for its Darwin office is no longer even connected.</p>
<p>Plibersek rejected the mines not because of the damage they would cause to nature, but because the proponents had for years failed to provide basic information to the department.</p>
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<p>Some observers <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/coal-mine-tracker/update/china-stone-and-range-mines-lapsed-what-does-this-mean/">suspected</a> the announcement was meant to soften us up for bad news. </p>
<p>That news came six days later, when details of the Isaac River mine approval were quietly uploaded to the federal environment department’s website. The coal mine, east of Moranbah, will reportedly produce about 500,000 tonnes of metallurgical coal each year for five years. </p>
<p>The approval was made public right before Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s budget reply speech. This follows a well-worn strategy of governments burying bad news by releasing it concurrently with bigger news events.</p>
<p>A spokesperson for Plibersek defended the approval, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/11/albanese-government-approves-first-new-coal-mine-since-taking-power">saying</a> the federal government “has to make decisions in accordance with the facts and the national environment law – that’s what happens on every project, and that’s what’s happened here”.</p>
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<h2>Thermal vs coking coal</h2>
<p>In weighing up the merits of Plibersek’s decision on the Isaac River mine, we must make a distinction between thermal coal, used in electricity generation, and metallurgical or “coking” coal, used in steel-making. </p>
<p>Metallurgical coal accounts for <a href="https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2019/sep/the-changing-global-market-for-australian-coal.html">about half</a> of Australia’s coal exports by tonnage, but the great majority by value.</p>
<p>The world is rapidly moving away from burning coal to generate electricity. Much of Europe will be <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/climate-environment/news/europe-halfway-towards-closing-all-coal-power-plants-by-2030/">coal-free by 2030</a>. The United States and other developed countries are following suit.</p>
<p>The much-publicised “return of coal” resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine never amounted to much and is already <a href="https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/european-electricity-review-2023/">over</a>. </p>
<p>By continuing to export thermal coal, Australia is delaying the inevitable transition for the sake of short-term profits.</p>
<p>So what’s the picture for metallurgical coal? Low-emissions alternatives for steel-making are <a href="https://www.hybritdevelopment.se/en/a-fossil-free-future/">available</a>, but it will be some time before they’re deployed at scale. So demand for metallurgical coal is <a href="https://www.australianmining.com.au/anglo-american-talks-up-met-coal-future/">expected to continue</a> for years, or even decades. </p>
<p>Even bodies such as the International Energy Agency, which have called for an <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2021/05/18/end-new-fossil-fuel-development-iea-demands-in-groundbreaking-net-zero-plan/?sh=3343263c4678">end</a> to all new fossil fuel investment, could scarcely raise strong objections to a small-scale metallurgical coal mine set to close in five years. </p>
<h2>Let’s not get distracted</h2>
<p>In these circumstances, Plibersek played the media well by making the Isaac River mine the featured dish in a menu of bad news.</p>
<p>That approval was not the only decision made by Plibersek last week, or the most important one. She also allowed three other mine projects – two in New South Wales and one in Queensland – to proceed to the next stage of environmental assessment. </p>
<p>These projects had been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/04/tanya-plibersek-to-reassess-18-proposed-oil-and-gas-projects-to-consider-their-climate-change-impact">sent back to Plibersek</a> for further consideration after an environment group requested the effects of climate change be considered. The projects are still subject to further steps in the approvals process. But Plibersek’s decision to let them proceed provides a major boost.</p>
<p>The projects include an expansion of the Mount Pleasant mine in NSW. It would <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/coal-mine-tracker/mine/mount-pleasant-coal-mine/">produce about</a> 12 million tonnes of thermal coal a year – more than the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/adani-mine-ramps-up-production-amid-surging-coal-energy-prices-20220825-p5bcs9.html">Adani Carmichael mine</a>. It’s expected to operate until 2050, by which time many countries have <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-59159018">pledged</a> to quit coal-fired power completely.</p>
<p>Plibersek now faces a huge political test when it comes time to decide on those, and many more coal projects in the planning pipeline. On current indications, climate impacts will be disregarded completely.</p>
<p>In February, Plibersek <a href="https://theconversation.com/tanya-plibersek-killed-off-clive-palmers-coal-mine-its-an-australian-first-but-it-may-never-happen-again-199512">rejected</a> mining magnate Clive Palmer’s proposed Central Queensland coal project, on the grounds it would damage rivers and the Great Barrier Reef. </p>
<p>So under this government, mines may be rejected because they would damage the local environment or for failing to get their paperwork right – but not because they enable emissions that will help destroy the global environment.</p>
<p>This is a clear weakness in national environment law. The Albanese government could have fixed it, by introducing a so-called “<a href="https://theconversation.com/labor-has-introduced-its-controversial-climate-bill-to-parliament-heres-how-to-give-it-real-teeth-187762">climate trigger</a>”. This would have enabled it to knock back a development proposal on the grounds of its climate impact. But it has refused to do so.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/labor-has-introduced-its-controversial-climate-bill-to-parliament-heres-how-to-give-it-real-teeth-187762">Labor has introduced its controversial climate bill to parliament. Here's how to give it real teeth</a>
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<img alt="coal plant stacks emit steam" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476198/original/file-20220727-18-6rllmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476198/original/file-20220727-18-6rllmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476198/original/file-20220727-18-6rllmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476198/original/file-20220727-18-6rllmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476198/original/file-20220727-18-6rllmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476198/original/file-20220727-18-6rllmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476198/original/file-20220727-18-6rllmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A ‘climate trigger’ would have meant high-emitting projects could be rejected.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julian Smith/AAP</span></span>
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<h2>Big coal tests remain</h2>
<p>Optimists can console themselves with the idea that things would have been worse if the Morrison government was still in power. But none of the approval decisions announced by Labor so far differ from those we might have expected under the Coalition. </p>
<p>And there is one intriguing case where things look like going the other way. In the lead-up to last year’s federal election, then prime minister Scott Morrison <a href="https://theconversation.com/scott-morrisons-veto-of-a-gas-drilling-plan-off-sydney-was-strange-but-it-should-not-be-overturned-188813">blocked</a> a gas-drilling proposal off the New South Wales coast, using ministerial powers he secretly conferred upon himself. </p>
<p>The Albanese government has taken <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/state-labor-backs-albanese-on-pep11-despite-opposition-to-project-20230204-p5chw6.html">legal action</a> to nullify that decision.</p>
<p>Many more federal <a href="https://cqtoday.com.au/news/2022/11/13/proposed-mines-reconsidered/">decisions</a> on coal mining projects are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/29/albanese-government-faces-decisions-on-coalmines-that-could-add-16m-tonnes-of-co2-emissions-annually">yet to come</a>. If all or most are approved, Labor’s efforts to reduce domestic emissions will count for little or nothing – a fact no amount of spin-doctoring can conceal.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tanya-plibersek-killed-off-clive-palmers-coal-mine-its-an-australian-first-but-it-may-never-happen-again-199512">Tanya Plibersek killed off Clive Palmer's coal mine. It's an Australian first – but it may never happen again</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205561/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Quiggin is a former Member of the Climate Change Authority. Some of his work has been published by The Australia Institute, mentioned in this article.</span></em></p>We shouldn’t let controversy over the approval of one small, short-lived mine distract from more consequential decisions looming on coal.John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1974272023-03-15T19:03:44Z2023-03-15T19:03:44Z‘A policy aesthete’: a new biography of Tanya Plibersek shows how governments work – and affect people’s lives<p>Days before the publication of a new biography of federal Labor cabinet minister Tanya Plibersek, the Nine newspapers carried an exclusive extract in the Good Weekend magazine, accompanied by a news article leading with Plibersek’s assertion that if she had stood for the party’s leadership after the 2019 election she would have won.</p>
<p>Cue instant <a href="https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/labor-leadership-back-in-the-spotlight-as-anthony-albanese-responds-to-tanya-pliberseks-comments-about-2019-vote/news-story/3d2c1fec7fe9e03926813b8dacd2cda7">leadership threat</a> stories, followed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/i-was-elected-unopposed-pm-responds-to-plibersek-leadership-claims-20230304-p5cpet">hosing down speculation</a> about the simmering tension between him and his fellow left faction member, and the obligatory <a href="https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/tanya-plibersek-coy-on-leadership-claim-after-book-bombshell/news-story/f2f8a3182c915bd1e07979f6e834109c">guarded comment</a> from Plibersek.</p>
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<p><em>Review: Tanya Plibersek: On Her Own Terms – Margaret Simons (Black Inc.)</em></p>
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<p>These stories are the journalistic equivalent of instant noodles – just add water and stir. And like instant noodles, the taste is soon forgotten, leaving only doubts about the impact of an instant-noodle diet on your long-term health.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515053/original/file-20230314-166-86dnlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515053/original/file-20230314-166-86dnlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515053/original/file-20230314-166-86dnlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515053/original/file-20230314-166-86dnlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515053/original/file-20230314-166-86dnlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515053/original/file-20230314-166-86dnlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515053/original/file-20230314-166-86dnlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515053/original/file-20230314-166-86dnlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>What was forgotten or slid over in the rush to leadership speculation was the reason why Plibersek did not put herself forward in 2019. Her daughter Anna was being physically and sexually abused by her boyfriend. Plibersek put the need to support her daughter during a gruelling court case ahead of her political ambition.</p>
<p>It is easy to be cynical about the cliché of politicians stepping aside to spend more time with their families. Indeed, between them, politicians and journalists have fed this cynicism. Maybe, though, as Sigmund Freud famously remarked, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”.</p>
<p>Certainly, readers of The Age thought so. Among six published letters to the editor, five supported Plibersek’s decision and one of these, from Fiona White, asked:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>How did Tanya Plibersek’s comment out of a sensitive interview about her daughter suddenly become a headline that she and Anthony Albanese have to defend as though there is about to be a leadership spill? Kudos to Plibersek for putting her children first, as one hopes any male politician would do.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It would be naïve to think the news media would ignore a leadership threat story, but how much else is missed in taking such a narrowly framed approach to politics? Equally important, what do we need to know from journalists to make informed decisions about the politicians we vote for?</p>
<p>On this score, Margaret Simons’ biography of Tanya Plibersek offers abundant information and insights. Yes, it covers the twists and turns of Plibersek and Albanese’s fortunes in the Labor Party. But for me, at least, the most illuminating parts of the book were the detailed discussions of Plibersek’s approach to public policy across several portfolios and the real, if unappreciated, impact of her work on the lives of ordinary Australians. This focus resembles American journalist Michael Lewis’s book <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-fifth-risk-9780141991429">The Fifth Risk</a> (2018), which showed the path-finding work done by government departments and the risk posed to them by the Trump administration. </p>
<h2>Background</h2>
<p>Before diving into that, a sketch is needed of what Simons’ biography tells us about Plibersek’s background. </p>
<p>Plibersek is the daughter of Slovenian migrants who exemplify the received picture of Australia’s post-war immigration program: hard-working, happy to adapt to Australian life, loving, and keen to inculcate in their three children, of whom Tanya was the youngest, the value of education. “You don’t need a reason to learn something new,” Josef Plibersek told his daughter as a child, advice she recalled when deciding whether to enrol in a Masters of Politics and Public Policy. </p>
<p>First, Plibersek studied journalism at the University of Technology in Sydney. She completed her honours year, but was unsuccessful in gaining a cadetship at her preferred media outlet, the ABC, so she turned toward politics. She connected with a number of Labor women, such as Meredith Burgmann, and worked on senator Bruce Childs’ staff, before winning the federal seat of Sydney in 1998. She has held the seat ever since and is now the longest serving female member of federal parliament.</p>
<p>At university, alongside later journalistic luminaries like Tim Palmer, Plibersek met her future husband Michael Coutts-Trotter who, as Simons remarks, merits a book of his own. The capsule summary – teenage drug user, jailed for trafficking drugs at 19, reformed, longtime senior public servant in New South Wales – does not do justice to Coutts-Trotter’s remarkable life. I have heard him speak, when he gave the annual Jesuit Social Services Frank Costigan lecture in 2016. His candid, unsparing reflections on his youth were moving and inspiring.</p>
<p>It is clear from the book that he and Plibersek are soulmates, fiercely committed to ideas about how to make the country a better place. Early in their relationship, while out driving, they argued so passionately about electricity privatisation (he was for it, she against) that Plibersek tried pulling the handbrake so she could get out of the car.</p>
<p>Coutts-Trotter says their views have gradually grown closer to each other. She is more centrist; he is less “provocatively doctrinaire”. She is less hard on others, but he believes she is still too hard on herself.</p>
<p>Throughout her life, many people, including many in the Labor party, have assumed that Plibersek – photogenically good-looking and possessed of a mellifluous speaking voice – must come from a well-to-do background, especially when they hear that she travelled overseas from a young age. But her parents were working class. They were only able to afford flights after Josef began working as a plumber for Qantas and was able to avail himself of cheap standby fares for staff. </p>
<p>The family used the opportunity to regularly travel back to Slovenia. Coutts-Trotter accompanied Plibersek on later trips there, recalling: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>She’s got the constitution of a Slovenian farmer […] In another time and another place, that would be Tanya, keeping going. Keeping everything together.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He calls her his “beautiful, kind unstoppable wife”. You would expect that from a loving husband, but for years there has been a Tanya Plibersek fan club whose unabashed admiration Simons interrogates at length. Running through the book is a curious tension between the scepticism of the experienced journalist who can’t quite believe all the stories of Plibersek’s kindness, and the scrupulously honest reporter who records them for her readers to decide. </p>
<p>Here’s one of numerous examples Simons provides. In 2013, in the final months of the Labor government, when Plibersek was Minister for Health, a longstanding friend of Coutts-Trotter, who had endured similar difficulties with drugs, phoned one night ahead of entering another period of rehabilitation. Plibersek took the call as Coutts-Trotter was out. The friend recalled: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There was a lot happening in Health, but she got up and came over to my place, driving right across town, and she sat down with her arm around me, telling me how she and Michael loved me, and she stayed with me for hours through that night before I had to go back in. I’ll never forget it. That generosity, that kindness, is how you measure people.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Plibersek has few if any real enemies in politics, according to Simons. At worst, those in politics, whether coalition or Labor, find it hard to concede she can be as good as her fans believe, but none can point to any major scandals, let alone a hint of corruption. One anonymous interviewee tells Simons that Plibersek approaches government more like a public servant than a minister, but lest this be seen as too critical adds: “She understands better than most ministers what a well-functioning public service should look like.”</p>
<h2>Politics and programs</h2>
<p>Tempting as it is to comment at length on the aptness of this remark in light of the appalling revelations from the robodebt Royal Commission, it is more illuminating to return to Plibersek’s record in government, which occupies the bulk of four meaty chapters in the middle of the biography.</p>
<p>Plibersek’s first ministry came after Labor was elected in 2007. It was Housing, a portfolio for which there had been no dedicated minister in the previous coalition government. John Howard had taken the view that housing should be left to the market. </p>
<p>With little background in the area and having been shadow minister for only a year before the election, Plibersek consulted widely with experts such as Julian Disney, who directed her to a policy idea to deal with what was already becoming an issue – the struggle for people on low to middle incomes who did not need public housing, but did need affordable rental accommodation while they saved to buy a home.</p>
<p>Simons writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The idea was to offer a subsidy to commercial or non-profit organisations to build housing for rent, on condition that rents were set at least 20 percent below market level for at least ten years […] It was a way of using a comparatively modest amount of taxpayer money to make providing affordable housing attractive to the property industry and financiers – a market-led solution to what had traditionally been seen as a welfare problem.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The National Rental Affordability Scheme, as it became known, was designed to begin modestly and then grow, but it suffered from election promise inflation. Disney tells Simons that the planned 28,000 houses was pumped up to 50,000 “purely because [Labor prime minister] Rudd said 28,000 is not big enough for a major policy announcement”.</p>
<p>This PR-driven method of policy announcement, satirised in the television show Utopia, coupled with a lack of capacity in the Housing department conspired to stymie the scheme’s implementation. From the experience, Plibersek learned lessons. </p>
<p>In late 2008, when the global financial crisis erupted, the Rudd government injected enormous fiscal stimulus into the economy to stave off a recession. In a second tranche of spending, it focussed on infrastructure. Two of these programs became mired in controversy: inexperienced tradespeople died installing pink batts insulation and there were allegations of waste in spending on school buildings. </p>
<p>The third program was run by Plibersek. It centred on a huge $6.4 billion spend on new social housing, as well as revitalising 2,500 run-down public housing houses. It was the largest single investment in social housing in 25 years. </p>
<p>Despite the difficulties governments inevitably face when they roll out large programs quickly amid a crisis, it ran smoothly, created no controversy, and was later praised in a report by management consultants KPMG for its economic efficiency. Very few people outside the housing sector remember this initiative today. “That’s how we value competence,” comments Simons.</p>
<p>Simons fills the gap by recounting several stories of people who told Plibersek they were deeply grateful for the program, including a man in Adelaide who took her to the balcony in his newly provided unit that overlooked the abandoned service station where he had slept every night for the previous seven years. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/albanese-government-tackles-housing-crisis-on-3-fronts-but-theres-still-more-to-do-198509">Albanese government tackles housing crisis on 3 fronts, but there's still more to do</a>
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<h2>Making good things happen</h2>
<p>The other main policy Plibersek focussed on as minister for Human Services and Social Inclusion was the creation, in 2011, of the National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and their Children. Labor was ousted in 2013 and in opposition for the next nine years, but Plibersek’s achievement was to “move violence against women from the sidelines of public policy to the centre”.</p>
<p>Plibersek is keen to emphasise the importance of people she has worked with, such as the state housing authorities and her Labor colleague Jenny Macklin, who has long been a policy powerhouse on social issues.</p>
<p>She is also, as one of her staff, Paul Nicolarakis, observes, a policy aesthete. “She sees beauty in her policy role when she can kill two birds with one stone and have an elegant solution that saves money and allows spending, that makes good things happen”. </p>
<p>By the time Plibersek became Minister for Health in 2011, the government had a serious budget deficit to rein in. Treasurer Wayne Swan had decreed that any new spending proposals needed to be offset by cuts. Plibersek had seen how a vaccination program for Gardisal that combats cervical cancer had been rolled out for girls. She wanted to extend the program to boys; they could not get cervical cancer, but there was evidence they could transmit the virus that caused it.</p>
<p>Making the vaccine freely available required an offset in the Health budget. Plibersek looked at the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, under which the federal government subsidises many drugs to ensure they remain affordable for the general public. Put simply, there is a delay between when new medicines are approved under the scheme and when the cheaper generic brand becomes available. </p>
<p>In that gap, usually around 18 months, drug companies and chemists game the system. This was costing the budget more than a billion dollars a year. Plibersek worked hard to reduce the gap from 18 to 12 months, which created the offset she needed to fund the Gardasil vaccination program and an expansion in the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program. </p>
<p>Unlike many, both programs survived cuts by the subsequent coalition government. Simons notes they are now “keystones in preventative health”. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515093/original/file-20230314-24-b46qa2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515093/original/file-20230314-24-b46qa2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515093/original/file-20230314-24-b46qa2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515093/original/file-20230314-24-b46qa2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515093/original/file-20230314-24-b46qa2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515093/original/file-20230314-24-b46qa2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515093/original/file-20230314-24-b46qa2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515093/original/file-20230314-24-b46qa2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Margaret Simons.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dave Tacon/Black Inc.</span></span>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-tanya-plibersek-on-parents-role-in-reducing-violence-against-women-175907">Politics with Michelle Grattan: Tanya Plibersek on parents' role in reducing violence against women</a>
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<h2>A flourishing garden</h2>
<p>All these carefully gathered details are invaluable in showing us how exactly governments work and the impact of their policies. The examples from the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government of 2007-2013 also show how complicated and intractable some policy problems are. </p>
<p>Plibersek has learnt the need to fight for visionary policies rather than simply espouse them. At the same time, she has learnt when and how to compromise to achieve an outcome. As Plibersek tells Simons: “Medicare didn’t spring fully formed from the sea like Botticelli’s Venus.” </p>
<p>If this approach sounds crazy – tackling economic issues fiscally as well as through monetary policy, focussing on policy development before the “announceables”, valuing the role of government in helping improve people’s lives – it underscores the extent to which the former coalition government hollowed out the processes of good government and rendered the media and the population profoundly cynical about what governments can and should do for the people who elect them.</p>
<p>A key theme of this book is that strong public policy is not only possible but necessary. Taking a metaphor from one of Simons’ other roles as a gardening columnist, sound policies need to be seeded, planted in good soil, tended to, and where necessary pruned to encourage new growth. It is unspectacular, never-ending work that can be undone by forces outside the gardener’s control. But all this and more is needed for any good garden to flourish and, better still, endure.</p>
<p>Writing a biography of a living person is a tricky enterprise at the best of times; writing a biography of a living politician is trickier still. Any politician as experienced as Tanya Plibersek is expert at managing what to disclose and when. A journalist and author as experienced as Simons is expert in asking hard questions and digging into the gaps and silences in what she has been told.</p>
<p>The engagement between the two is kept largely in the background, surfacing in odd, largely uncontextualised accounts of interviews. This is uncharacteristic of much of Simons’ earlier works, such as Fit to Print (1999) and The Meeting of the Waters (2003), where her personality and reflections on the task at hand are foregrounded to great effect. </p>
<p>Simons and Plibersek don’t appear to have gelled in the way biographers and their subjects sometimes do. Whether that stems from their personalities or from the thickets surrounding the journalist-biographer and politician-subject relationship is hard to discern. That said, this well-researched, finely judged biography makes for richly informative reading.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197427/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Margaret Simons and I were cadets together at The Age in 1982.</span></em></p>Across her long political career, Tanya Plibersek has learnt to fight for visionary policies, not merely espouse them.Matthew Ricketson, Professor of Communication, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2000832023-02-16T09:31:59Z2023-02-16T09:31:59ZGrattan on Friday: Adam Bandt is wedged by Greens’ overreach on emissions legislation<p>If Peter Dutton is caught in a classic rock-and-hard-place dilemma over the Voice to Parliament, the same could be said for Greens leader Adam Bandt on the safeguard legislation to underpin the government’s climate policy. </p>
<p>The Greens are putting as a condition of supporting the bill – now before parliament – that the government commits to a ban on new coal and gas projects. </p>
<p>They pitched for the ban when parliament was considering legislation for the 43% emissions reduction target, but the government stared them down and they ended up backing that bill. </p>
<p>Now, the stakes are much higher – for both government and Greens. </p>
<p>The 43% target didn’t have to be law. That was just icing on the cake. In contrast, the government needs the safeguard legislation – which forces the biggest polluters to reduce their emissions – to implement its policy. </p>
<p>Reform of Australia’s emissions reduction regime is at the heart of Labor’s agenda. To be stymied on implementation would be a major setback. </p>
<p>From the Greens’ point of view, to have failed once to force the government’s hand can be brushed over. To fail twice risks making the party look impotent in the eyes of its supporters.</p>
<p>It should be noted the Greens say they are not issuing an “ultimatum”, leaving themselves wriggle room for retreat. But their words are strong, and stepping back would be seen as precisely that.</p>
<p>Just like the Liberals, the Greens have a base that is split between hardliners and moderates. At the radical end, their activists don’t want the party to compromise on core issues; in contrast, its mainstream voters want outcomes. </p>
<p>The Greens have history on standing in the way of progress on climate policy, and the government is rubbing their noses in their past. Greens opposition killed the Rudd government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (when their vote suddenly became significant after a leadership upheaval in the Liberals). Their explanation is that it “was bad policy that would have locked in failure to take action on climate change”.</p>
<p>Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek on Thursday said, in answer to a Greens questioner in parliament, “when you lined up with the Liberals last time to block the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, what we saw was more emissions for longer because you voted with them”. </p>
<p>Of course given that, on an ordinary interpretation of “mandates”, Labor has one for its climate policy, the Coalition should let the legislation through – which would make the Greens irrelevant. </p>
<p>But the opposition is spurning any recognition of Labor mandates for core election policies, contesting its $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund and the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund as well as the safeguard bill. This deals the Greens (and non-Greens Senate crossbenchers) into the centre of things. </p>
<p>But while holding a whip hand, the Greens are also wedged on the safeguard legislation. </p>
<p>It’s hard to see that, at the end of the day, they have anywhere else else to go than to vote with the government. Do they really want to line up with the Coalition (again) to reject a major initiative – to be accused (again) of making “the perfect the enemy of the good”? </p>
<p>Bandt rejected that line on the Voice. Senator Lidia Thorpe defected from the Greens to sit on the crossbench because she thought the party wasn’t being pure enough on Indigenous policy. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/lidia-thorpes-defection-from-the-greens-will-make-passing-legislation-harder-for-labor-199299">Lidia Thorpe's defection from the Greens will make passing legislation harder for Labor</a>
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<p>Thorpe argued a Treaty should be given priority over the Voice. But Bandt, while noting the Greens still think a Treaty should come first, said he didn’t believe a “no” vote on the referendum would bring a Treaty closer. It was sensible pragmatism. </p>
<p>Neither would a no vote on the safeguard mechanism be likely to bring closer a ban on new coal and gas ventures. </p>
<p>The market is increasingly cooling on new coal projects. Gas is another matter. Ukraine and the debate about its role in the transition to cleaner energy are driving mixed market messages and investment.</p>
<p>Labor, already facing deepening economic problems, would trash its credibility with investors, business generally and voters if it agreed to the Greens’ ban. </p>
<p>Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen says he is open to negotiation on the safeguard legislation, within the policy Labor took to the election. That provided for new fossil fuel projects to be considered on their merits. </p>
<p>Apart from the issue of project bans, the safeguard bill itself – due for a Senate vote in March for a July 1 start – and the associated draft rule are coming under fire, especially for being too generous on carbon credit offsets. </p>
<p>The head of The Australia Institute, Richard Denniss, wrote in the Guardian: “The reality is the safeguard mechanism does more to safeguard the fossil fuel industry than it does to safeguard the climate. It hides its support for fossil fuel expansion behind a fig leaf of dodgy carbon credits and offsets.”</p>
<p>In contrast, Carbon Market Institute CEO John Connor argues the safeguard mechanism reforms, reducing pollution limits by 5% a year, are significant. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/labors-scheme-to-cut-industrial-emissions-is-worryingly-flexible-197525">Labor's scheme to cut industrial emissions is worryingly flexible</a>
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<p>“They will send a multi-billion-dollar and growing signal to our largest emitters to drive at source decarbonisation, while requiring investments in emission reductions elsewhere in the economy when they can’t do so immediately at the relevant facility,” he says. </p>
<p>“With our high-carbon political economy and historic policy convolutions, it would be a major setback to lose the safeguard mechanism reforms,” Connor says, although adding there should be some amendments to the legislation. </p>
<p>As he tries to chart his course for exercising the Greens’ share of the balance of power in the Senate, Bandt might at times mull on the now-extinct Australian Democrats and their one-time leader Meg Lees. </p>
<p>Lees negotiated a deal with the Howard government for the introduction of the goods and services tax. She extracted concessions for the Democrats’ support, and she did the right thing facilitating the legislation. It was a change to the tax system the country needed. </p>
<p>But Lees paid a high price in a party that was divided over the issue, with many of its supporters abhorring compromise. Ultimately, it cost her the leadership. </p>
<p>This is not an argument against Bandt compromising, which he should and almost certainly will have to. It’s just a reminder that sensible decisions can impose great pressures on the leaders of minor parties when those parties exercise real make-or-break power.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200083/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Like the Liberals, the Greens have a base that is split between hardliners and moderates. At the radical end, their activists don’t want compromise on core issues; its mainstream voters want outcomes.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1995122023-02-09T01:26:50Z2023-02-09T01:26:50ZTanya Plibersek killed off Clive Palmer’s coal mine. It’s an Australian first – but it may never happen again<p>Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has <a href="https://epbcpublicportal.awe.gov.au/all-notices/project-decision-no-comment/?id=f81a6532-08b2-eb11-80c4-00505684c137">formally rejected</a> mining magnate Clive Palmer’s proposed Central Queensland Coal Project. Her decision was based on the risk of damage to the Great Barrier Reef, freshwater creeks and groundwater.</p>
<p>The 20-year open-cut mine project would have extracted up to 10 million tonnes of metallurgical coal – used to make steel – each year.</p>
<p>Plibersek’s decision is significant. It’s the first time a coal mine has been refused in the two decades our federal environment law has been in place. But those hoping the decision sets a precedent for other mine proposals are likely to be disappointed.</p>
<p>Palmer’s mine was not refused on climate change grounds. Objectors to coal mines will still need to persuade the federal government of the link between future coal mine developments and global warming.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="man smiling on sign with words 'put Australia first'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509056/original/file-20230208-21-shlzxm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509056/original/file-20230208-21-shlzxm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509056/original/file-20230208-21-shlzxm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509056/original/file-20230208-21-shlzxm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509056/original/file-20230208-21-shlzxm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509056/original/file-20230208-21-shlzxm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509056/original/file-20230208-21-shlzxm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Clive Palmers coal mine has been rejected.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<h2>A rare decision indeed</h2>
<p>Australia’s federal environment law is known as the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (<a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2021C00182">EPBC</a>) Act. It came into force in 2000 to provide federal oversight of large projects. </p>
<p>Under the law, proponents must refer a proposal to federal environment authorities if it’s likely to significantly impact so-called “matters of national environmental significance”. These matters include the Great Barrier Reef.</p>
<p>But it’s extremely rare that any development is refused under the EPBC Act. As of July last year, more than 7,000 projects had been referred to the federal government under the law, for assessment of the proposal’s impacts. <a href="https://www.transparency.gov.au/annual-reports/department-agriculture-water-and-environment/reporting-year/2021-22-38">Just 13</a> were ultimately refused.</p>
<p>So why did Palmer’s proposed mine cross this exceptional hurdle for refusal? Largely because of its location. The proposed site was <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-08/tanya-plibersek-blocks-clive-palmer-central-qld-coal-mine/101945208">just ten kilometres</a> from the Great Barrier Reef world heritage area. </p>
<p>Explaining the decision on Wednesday, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-08/tanya-plibersek-blocks-clive-palmer-central-qld-coal-mine/101945208">Plibersek said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] risks to the Great Barrier Reef, freshwater creeks and groundwater are too great. Freshwater creeks run into the Great Barrier Reef and onto seagrass meadows that feed dugongs and provide breeding grounds for fish.</p>
</blockquote>
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<img alt="Coral reef with boards moored" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509066/original/file-20230209-19-kjht87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509066/original/file-20230209-19-kjht87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509066/original/file-20230209-19-kjht87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509066/original/file-20230209-19-kjht87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509066/original/file-20230209-19-kjht87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509066/original/file-20230209-19-kjht87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509066/original/file-20230209-19-kjht87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Plibersek said the mine posed unacceptable risks to the Great Barrier Reef.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<h2>The thin end of the wedge?</h2>
<p>Plibersek’s decision has triggered calls for the federal government to reject other fossil fuel projects.</p>
<p>For example, Greens environment spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young on Wednesday described Plibersek’s decision as “the thin edge of the wedge”. She went on:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There [were] 118 new coal and gas projects in the pipeline. One down, 117 to go.</p>
<p>From Narrabri’s double-whammy new coal and gas projects, Woodside’s North West Shelf offshore gas extension, billionaire miner Gina Rinehart’s proposed CSG expansion in the Surat Basin, or the Mount Pleasant coal project extension in the Hunter, the Minister has many projects left to rule out.</p>
<p>Approving more coal and gas in the midst of a climate crisis is reckless and dangerous.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, persuading the federal minister to reject these mines will not be easy.
That’s because the law contains no explicit requirement for the minister to consider the climate change impacts of a proposal. </p>
<p>This certainly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/aug/29/greg-hunts-approval-of-adanis-queensland-mine-upheld-by-federal-court">hasn’t stopped</a> litigants from <a href="https://theconversation.com/todays-disappointing-federal-court-decision-undoes-20-years-of-climate-litigation-progress-in-australia-179291">challenging</a> projects on climate grounds. But to date, none have succeeded.</p>
<p>Other legal objections – <a href="https://www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/full/2017/2017fcafc0134">such as</a> one brought by the Australian Conservation Foundation against the Adani mine – have taken a different tack. They’ve sought to show the carbon emissions resulting from burning coal from a mine would harm a matter of national environmental significance. </p>
<p>The ACF argued the Adani mine was inconsistent with Australia’s international obligations to protect the Great Barrier Reef. But the challenge was unsuccessful. </p>
<p>Such arguments are difficult to run. That’s partly because they string together a number of causal links. In other words, they rest on the assumption that one action is definitively responsible for another, and so on down the chain.</p>
<p>Such links may be possible to show in cases such as the Palmer mine, when a development is close to the coast and its direct operation might pollute waterways. But it’s harder to show that coal from a single mine, burnt by a third party, will damage the Great Barrier Reef. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/this-case-has-made-legal-history-young-australians-just-won-a-human-rights-case-against-an-enormous-coal-mine-195350">'This case has made legal history’: young Australians just won a human rights case against an enormous coal mine</a>
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<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"770112444480053248"}"></div></p>
<h2>Room for hope</h2>
<p>Plibersek’s decision is unlikely to set a precedent for federal mine approvals.</p>
<p>The EPBC Act could, in theory, be strengthened to give the minister more power to reject a proposal on climate grounds. But unfortunately, the Albanese government’s <a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/nature-positive-plan.pdf">promised reforms</a> of the law fail to do so.</p>
<p>First, the reforms failed to include a “<a href="https://theconversation.com/labor-has-introduced-its-controversial-climate-bill-to-parliament-heres-how-to-give-it-real-teeth-187762">climate trigger</a>” – a mechanism by which development proposals are not approved unless their climate impact has been considered.</p>
<p>Second, the reforms fail to make so-called “scope 3 emissions” a mandatory consideration in environmental approvals. These types of emissions are produced indirectly – such as when a company’s coal is burned for energy.</p>
<p>There is room for hope, however. The federal government’s <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/albanese-government-passes-climate-change-bill-house-representatives">Climate Change Act</a> enshrines in law Australia’s goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. Under this policy position, the approval of large coal mines will become increasingly difficult to reconcile.</p>
<p>And in recent years, <a href="https://theconversation.com/landmark-rocky-hill-ruling-could-pave-the-way-for-more-courts-to-choose-climate-over-coal-111533">some state courts</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/this-case-has-made-legal-history-young-australians-just-won-a-human-rights-case-against-an-enormous-coal-mine-195350">have been convinced</a> by causal arguments linking mines to climate change. So future federal decisions are unlikely to be immune from further challenge. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/labor-has-introduced-its-controversial-climate-bill-to-parliament-heres-how-to-give-it-real-teeth-187762">Labor has introduced its controversial climate bill to parliament. Here's how to give it real teeth</a>
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<h2>What’s next for Clive Palmer?</h2>
<p>Plibersek’s decision comes during a bad few months for Palmer. In November last year, Queensland’s Land Court recommended Palmer’s proposed Waratah coal project in Queensland also be rejected <a href="https://theconversation.com/this-case-has-made-legal-history-young-australians-just-won-a-human-rights-case-against-an-enormous-coal-mine-195350">due to</a> its likely contribution to climate change, and subsequent erosion of human rights.</p>
<p>Palmer can seek a judicial review of the latest decision. But success would rest on whether it could be shown Plibersek’s decision involved a legal error. These types of challenges are notoriously difficult – so there’s a good chance this proposed mine has reached the end of the road. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/todays-disappointing-federal-court-decision-undoes-20-years-of-climate-litigation-progress-in-australia-179291">Today's disappointing federal court decision undoes 20 years of climate litigation progress in Australia</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199512/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justine Bell-James receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Environmental Science Program.</span></em></p>The mine was not refused on climate change grounds. So without legal reform, other fossil fuel projects may still go ahead.Justine Bell-James, Associate Professor, TC Beirne School of Law, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1962872022-12-12T19:03:04Z2022-12-12T19:03:04Z‘Complete elation’ greeted Plibersek’s big plans to protect nature - but hurdles litter the path<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500333/original/file-20221212-95822-9ad3nx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">NSW government</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has <a href="https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/plibersek/speeches/labors-nature-positive-plan-better-environment-better-business">announced</a> a much-anticipated overhaul of Australia’s national environment law. The plan is rich with welcome new policies – but the path to change is littered with hurdles.</p>
<p>The changes largely follow the recommendations of a <a href="https://epbcactreview.environment.gov.au">major review</a> of the law, known as the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act. The review by Professor Graeme Samuel was released in 2020. <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drive/rn-drive/14111536">Speaking to ABC radio</a> last week, Samuel expressed “complete elation and unqualified admiration and respect” for Plibersek’s comprehensive policy response.</p>
<p>The path of this big agenda stretches far beyond the one-term political horizon. I was a senior public servant responsible for managing and reforming the EPBC Act from 2007 to 2012. I’ve seen firsthand the obstacles to ambitious environmental reform. </p>
<p>Here are four hurdles Plibersek will have to jump, just for starters.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="woman in blue jacket holds microphone" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500335/original/file-20221212-95362-3fgs0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500335/original/file-20221212-95362-3fgs0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500335/original/file-20221212-95362-3fgs0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500335/original/file-20221212-95362-3fgs0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500335/original/file-20221212-95362-3fgs0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500335/original/file-20221212-95362-3fgs0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500335/original/file-20221212-95362-3fgs0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s new nature reforms will meet a number of hurdles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>1. The absence of a climate trigger</h2>
<p>The Greens and several crossbenchers have <a href="https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/tanya-plibersek-rules-out-climate-trigger-in-new-environment-laws-as-labor-faces-backlash-from-greens-and-coalition-to-landmark-reforms-of-epbc-act/news-story/6fd4929104a6cbd9492e853eae316385">criticised</a> Plibersek’s failure to include a so-called “climate trigger” in the reforms. This means the legislation’s passage through the Senate is not assured.</p>
<p>Legislating a climate trigger would mean a project’s future contribution to climate change would be assessed as part of the approvals process. This could mean a heavy-emitting project, such as an industrial plant or coal mine, is refused or its operations curtailed.</p>
<p>Plibersek has <a href="https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/plibersek/transcripts/abc-news-breakfast-interview-minister-environment-and-water-tanya-plibersek-2">argued</a> the federal government’s safeguard mechanism already regulates polluting facilities, and there’s no need to duplicate this.</p>
<p>Fair point. But <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jul/25/david-pocock-calls-for-climate-trigger-in-emissions-legislation-ahead-of-new-parliament-opening">critics</a> also make a fair point: that Australia’s foremost environmental law does not deal with the most significant environmental threat of all. </p>
<p>There are opportunities for the federal government to introduce a limited climate trigger – for example, to large-scale land clearing. Such destruction is a significant <a href="https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/uploads/c1e786d5d0fe4c4bc1b91fc200cbaec8.pdf">contributor</a> to Australia’s emissions, but is not covered by the safeguard mechanism. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-greens-climate-trigger-policy-could-become-law-experts-explain-how-it-could-help-cut-emissions-and-why-we-should-be-cautious-187998">The Greens' climate trigger policy could become law. Experts explain how it could help cut emissions – and why we should be cautious</a>
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<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="felled trees in forest" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500339/original/file-20221212-99136-qh64s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500339/original/file-20221212-99136-qh64s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500339/original/file-20221212-99136-qh64s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500339/original/file-20221212-99136-qh64s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500339/original/file-20221212-99136-qh64s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500339/original/file-20221212-99136-qh64s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500339/original/file-20221212-99136-qh64s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The government could apply the climate trigger to land clearing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. Eliminating weasel words</h2>
<p>The government’s new national environmental standards are the central plank of the reforms. Introducing such standards is a cutting-edge policy. The new federal Environmental Protection Agency will be tasked with ensuring the standards are adhered to.</p>
<p>Some standards will clearly describe the outcomes developments must meet – spelling out exactly what a healthy environment looks like. Projects will be required to align with this vision.</p>
<p>Other standards will describe processes needed to support the law’s proper functioning.</p>
<p>But drafting major changes to legislation is a fraught process – and the devil may yet creep into the detail.</p>
<p>The federal government must, in particular, weed out weasel words that might rob the standards of their punch – terms such as “as far as possible”. </p>
<p>And while the government’s reforms have been broadly welcomed by the business sector, it can expect opposition to its plan to extend standards to regional forestry agreements.</p>
<p>These agreements are currently exempt from the EPBC Act. In 2009, the Rudd Labor government <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20091225134404/http://www.environment.gov.au/minister/garrett/2009/mr20091221.html">dismissed</a> a recommendation to review this exemption.</p>
<p>The Albanese government, very cautiously, says it will “begin a process” of applying the new national standards to regional forest agreements, in consultation with stakeholders. </p>
<p>No doubt Labor can still feel the rumbling of the 1995 <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14519641-000-loggers-win-concession-in-siege-of-canberra/">blockade</a> of Parliament House, when logging trucks blocked all entrances to the building for five days, after a dispute with the Keating government over woodchipping.</p>
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<img alt="people rally with sign 'Forestry keeps us ina job'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500337/original/file-20221212-97698-9tmah6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500337/original/file-20221212-97698-9tmah6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500337/original/file-20221212-97698-9tmah6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500337/original/file-20221212-97698-9tmah6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500337/original/file-20221212-97698-9tmah6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500337/original/file-20221212-97698-9tmah6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500337/original/file-20221212-97698-9tmah6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The forestry industry is likely to oppose moves to curtail logging.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Launceston Examiner</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>3. The difficulty of regional planning</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/epbc/epbc-act-reform/regional-planning">Regional environmental plans</a> will work in concert with the new national standards.</p>
<p>Regional plans will give guidance to decision makers, developers and communities on exactly what needs to be protected and where development should occur. </p>
<p>The federal government will partner with states and territories to identify locations where regional plans are needed. Plibersek has moved early, signing an <a href="https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/plibersek/transcripts/press-conference-labors-nature-positive-plan-better-environment-better-business">agreement with Queensland</a> to work together on the plans. </p>
<p>Even so, this is a long and winding road. Devising the plans is likely to be time-consuming, expensive and politically challenging. It will require new federal-state processes and good local consultation, and may highlight tensions about the future of particular regions. </p>
<h2>4. Indigenous views and values</h2>
<p>Plibersek has committed to giving First Nations people a greater say in environmental protection. As a start, the national standards applying to Indigenous engagement will be developed as a priority.</p>
<p>But respectful engagement is just the first step.</p>
<p>The Rudd government <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/australia-backs-un-on-indigenous-rights-20141112-9buw.html">endorsed</a> the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. A parliamentary committee is now <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Aboriginal_and_Torres_Strait_Islander_Affairs/UNDRIP">considering</a> how it might apply in Australia.</p>
<p>Key to the declaration is the principle of <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf">free, prior and informed consent</a>. Among other things, this means Traditional Owners should have the right to veto a development on their land – something the Native Title Act does not currently provide.</p>
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<img alt="Indigenous woman sits by river" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500338/original/file-20221212-94216-3fgs0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500338/original/file-20221212-94216-3fgs0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500338/original/file-20221212-94216-3fgs0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500338/original/file-20221212-94216-3fgs0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500338/original/file-20221212-94216-3fgs0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500338/original/file-20221212-94216-3fgs0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500338/original/file-20221212-94216-3fgs0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Will the government give First Nations veto rights on development proposals?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<h2>Backing the future</h2>
<p>Many other significant hurdles lie in the way of the government’s reforms.</p>
<p>Chief among them is the thorny issue of environmental offsetting, in which damage caused by a development in one area is compensated for by improving the environment “like for like” elsewhere. </p>
<p>Under the reforms, if a “like for like” replacement can’t be found, a proponent must make a “conservation payment” to fund biodiversity improvements elsewhere. As others have <a href="https://theconversation.com/our-laws-fail-nature-the-governments-plan-to-overhaul-them-looks-good-but-crucial-detail-is-yet-to-come-196126">noted</a>, this strategy is fraught with issues. </p>
<p>And it remains to be seen if the private sector will embrace the government’s <a href="https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/plibersek/media-releases/joint-media-release-biodiversity-certificates-increase-native-habitat-and-support-australian-landholders">plans</a> to make it easier for the private sector to invest in environmental improvements, by creating “biodiversity certificates” to be bought and sold.</p>
<p>Unless the government offers incentives, it’s hard to see businesses rushing to take part. Special cases aside, there’s rarely profit to be made in restoring nature.</p>
<p>Finally, and most importantly, Plibersek must secure <a href="https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/plibersek/transcripts/transcript-television-interview-abc-730-labors-nature-positive-plan">budget funding</a> to implement these wholesale reforms. One <a href="https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/conl.12682">recent study</a> found federal and state spending on threatened species alone was 15% of what’s needed.</p>
<p>Above all else, the success of Plibersek’s plan requires strong backing from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his cabinet.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196287/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Burnett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The path of Plibersek’s big agenda stretches far beyond the one-term political horizon – and it’s fraught with dangers.Peter Burnett, Honorary Associate Professor, ANU College of Law, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1961262022-12-08T07:39:35Z2022-12-08T07:39:35ZOur laws fail nature. The government’s plan to overhaul them looks good, but crucial detail is yet to come<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499721/original/file-20221208-24-53is9y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C17%2C3876%2C2566&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Albanese government has just released its long-awaited response to a scathing independent <a href="https://epbcactreview.environment.gov.au/resources/final-report">review</a> of Australia’s environment protection law. The 2020 review ultimately found the laws were <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-major-report-excoriated-australias-environment-laws-sussan-leys-response-is-confused-and-risky-154254">flawed</a>, outdated and, without fundamental reform, would continue to see plants and animals go extinct. </p>
<p>The extent to which the government implements the review’s 38 recommendations to strengthen the laws will determine the fate of many species and ecosystems – so, how did it go?</p>
<p>As biodiversity conservation experts, we find the plan to be promising. For example, federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek pledged to establish an independent environmental protection agency to be “a tough cop on the beat”. </p>
<p>But some uncertainty remains, and there is also a lot of important detail still to be worked through. </p>
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Read more:
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<h2>Australia’s extinction crisis</h2>
<p>Australia has the world’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/gut-wrenching-and-infuriating-why-australia-is-the-world-leader-in-mammal-extinctions-and-what-to-do-about-it-192173">worst track record</a> for mammal extinctions. The national threatened species list comprises more than 1,700 species and over 100 threatened ecological communities, and more are added every year. </p>
<p>Extraordinary species such as mountain pygmy possums, northern hairy-nosed wombats and regent honeyeaters are hanging on by a thread. Others, such as the white-footed rabbit-rat and the central hare-wallaby, are already lost forever. Previously abundant animals such as bogong moths, which the mountain pygmy possum relies on for food, have become rare.</p>
<p>Australia’s <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2021C00182">environment law</a> – the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act – is ostensibly wildlife’s best defence against a range of threats to their habitat, such as urban development, mining and land clearing. </p>
<p>But this defence has failed, time and again. In just one example, the extinction <a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/biodiversity/threatened/species/koala">threat</a> facing the iconic koala has become worse, not better, since it was “protected” under the EPBC Act. </p>
<h2>What the plan got right</h2>
<p>We note a few standout positives in the government’s response today. One is the promise to rapidly prepare and implement conservation plans – with strong regulatory standing – for each nationally listed threatened species and ecological community.</p>
<p>There is strong merit in this. We encourage a similar emphasis on developing plans to abate threats such as such as feral cats, foxes, deer, and rabbits, that should also have strong regulatory standing. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gut-wrenching-and-infuriating-why-australia-is-the-world-leader-in-mammal-extinctions-and-what-to-do-about-it-192173">'Gut-wrenching and infuriating': why Australia is the world leader in mammal extinctions, and what to do about it</a>
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<p>We’re also pleased to see confirmation of the formation of the environmental protection agency (EPA). This addresses one of the review’s top criticisms on the lack of resourcing and independent enforcement of the EPBC Act. </p>
<p>The model could be a game-changer: undertaking assessments and making decisions about development proposals at arm’s length from government. The EPA will have its own budget and mandatory tabling of an annual report in parliament.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408578/original/file-20210628-13-rw4gnl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Brown rodent" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408578/original/file-20210628-13-rw4gnl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408578/original/file-20210628-13-rw4gnl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408578/original/file-20210628-13-rw4gnl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408578/original/file-20210628-13-rw4gnl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408578/original/file-20210628-13-rw4gnl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408578/original/file-20210628-13-rw4gnl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408578/original/file-20210628-13-rw4gnl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Bramble Cay melomys was declared extinct in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian Bell, EHP, State of Queensland</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>Another big plus is the government’s pledge to deliver on national environmental standards, overseen by the newly formed EPA. These standards describe the environmental outcomes that must be achieved. For example, the standards could require that decisions result in no further population decline of threatened species.</p>
<p>Crucially, these standards will apply to “regional forest agreements”. These agreements <a href="https://www.ecolsoc.org.au/?hottopic-entry=regional-forest-agreements-fail-to-meet-their-aims">are controversial</a> because they effectively exempt forest logging from scrutiny under the EPBC Act. However, the timeline for imposing the standards on regional forest agreements is uncertain, and currently “subject to further consultation with stakeholders”. </p>
<p>Finally, a regional planning approach will be used to identify environmentally valuable and sensitive areas in which new developments pose too great a risk, as well as places that are more-or-less available for new development. The critical detail of how those zones are determined is yet to be negotiated. </p>
<h2>A major uncertainty: offsets</h2>
<p>Perhaps the biggest concern we have about the federal government’s approach relates to environmental offsets. Offsets can be imposed by the government as a way to compensate for environmental destruction by improving nature in other places. </p>
<p><a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/150021">Evidence shows</a> offsets have so far been largely ineffective, in part because <a href="https://www.anao.gov.au/work/performance-audit/referrals-assessments-and-approvals-controlled-actions-under-the-epbc-act">existing policy is not</a> properly implemented and rules not enforced. They may even facilitate more biodiversity loss by <a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/150021">removing ethical roadblocks</a> to destroying ecosystems and habitat for threatened species.</p>
<p>Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek on Thursday emphasised a move away from simply protecting habitat that already exists in exchange for habitat loss elsewhere (so-called “avoided loss offsets”), and instead focusing on restoration. This is a welcome improvement to how offsets are delivered. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ehso8_tRU-k?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The basics of what biodiversity offsetting involves.</span></figcaption>
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<p>However, the government will accept payments into a fund when offsetting is too difficult: for example, when there’s no like-for-like habitat available. This is worrying. If offsets for a threatened species are hard to find, it’s an important signal that we’re reaching the limit of habitat we can lose. </p>
<p>Imagine if a developer cleared cassowary habitat in a Queensland rainforest, and compensated for that by paying for koala tree planting in another part of Australia. Nice for the koala, but we have guaranteed a further decline for the cassowary.</p>
<p>The government’s plan points to the New South Wales Biodiversity Conservation Trust as an example of how these offset payments could be managed. Yet the auditor-general of NSW recently <a href="https://www.audit.nsw.gov.au/media-release/media-release-effectiveness-of-the-biodiversity-offsets-scheme">discredited</a> the way this scheme handles offsets, saying it doesn’t lead to enough biodiversity gains compared to the losses and impacts from development in the state. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499730/original/file-20221208-11-qh64s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two cassowaries on a road" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499730/original/file-20221208-11-qh64s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499730/original/file-20221208-11-qh64s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499730/original/file-20221208-11-qh64s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499730/original/file-20221208-11-qh64s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499730/original/file-20221208-11-qh64s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499730/original/file-20221208-11-qh64s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499730/original/file-20221208-11-qh64s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The government plans to change environmental offsets.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>The national system would need to be very different to the NSW one if it’s to support the federal government’s goal of zero extinctions by 2030. In practice, this would mean avoiding the use of offsets to compensate for the destruction of habitats that aren’t replaceable or cannot be readily recreated elsewhere. </p>
<p>National environmental standards for environmental offsets haven’t yet been finalised. The detail included in these will be crucial to the success of the scheme. </p>
<h2>Show us the money</h2>
<p>Much of the federal government’s overhaul is to be welcomed. But we won’t prevent new extinctions unless it’s supported by serious investment to develop and implement plans, and enforce laws. Increased funding to recover endangered species is also urgently needed, to the tune of <a href="https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/conl.12682">A$2 billion per year</a>.</p>
<p>This is nowhere near as much as we spend on, for instance, <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/australia-s-price-tag-for-nuclear-submarines-could-soar-by-billions-20220719-p5b2p7">submarines</a> or even <a href="https://animalmedicinesaustralia.org.au/media-release/survey-reveals-the-spending-and-care-habits-of-aussie-pet-owners">caring for our cats and dogs</a>. </p>
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Read more:
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<p>But it’s an order of magnitude more than our current spend on targeted threatened species recovery actions. </p>
<p>By and large, the proposed plan looks set to make a positive difference to Australia’s threatened plants and animals. But a lot of detail remains to be worked through. Getting that detail right could mean the difference between a species surviving, or disappearing forever.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196126/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brendan Wintle has received funding from The Australian Research Council, the Victorian State Government, the NSW State Government, the Queensland State Government, the Commonwealth National Environmental Science Program, the Ian Potter Foundation, the Hermon Slade Foundation, and the Australian Conservation Foundation. Wintle is a Board Director of Zoos Victoria. Brendan Wintle is a member of the Biodiversity Council</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martine Maron has received funding from various sources including the Australian Research Council, the Queensland Department of Environment and Science, and the Australian Government's National Environmental Science Program. She is a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, President of BirdLife Australia, a Councillor with the Biodiversity Council, a member of the board of the Australian Wildlife Conservancy and a Governor of WWF-Australia.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Bekessy receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Ian Potter Foundation and the European Commission. She is a Councillor of the Biodiversity Council, a Board Member of Bush Heritage Australia, a member of WWF's Eminent Scientists Group and a member of the Advisory Group for Wood for Good.</span></em></p>Getting that detail right could mean the difference between a species surviving, or disappearing forever.Brendan Wintle, Professor in Conservation Science, School of Ecosystem and Forest Science, The University of MelbourneMartine Maron, Professor of Environmental Management, The University of QueenslandSarah Bekessy, Professor in Sustainability and Urban Planning, Leader, Interdisciplinary Conservation Science Research Group (ICON Science), RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1882812022-08-05T03:29:27Z2022-08-05T03:29:27ZVIDEO: Government’s climate win, Plibersek says no to coal mine, Albanese moves forward on referendum<p>University of Canberra Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan and University of Canberra Associate Professor Caroline Fisher discuss the week in politics.</p>
<p>Michelle and Caroline discuss the first fortnight sitting of the new parliament, with the government’s emissions reduction bill passing on the final day, leaving the opposition looking divided and with the big challenge of forging a credible climate policy for the next election. </p>
<p>This week also saw Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek indicate she will block the development of a new coal mine, backed by Clive Palmer, that she says would have had an adverse impact on the Great Barrier Reef. </p>
<p>Michelle and Caroline also canvass the prospects and difficulties for the referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, after Anthony Albanese released the draft wording at the weekend.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>University of Canberra Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan and Assistant Professor Caroline Fisher discuss the week in politicsMichelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1865622022-07-19T08:33:53Z2022-07-19T08:33:53Z‘Bad and getting worse’: Labor promises law reform for Australia’s environment. Here’s what you need to know<p>Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek acknowledges “it’s time to change” after the <a href="https://soe.dcceew.gov.au/">State of the Environment report</a> revealed a bleak picture of Australia’s natural places.</p>
<p>In a speech on Tuesday, Plibersek foreshadowed a suite of reforms to Australia’s environment policies, including new legislation to go before parliament next year. Plibersek told reporters:</p>
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<p>Australia’s environment is bad and getting worse, as this report shows, and much of the destruction outlined in the State of the Environment Report will take years to turn around. Nevertheless, I am optimistic about the steps that we can take over the next three years.</p>
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<p>The changes will be informed by the government’s response to Professor Graeme Samuel’s <a href="https://epbcactreview.environment.gov.au/resources/final-report">independent review</a> of federal environment law. That review found the law, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (<a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2021C00182">EPBC</a>) Act, has failed to safeguard Australia’s vulnerable plants, animals, and ecological communities.</p>
<p>Having been in the minister’s chair for only six weeks, Plibersek was hesitant to outline major policy initiatives and said the government would consult widely before making changes. She says overhauling Australia’s environmental protections will be “challenging” and public views on the right policy response will differ wildly.</p>
<p>Our collective expertise spans environmental law and ecosystem processes. Here, we consider whether today’s announcements go far enough to restore and protect Australia’s precious natural assets.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/this-is-australias-most-important-report-on-the-environments-deteriorating-health-we-present-its-grim-findings-186131">This is Australia's most important report on the environment's deteriorating health. We present its grim findings</a>
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<h2>What’s been promised?</h2>
<p>Plibersek’s speech contained a couple of new announcements, and a reiteration of previous policy pledges. As well as committing to a response to the Samuel review by the end of the year, these include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>setting clear environmental standards with explicit targets</p></li>
<li><p>fundamental reform of national environmental laws and a new national level Environmental Protection Agency to enforce them</p></li>
<li><p>expanding Australia’s national estate to protect 30% of land and 30% of oceans by 2030</p></li>
<li><p>producing better and more shareable environmental data to better track progress and decline</p></li>
<li><p>including environmental indicators in the government’s new “<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-wellbeing-budget-what-we-can-and-cant-learn-from-nz-186725">wellbeing budget</a>”</p></li>
<li><p>supporting investment into blue carbon projects, such as restoring mangroves and seagrasses</p></li>
<li><p>doubling the number of Indigenous rangers to 3,800 this decade and increasing funding for Indigenous protected areas.</p></li>
<li><p>enshrining a higher national emissions reduction target into law.</p></li>
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<p>These important changes are likely to lead to environmental gains. But the key will be ensuring progress is independently monitored, and that new laws and targets can be amended as needed.</p>
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<h2>Changes urgently needed</h2>
<p>The commitment to expand Australia’s national estate may be comforting, but it misses crucial context. As the report notes, the overall level of protection within reserves has fallen.</p>
<p>In fact, in some of our most prized protected areas, threatened species are declining. These include northern quolls, northern brown bandicoots and pale field-rats in <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/WR/WR09125">Kakadu National Park</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/conl.12682">Researchers estimated</a> in 2019 that we spend only 15% of what’s needed to avoid extinctions and recover threatened species. Expanding protected areas means little unless accompanied by adequate funding for species recovery. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/one-cat-one-year-110-native-animals-lock-up-your-pet-its-a-killing-machine-138412">One cat, one year, 110 native animals: lock up your pet, it's a killing machine</a>
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<p>The report also recognises invasive species as one of the biggest threats to native biodiversity. In particular, feral and domestic cats have played a <a href="https://www.nespthreatenedspecies.edu.au/news-and-media/latest-news/a-review-of-listed-extinctions-in-australia">leading role</a> in most of Australia’s mammal extinctions since colonisation.</p>
<p>Controlling invasive species such as feral cats will be difficult without developing new management strategies that can be applied at scale. This will require more investment in research and adequate resources to trial, test and monitor approaches.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474825/original/file-20220719-16-7rsafl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cat" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474825/original/file-20220719-16-7rsafl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474825/original/file-20220719-16-7rsafl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474825/original/file-20220719-16-7rsafl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474825/original/file-20220719-16-7rsafl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474825/original/file-20220719-16-7rsafl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474825/original/file-20220719-16-7rsafl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474825/original/file-20220719-16-7rsafl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Cats have been a leading cause of mammal extinctions in Australia since colonisation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Rates of land clearing also continue to soar, as Plibersek noted. But we’re yet to see details of how the federal government plans to address this crucial issue.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, Plibersek spoke optimistically about cooperating with state and territory governments, who are primarily responsible for forests in their jurisdictions. </p>
<p>The next five-yearly review of the Regional Forest Agreements – made between federal and state governments – offer an important opportunity. These agreements broadly <a href="https://jade.io/article/808120">exempt</a> logging operations from federal environmental law. </p>
<p>Cooperating with the states will be important in addressing the environmental challenges posed by, for instance, native forest logging in Victoria, which has contributed to the greater glider being <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=254">recently listed</a> as endangered.</p>
<h2>New environmental law for 2023</h2>
<p>Plibersek noted the importance of climate change as a cumulative threat to the pressures already affecting the environment. </p>
<p>While she reinforced her election promise to legislate emissions cuts, she skirted around how climate change’s harms to biodiversity could be incorporated into environmental law. A fundamental issue with the EPBC Act is that there’s no explicit mention of climate change. </p>
<p>This could be a problem if federal support continues to be given to new projects that could also undermine emissions targets. For example, the federal government recently approved Western Australia’s Scarborough-Pluto gas project. It is set to be one of Australia’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-ultra-polluting-scarborough-pluto-gas-project-could-blow-through-labors-climate-target-and-it-just-got-the-green-light-184379">most emissions-intensive</a> developments.</p>
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<p>Another crucial problem with the EPBC Act, as Professor Graeme Samuel recognised is his review, is that it operates in a piecemeal way. </p>
<p>Instead of protecting the environment holistically, it’s triggered when individual projects are likely to affect specific aspects of the environment, such as a threatened species. </p>
<p>When triggered, the act requires an assessment of a project’s potential impact, but doesn’t require any specific measurable outcomes once the project has gone ahead. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-ultra-polluting-scarborough-pluto-gas-project-could-blow-through-labors-climate-target-and-it-just-got-the-green-light-184379">The ultra-polluting Scarborough-Pluto gas project could blow through Labor’s climate target – and it just got the green light</a>
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<p>It also focuses on lists of species and places, rather than the interactions within and between environmental systems. It will be impossible for the new government to adequately respond to the Samuel review without acknowledging this major flaw. </p>
<p>The proposal to introduce national environment standards next year will make a positive difference. It needs to operate not as a vague reference point, but as a ceiling.</p>
<h2>We can’t afford to fail</h2>
<p>Continuing to ignore the damning evidence revealed in the report today will worsen Australia’s biodiversity crisis. Not only will further losses lead to more extinctions, they will also compromise our <a href="https://theconversation.com/existential-threat-to-our-survival-see-the-19-australian-ecosystems-already-collapsing-154077">ecosystems’ ability</a> to support us. </p>
<p>Biodiversity loss has been heralded as one of <a href="https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_Global_Risks_Report_2022.pdf">the top threats</a> to the global economy, ranking third behind climate change and extreme weather events. </p>
<p>Australia’s extinction track record is among the world’s worst. Failing to make the necessary legal and policy reforms could not only represent a missed opportunity to restore past losses, but also lock in further decline for decades.</p>
<p>The report shows the best time to take action has passed. The second best time is now.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186562/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Schuijers is a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's World Commission on Environmental Law and has previously received funding for her research from the Australian federal government.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Newsome is a member of the Australian Mammal Society and Ecological Society of Australia, is on the Council of the Royal Zoological Society of NSW, and is President of the Australasian Wildlife Management Society. No funding beyond support from The University of Sydney (employer) was provided specifically for this work. </span></em></p>Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek acknowledges “it’s time to change” after the State of the Environment report revealed a bleak picture of Australia’s natural places. In a speech on Tuesday…Laura Schuijers, Deputy Director, Australian Centre for Climate and Environmental Law and Lecturer in Law, University of SydneyThomas Newsome, Academic Fellow, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1867152022-07-11T07:04:59Z2022-07-11T07:04:59ZTimes have changed: why the environment minister is being forced to reconsider climate-related impacts of pending fossil fuel approvals<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473338/original/file-20220711-15-1smcbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C30%2C6699%2C4436&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A non-profit group is imploring the new federal environment minister Tanya Plibersek to consider the climate change impacts of 19 fossil fuel projects currently pending approval, drawing on a rarely used legal provision that will require her to reconsider the findings of her predecessors. </p>
<p>The minister will be forced to either confirm or revoke previous decisions that the <a href="https://livingwonders.org.au/explore-the-evidence/coal-and-gas/">fossil fuel projects</a> – which propose to extract new coal or gas – aren’t likely to have a significant impact on Australia’s protected species and places. </p>
<p>The group that issued the 19 requests, the Environment Council of Central Queensland, argues the projects will contribute to climate change. This will, in turn, harm the threatened and migratory species, wetlands, heritage sites, and marine areas protected under Australia’s environmental law, <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2021C00182">the EPBC Act</a>. </p>
<p>So what makes this intervention important? </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/greater-gliders-are-hurtling-towards-extinction-and-the-blame-lies-squarely-with-australian-governments-186469">Greater gliders are hurtling towards extinction, and the blame lies squarely with Australian governments</a>
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<h2>The environment is changing rapidly</h2>
<p>The legal term for the type of request issued by the environment council is a “reconsideration request”. Made under <a href="http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/epabca1999588/s78a.html">section 78A</a> of the EPBC Act, reconsideration requests depend on “substantial new information”. </p>
<p>Here, this includes the latest <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar6/">climate science</a> and evidence about how Australian species and places are responding to climate change.</p>
<p>For example, the situation for a species like the Eyre Peninsula southern emu-wren, whose habitat has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/click-through-the-tragic-stories-of-119-species-still-struggling-after-black-summer-in-this-interactive-and-how-to-help-131025">decimated by bushfire</a> is more dire than it was just a few years ago, making any new impact more significant. </p>
<p>Similarly, the Great Barrier Reef has now suffered its fourth mass bleaching event since 2016. Further climate change could bring this iconic ecosystem <a href="https://theconversation.com/adapt-move-or-die-repeated-coral-bleaching-leaves-wildlife-on-the-great-barrier-reef-with-few-options-179570">closer to collapse</a>.</p>
<p>The environment council and its team argue that essentially <em>all</em> matters protected under the EPBC Act are <a href="https://livingwonders.org.au/explore-the-evidence/living-wonders/">vulnerable to the effects</a> of fossil fuel projects, not just species and areas next door to mine sites. </p>
<p>Their logic is that every project unearthing new fossil fuels to be extracted and burned over a long period of time will make an important contribution to climate change. As we transition toward net-zero emissions, every tonne of emissions counts.</p>
<p>In turn, climate change will significantly impact Australia’s heritage and biodiversity. The environment council want to make sure this is factored into any final approval decision.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/existential-threat-to-our-survival-see-the-19-australian-ecosystems-already-collapsing-154077">'Existential threat to our survival': see the 19 Australian ecosystems already collapsing</a>
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<h2>What happens now?</h2>
<p>Now the requests have been made, the minister is legally obliged to reconsider the projects in light of climate change. </p>
<p>If the minister <em>confirms</em> the previous decisions that there aren’t likely to be significant impacts on protected species and places, despite the new information, she can go ahead and approve or reject the projects based on the information she already had. However, this could then be challenged in the Federal Court.</p>
<p>So, what might the court say? Would it find that climate-related impacts to protected species and places are relevant to fossil fuel approvals? </p>
<p>This depends on the interpretation of key terms “likely”, “significant”, and “impact”.</p>
<p>Under the EPBC Act, the word “likely” <a href="https://jade.io/article/104513">means</a> “a real and not remote chance or possibility”. It doesn’t equate to a probability over 50%.</p>
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<p>“Impact” can include an <a href="https://www.agriculture.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/epbc-act-policy-indirect-consequences.pdf">indirect impact</a>, which might occur at a different place and time to the project, including in the future. An impact doesn’t have to be wholly caused by a project to be relevant.</p>
<p>That said, there hasn’t yet been an authoritative judicial interpretation of the <a href="http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/epabca1999588/s527e.html">definition of this term</a>. This means we don’t know if the court would find that climate-related impacts to biodiversity and heritage are impacts of fossil fuel projects. Arguably, it certainly could.</p>
<p>What we do know is that the word “significant” calls for the courts to consider the <a href="https://jade.io/article/104513">context</a> of an impact. The context here is an <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.1400253">extinction crisis</a> that’s being exacerbated by a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01418-1">climate crisis</a>.</p>
<p>If the minister does decide the projects are likely to significantly impact Australia’s threatened species and protected places, she’ll <em>revoke</em> the original decisions. This would trigger a process to procure sufficient information to better inform a final approval decision.</p>
<h2>What does this mean for the law and for future approvals?</h2>
<p>The EPBC Act came into force more than two decades ago, without any reference to climate change. Yet, it’s the law we’ve got to protect the environment. </p>
<p>Recognising that fossil fuel projects are likely to harm the Australian environment would mean climate change would need to be taken into account for new extraction proposals in future. </p>
<p>Specifically, the plight of threatened species and protected places would be broadly relevant to all final coal and gas approval decisions. The minister could still approve new projects, but she’d have to be mindful of the broad-ranging impacts to biodiversity and heritage. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-environment-law-doesnt-protect-the-environment-an-alarming-message-from-the-recent-duty-quashing-climate-case-179964">Australia’s environment law doesn’t protect the environment – an alarming message from the recent duty-quashing climate case</a>
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<p>Whatever the ultimate result, this challenge will help elucidate a potential link between the EPBC Act and climate change.</p>
<p>This includes clarifying the responsibility fossil fuel projects have over climate-related harm to the environment, now climate change is <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar6/">well and truly manifest</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186715/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Schuijers has previously been supported by Australian Research Council funding and has volunteered for Environmental Justice Australia. </span></em></p>The minister will be forced to either confirm or revoke decisions made by her predecessor that 19 coal and gas projects aren’t likely to harm Australia’s protected species and places.Laura Schuijers, Deputy Director, Australian Centre for Climate and Environmental Law and Lecturer in Law, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1865612022-07-07T11:04:43Z2022-07-07T11:04:43ZGrattan on Friday: Albanese is pursuing harmony but consensus has its limits<p>It was a sharp contrast. Similar disasters, very different politics. </p>
<p>Responding to the NSW and Queensland floods earlier this year, Scott Morrison couldn’t put a foot right. Complaints abounded – over the Commonwealth’s response, and his own. </p>
<p>In this week’s NSW disaster, federal-state relations have been much smoother (acknowledging that things can fray somewhat as the clean-up goes on). </p>
<p>The Albanese government learned from watching its predecessor’s problems. Murray Watt has made a (so far) effective transition from vociferous critic to activist emergency management minister, anxious to anticipate what’s required. </p>
<p>A notable feature has been the very positive response of NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet. As the federal opposition and other critics hoped to score a political point, the Liberal premier had the Labor prime minister’s back. </p>
<p>Appearing at a joint news conference with Anthony Albanese on Wednesday, Perrottet praised the “great co-ordination” between the two levels of government. “To have the ADF, 100 ADF, on the ground very, very quickly was pleasing. And I think that also inspires and instils confidence in our local communities.” </p>
<p>He made it clear (with a nod to diplomacy) that the latest response was much better than the earlier one, and had little truck with critics’ attempts to claim Albanese (in Ukraine at the weekend, without communications) hadn’t been in touch fast enough. “As soon as he could, he picked up the phone to call me.”</p>
<p>Accepting that a swallow does not a summer make, this instance of federal-state harmony is encouraging. </p>
<p>The pandemic drove significant changes in Australia’s federation, especially by empowering the states, albeit without any formal alteration in the distribution of responsibilities. We are yet to see whether lasting changes will come out of that experience. But if the Albanese government wants to promote its various reforms, as much harmony as possible with the states, and especially the bigger states, will be vital. </p>
<p>For his part Perrottet, facing a very difficult election early next year, has an incentive to get on with a popular new federal government. He doesn’t want fights on two fronts. </p>
<p>Where possible, the PM will bring his declared aim of a “consensus” approach to his dealings with the states – which could all be Labor on the mainland if Perrottet loses. Albanese wants a “reset” in the federation. </p>
<p>A “reset” and a consensus approach are already being pursued in higher education by Education Minister Jason Clare, who outlined his plans at a Universities Australia conference this week. </p>
<p>Political players and commentators have noted a feeling among many people after the election of what’s described as “relief”. Nowhere is this more evident than in the university sector. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/jason-clare-promises-reset-of-governments-relations-with-universities-186472">Jason Clare promises 'reset' of government's relations with universities</a>
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<p>The Coalition hardly tried to disguise its hostility to universities. It decided they were rich enough not to need JobKeeper, so they were excluded from that assistance. Some did have plenty of resources, but not all. And the pandemic delivered a body blow to the lucrative revenue flow from overseas students. There have been extensive job cuts.</p>
<p>The former government also had ideological issues with universities. They were seen as incubators for left-wing ideas. It wanted them much more directly tied into the jobs market. It reshaped its funding, imposing heavier course fees on humanities students. </p>
<p>Clare will announce in coming months a group to lead Labor’s proposed “accord” process to chart future directions for the universities. This will involve a broad range of stakeholders, and amounts to a major new inquiry into the sector. </p>
<p>Tanya Plibersek, who’d been expected to hold the education portfolio, summarised Labor’s desired approach when she was shadow minister. “The aim of an accord would be to build consensus on key policy questions and national priorities in a sober, evidence-based way, without so much of the political cut and thrust. Building that consensus should help university reform stick.” </p>
<p>But Andrew Norton, professor in the practice of higher education policy at the Australian National University, says the word “accord” carries “the implication we’re going to seek agreement between conflicting views and interests rather than pursue a coherent new policy direction based on rigorous analysis”.</p>
<p>While the collaborative approach is welcome, potential tension points are obvious, especially when the government will be under heavy budgetary constraints for years to come. </p>
<p>A coming test for consensus will be the September jobs summit. This will be an ideas-gathering exercise, but the government will also want to shape it as a prelude to the October budget, and that would require some common messages. </p>
<p>The summit needs to reach a degree of agreement on the immediate problems, probably not so difficult given the acute labour market shortages. To what extent, however, will participants be able to coalesce around solutions, for example the desirable level of migration? </p>
<p>In a bold or foolhardy gesture, depending on your view, Albanese has indicated he won’t be deterred by a failure to reach consensus in one of the most sensitive policy areas he faces. This is the plan to hold a constitutional referendum this term to enshrine an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dreyfus-ends-prosecution-of-lawyer-over-alleged-leaking-about-australian-spying-in-against-timor-leste-186555">Dreyfus ends prosecution of lawyer over alleged leaking about Australian spying in against Timor-Leste</a>
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<p>In a recent interview with The Australian, the prime minister said: “You don’t need a consensus but you need a broad agreement, firstly, among First Nations leaders and then, secondly, you would seek to get as broad a political agreement as possible for a referendum. </p>
<p>"So that doesn’t mean that any group would have veto power because my concern is that unless there is a referendum in the foreseeable future, then the momentum will be lost.” If the Coalition was opposed, “we would consider that as a factor but not necessarily a decisive one”. </p>
<p>The conventional wisdom is that, given the difficulties of getting any referendum through and the dismal history of attempts, bipartisanship would be essential for the success of this one. Speaking on Sky on Thursday, opposition spokesman Julian Leeser was non-committal about the Coalition’s likely position. </p>
<p>The costs of failure on something so fundamental would be high. The defeat of the 1999 referendum on the republic put the issue off the agenda for a generation (so far). </p>
<p>It would be extremely risky for Albanese to go to the people without consensus across the major parties. </p>
<p>On the other hand, it might be that his threat to do so would increase the pressure on the opposition. Certainly it would intensify what will be a very difficult debate within it. Would the Coalition really want to withhold its support, and by doing so fuel division in the community? </p>
<p>It’s too early to say. But we can say this referendum is shaping up as the highest-stakes social issue of this parliamentary term.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186561/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In this week’s NSW disaster, federal-state relations have been much smoother (acknowledging that things can fray somewhat as the clean-up goes on). The Albanese government learned from watching its predecessor’s problems.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1842442022-06-01T03:11:23Z2022-06-01T03:11:23ZWord from The Hill: Albanese’s ministry mixes stability and surprise<p>As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation politics team.</p>
<p>In this podcast Michelle and politics + society editor Amanda Dunn canvass Anthony Albanese’s ministry, with its record number of women in cabinet but one woman, Tanya Plibersek, having her portfolio unexpectedly switched. </p>
<p>Peter Dutton, on being elevated to Liberal leader, flagged he’d pitch to the suburbs and small business. Meanwhile the Nationals showed that holding all the party’s seats (and winning an extra one) doesn’t guarantee the leader keeps his job. Barnaby Joyce was dispatched, in favour of the rather less flamboyant David Littleproud, to the relief of many Liberals. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Anthony Albanese will be off to Indonesia next week, in his second overseas trip since winning office.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184244/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Michelle Grattan discusses politics with politics + society editor, Amanda DunnMichelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1841912022-05-31T12:52:15Z2022-05-31T12:52:15ZView from The Hill: Record 10 women in Albanese cabinet, and surprise move for Plibersek to environment<p>Anthony Albanese has switched Tanya Plibersek from education to environment and promoted Clare O'Neil into the plum home affairs ministry in a 23-member cabinet that contains a record 10 women. </p>
<p>There are 13 women in the ministry overall, and 19 across the total frontbench (including assistant ministers), which has seen a more extensive shakeup of Labor’s team than Albanese flagged before the election. </p>
<p>Announcing his line-up on Tuesday night, Albanese declared Labor would hold the NSW regional seat of Gilmore – which the Liberals had hoped to win with former NSW minister Andrew Constance – giving his government 77 seats in the House of Representatives. This is one more than the 76 required for a majority. </p>
<p>“What this means is that the Coalition failed to take a single seat from the Australian Labor Party at the election,” Albanese said.</p>
<p>Earlier, at the first meeting of the new caucus, Albanese set his troops’ sights on a second term with a bigger majority.</p>
<p>In the campaign Albanese suggested most of his shadow ministers would have the same portfolio in government. </p>
<p>Asked why the changes are more substantial he pointed to the election loss of two frontbenchers, Kristina Keneally, who was shadow for home affairs, and Terri Butler, the shadow environment minister. </p>
<p>But he has taken the opportunity to go further.</p>
<p>Plibersek’s move to environment and water is a surprise, and there will be some disappointment in the education sector, where she was respected by stakeholders. </p>
<p>She has lost responsibility for women, which has recently increased in importance and prominence as a policy area. This goes to the finance minister, Katy Gallagher, adding to the heavy load she will carry as a key minister in budget preparation. </p>
<p>The fact Albanese did not have Plibersek, who is popular with the public, campaigning with him much was widely commented upon in the run-up to the election. </p>
<p>Labor sources said Plibersek had not wanted or asked to be moved. But she said on Facebook on Tuesday night she was “delighted” to be appointed a cabinet minister with responsibility for the environment and water and “I look forward to the challenge”.</p>
<p>Jason Clare, who received extensive praise for his performance as a campaign spokesman, has been given education. </p>
<p>As anticipated, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles takes defence. He was defence spokesman for a substantial time in opposition but moved to national reconstruction to boost Labor’s pre-election firepower. </p>
<p>Brendan O'Connor, shadow defence minister before the election, becomes minister for skills and training.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/labor-likely-to-get-a-friendly-senate-and-secures-house-of-representatives-majority-183931">Labor likely to get a friendly Senate and secures House of Representatives majority</a>
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<p>A number of senior ministers continue in their opposition areas. Chris Bowen is minister for climate change and energy. Mark Butler has health and aged care. Tony Burke adds employment to workplace relations and the arts, which he held in opposition. </p>
<p>Mark Dreyfus will be attorney-general, a position he held in the last Labor government, and now has the urgent task of preparing the blueprint for the national integrity commission Labor has promised to legislate by year’s end. </p>
<p>Bill Shorten also has continuity, becoming minister for the NDIS as well as minister for government services. Catherine King remains in infrastructure and Michelle Rowland in communications.</p>
<p>Don Farrell, who had to make way for Keneally’s ambition to be Labor’s deputy senate leader, has regained that position and becomes trade minister. He retains special minister of state.</p>
<p>Amanda Rishworth takes on social services. Julie Collins, who struggled in agriculture in opposition, will have housing, homelessness and small business. </p>
<p>Linda Burney is minister for Indigenous Australians, with Patrick
Dodson, who will not be on the frontbench, appointed special envoy for reconciliation and the implementation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. </p>
<p>Albanese stressed this was a priority for his government, particularly its plan for a constitutional referendum to enshrine a Voice to Parliament.</p>
<p>O'Neil and Murray Watt fill the cabinet vacancies left by Keneally and Butler. </p>
<p>O'Neil, from Victoria, has been shadow for senior Australians and aged care services in the outer shadow ministry in opposition. Her promotion to the sprawling home affairs portfolio will see her in the inner circle of national security ministers. </p>
<p>Watt, who was high profile during the floods, becomes minister for agriculture, fisheries and forestry. He continues in emergency management, after being opposition spokesman. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/albanese-appoints-former-university-of-melbourne-vice-chancellor-glyn-davis-to-head-pmandc-184059">Albanese appoints former University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Glyn Davis to head PM&C</a>
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<p>Three women join the outer ministry. </p>
<p>Kristy McBain, who won the vital Eden-Monaro byelection during the last term, has regional development, local government and territories. Anne Aly, from Western Australia, becomes minister for early childhood education and minister for youth. Anika Wells, from Queensland, becomes minister for aged care and minister for sport. </p>
<p>Under Labor’s system the factions choose who is in the ministry, which is ratified by caucus, and the prime minister allocates the portfolios.</p>
<p>Albanese said the new parliament would sit in the last fortnight in July. </p>
<p>Several ministers, including Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Treasurer Jim Chalmers, Gallagher and Marles were sworn in last week. The full ministry will be sworn in Wednesday morning. </p>
<p>Albanese told the caucus meeting he wanted to “grow” the numbers in the government at the next election. </p>
<p>“If we can keep our discipline, implement the program which is there, there is no reason why we can’t continue to be even more successful,” he said. </p>
<p>He told his news conference the government was determined “to not waste a single day in office”.</p>
<p>On the promotion of Kristy McBain ahead of people who had been in caucus longer, Albanese recalled he had personally approached her to run for the by-election. “If we hadn’t have won that seat of Eden-Monaro, politics might have been a bit different,” he said. </p>
<p>Asked about the move of Plibersek he highlighted the Murray Darling Basis plan. “It’s very important that that actually get delivered. Tanya is someone who can get things done. She’s an experienced former minister as well as a former shadow minister.” </p>
<p>Noting that many of his ministers had served in the previous Labor government, Albanese said his was “the most experienced incoming Labor government in our history since federation”.</p>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-712" class="tc-infographic" height="400px" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/712/21c55f291d411c0960f8bbd066b7b0a8e10322e3/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184191/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Anthony Albanese has switched Tanya Plibersek from education to environment and promoted Clare O'Neil into the plum home affairs ministry in a 23-member cabinet that contains a record 10 women.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1834522022-05-24T20:05:05Z2022-05-24T20:05:05ZAlmost 60% of teachers say they want out. What is Labor going to do for an exhausted school sector?<p>During the 2022 federal election campaign, <a href="https://theconversation.com/kids-dont-vote-but-teachers-and-parents-sure-do-what-are-the-parties-offering-on-schools-182597">schools barely rated a mention</a>. </p>
<p>While the Labor government’s cabinet will not be finalised until next week, we expect Tanya Plibersek to become education minister. She will have plenty to do. </p>
<p>The education sector presents the new government with several pressing challenges. These range from <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00049441221086654">teacher shortages</a> to concerns about school funding and student and teacher safety and well-being. </p>
<p>Here are some of the good, the bad, and the missing from Labor’s existing plans. </p>
<h2>The good</h2>
<p>With COVID still circulating widely, <a href="https://openletter.earth/open-letter-we-must-continue-to-protect-all-australians-e2e85395">health experts say there is more to be done</a> to ensure students and teachers are safe in schools. </p>
<p>To answer this call, Labor has promised A$440 million for new ventilation systems and open-air learning spaces, as well as support for mental health services. This is a good start. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-almost-like-a-second-home-why-students-want-schools-to-do-more-about-mental-health-179644">'It's almost like a second home': why students want schools to do more about mental health</a>
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<p>Labor will also spend <a href="https://www.alp.org.au/policies/safe-kids-are-esmart-kids">$6 million</a> on a digital licence for school students. As Plibersek explained, “this is the pen licence for the digital age”, helping kids stay safe and use the internet wisely. There will also be a program for secondary students to think more critically online.</p>
<p>Schools and parents are likely to embrace this initiative, especially given how much virtual and in-person learning have become intertwined during the pandemic. However, some computer experts say it needs <a href="https://news.csu.edu.au/opinion/proposed-$6-million-esmart-digital-license-program-not-enough-to-keep-children-safe">greater funding</a> to be effective. </p>
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<img alt="Tanya Plibersek speaks to school children." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464907/original/file-20220524-21-iwjk34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464907/original/file-20220524-21-iwjk34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464907/original/file-20220524-21-iwjk34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464907/original/file-20220524-21-iwjk34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464907/original/file-20220524-21-iwjk34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464907/original/file-20220524-21-iwjk34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464907/original/file-20220524-21-iwjk34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Tanya Plibersek has been Labor’s education spokesperson since 2016, and is expected to be the new education minister.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Glenn Hunt/AAP</span></span>
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<p>Labor’s proposal also focuses on individual student privacy and safety, which some experts <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-only-politicians-focused-on-the-school-issues-that-matter-this-election-is-a-chance-to-get-them-to-do-that-177554">claim oversimplifies the issue</a>. </p>
<p>There is <a href="https://educationhq.com/news/what-are-the-dangers-tech-companies-influence-growing-in-schools-expert-warns-118621/">mounting concern</a> about the increased involvement of private ed-tech companies in education. A recent <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17508487.2020.1855597?casa_token=PhiHO4ZRgJ8AAAAA%3AXdErgDJYQVQmnqGtdS-gY8hGp1Ein3fpryyluK8te5LN9AYqKE59vxDJMhbCqoZNZA8EjETReOGa">analysis</a> found that data collected through Google Classroom, for example, can be used for improving other Google products. As these actors play an increasingly important role in schools, the government has a responsibility to make sure private involvement is held to account and monitored closely. </p>
<h2>The bad</h2>
<p>The greatest emergency in education right now is the growing <a href="https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2022/01/19/covid-and-schools-australia-teacher-shortage-crisis-education-expert.html">teacher shortage across Australia</a>. </p>
<p>Teachers are leaving the profession in record numbers, with no end in sight for when this might turn around. Monash University education researcher Amanda Heffernan and colleagues <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00049441221086654">recently surveyed</a> 2,444 Australian primary and secondary school teachers, and found a staggering 59% said they intended to leave the profession. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-and-schools-australia-is-about-to-feel-the-full-brunt-of-its-teacher-shortage-174885">COVID and schools: Australia is about to feel the full brunt of its teacher shortage</a>
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<p>Labor campaigned on this awareness but offered a solution that many experts warn is misguided. The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/09/labor-to-announce-scholarship-plan-for-high-achieving-students-to-become-teachers">plan</a> is to offer high-achievers (based on ATAR scores over 80) $10,000 per year of study to do an education degree. Students who commit to remote teaching will be offered $12,000 per year. </p>
<p>Labor is right to acknowledge this looming crisis, and to consider financial supplements as a potential remedy. However, the proposal fundamentally misunderstands the reasons teachers are leaving in droves. </p>
<p>Their narrow focus on recruitment <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00049441221086654">fails to address</a> the unbearable workloads, poor working conditions and excessive testing that created the problem in the first place. Teachers are feeling <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0305764X.2021.2002811">demoralised, exhausted and undervalued</a>, which has only been exacerbated by increased responsibilities during COVID. </p>
<p>Since the time of the announcement, no education expert or major teacher organisation has publicly praised this initiative, which is quite telling. If Labor ignores the root causes of declining retention numbers, and fails to establish a long-term and meaningful recruitment strategy, this problem will continue to worsen over the coming years. </p>
<h2>What’s missing?</h2>
<p>Labor has been surprisingly quiet on the issue of school funding, despite this being one of its <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/labor-commits-to-fully-funding-gonski-as-part-of-election-year-education-reform-plan-20160128-gmfovf.html">major priorities in the past</a>. </p>
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<img alt="A teacher speaks to primary students, who are sitting on the floor." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464909/original/file-20220524-43418-xdk3at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464909/original/file-20220524-43418-xdk3at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464909/original/file-20220524-43418-xdk3at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464909/original/file-20220524-43418-xdk3at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464909/original/file-20220524-43418-xdk3at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464909/original/file-20220524-43418-xdk3at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464909/original/file-20220524-43418-xdk3at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">School funding has been an elephant in the room during the campaign.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Erik Anderson/AAP</span></span>
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<p>Concern about inequitable funding between government and non-government schools continues to be a hot topic for <a href="https://theconversation.com/still-waiting-for-gonski-a-great-book-about-the-sorry-tale-of-school-funding-178016">education experts and parents alike</a>. Earlier this year, public school advocacy group Save our Schools <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/16/private-school-funding-has-increased-at-five-times-rate-of-public-schools-analysis-shows">analysed</a> ten years of funding data. It found funding for public schools increased by $703 per student, while Catholic and independent schools increased by $3,338 per student. </p>
<p>Now with concerns over “learning loss” from COVID, these disparities are even more troubling. Therefore, it is disappointing Labor hasn’t more forcefully addressed the need for greater equity of funding and resources across the various school sectors. </p>
<p>However, with the Greens potentially <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/green-wave-in-brisbane-gives-party-influence-over-labor-government-20220521-p5ancv.html">having more influence</a> in federal parliament, this issue may receive more attention. The Greens campaigned on fully funding the <a href="https://theconversation.com/catholic-schools-arent-all-the-same-and-gonski-2-0-reflects-this-93722">Gonski recommendations</a> with a promise of $49 billion for public schools. </p>
<h2>What now?</h2>
<p>There are other important issues glossed over in Labor’s education plans, which also boil down to equity. </p>
<p>At the top of this list is the need to redress the historically under-resourced schools that primarily serve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Similarly, schools are becoming <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-schools-are-becoming-more-segregated-this-threatens-student-outcomes-155455">more segregated</a> based on students’ relative advantage. This means disadvantaged students are concentrated in disadvantaged schools, which has big implications for students’ achievement and a “fair go”. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/3-big-issues-in-higher-education-demand-the-new-governments-attention-183349">3 big issues in higher education demand the new government's attention</a>
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<p>Having Labor education ministers at the federal and most of the state levels might mean greater policy coherence overall. However, I would be reluctant to predict a complete ceasefire over some contentious matters, such as the ongoing <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/national-curriculum-wars-important-to-ensure-the-best-outcome-for-kids-acara-boss-20220301-p5a0km.html">curriculum wars</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183452/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessica Holloway receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>Schools barely rated a mention in the election campaign. But the incoming Albanese government faces a sector in crisis.Jessica Holloway, Senior Research DECRA Fellow, Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1759072022-01-28T02:07:18Z2022-01-28T02:07:18ZPolitics with Michelle Grattan: Tanya Plibersek on parents’ role in reducing violence against women<p>As election year opens, Michelle Grattan speaks with Tanya Plibersek, Labor’s spokeswoman on education and women, about the opposition’s agenda in these two critical areas.</p>
<p>Violence against women is one of our society’s most pressing and intractable issues, and front and centre for Plibersek, who says there is a way to do better. </p>
<p>“We do know so much about what we can do to reduce risks of violence in interpersonal relationships. And of course, it starts with our youngest Australians,” she says. We “need to rely much more on parents to model healthy relationships in the home.”</p>
<p>“It disturbs me that the rates … of domestic violence don’t seem to be coming down and in fact, one of the few areas of crime where statistics continue to go up are areas like sexual assault. So we need to do better at prevention. We need to do better at policing and in our justice system.”</p>
<p>Despite these negatives, Plibersek sees last year’s March4Justice and increased public and media awareness as signs “things are changing, that our society is changing in a way that is, I hope, unstoppable.” </p>
<p>On education, Plibersek talks through the detail of Anthony Albanese’s announcement of $440 million for schools for improvements such as better ventilation and also for mental health and wellbeing initiatives for kids, so hard hit during the pandemic. </p>
<p>As university fees are set to rise for many students this year, Plibersek has said that under a Labor government Australians can expect “a commitment to a fundamental overhaul of our university sector”. </p>
<p>She says she wants to “make sure that every young Australian who is prepared to work hard and study hard can get a place at university and that no one’s discouraged because of the fees”. But although highly critical of the government’s controversial new fees structure Plibersek cannot give a commitment a Labor government would change it quickly. That would need to be worked through with the universities, she says.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175907/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Michelle Grattan speaks with Tanya Plibersek Labor's spokeswoman on education and women, about the opposition's agenda in these two critical areas.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1677722021-09-12T11:01:58Z2021-09-12T11:01:58ZView from The Hill: Kristina Keneally’s house switch stops one row, starts another<p>When Tanya Plibersek – who many believe would give Labor its best chance if she were leader now – was asked about the party parachuting Kristina Keneally into the safe seat of Fowler, she slid all around the place to avoid giving a direct answer to an awkward question.</p>
<p>What might be called the Keneally “Fowler solution” is the outcome of Labor’s dilemma over its Senate ticket. Its two NSW senators from the right faction, Keneally and Deb O'Neill, were battling over who would get the ticket’s number one spot. With the left in the second spot, the loser would be relegated to the third place, considered unwinnable.</p>
<p>Anthony Albanese claims Keneally, as Labor’s deputy leader in the Senate, would have been on the top of the ticket if she’d nominated. But O'Neill had strong union support.</p>
<p>Regardless, Keneally’s endorsement by the right faction for Fowler – being vacated at the election by the retirement of the popular Labor whip Chris Hayes – stopped a row. But it started another one.</p>
<p>When he announced he was retiring Hayes strongly promoted a young lawyer, Tu Le, daughter of Vietnamese refugees, to succeed him. She ticked boxes on gender, diversity and local grounds.</p>
<p>Keneally’s pushing her aside has caused outrage in some Labor circles.</p>
<p>Labor MP and Muslim Anne Aly told the ABC: “Diversity and equality and multiculturalism can’t just be a trope that Labor pulls out and parades while wearing a sari and eating some kung pao chicken to make ourselves look good”. She added, “I’m one of the few people of culturally, linguistically diverse backgrounds in the parliament – this matters to me”.</p>
<p>Appearing on the ABC on Sunday Plibersek was pressed about where she stood on the matter.</p>
<p>She tried a bluff: “I’m a glass half-full person. Aren’t we lucky in the Labor Party to have three fantastic women, all who want to be in parliament representing the Labor Party”.</p>
<p>Several follow ups, and several dodges, later, Plibersek was where she started: “I think Kristina is a fantastic candidate who’s made a great contribution. I also think Deb O'Neill has made a wonderful contribution in the Senate, and Tu Le has got a big future.”</p>
<p>While Keneally’s installation may be a snub to some locals, it should be noted it doesn’t deprive ALP branch members of a rank and file ballot they would otherwise have had.</p>
<p>Through a peculiar arrangement that goes back decades and has its origins in branch stacking, the preselection process for Fowler, a seat designated for the right, is very top down. The right faction selects its candidate, who is then rubber stamped by the party.</p>
<p>Keneally’s facilitated passage into Fowler is the latest break for the one-time NSW premier who lost the 2011 state election. She was a favourite of Bill Shorten and the candidate chosen to contest the 2017 Bennelong byelection. Then after Sam Dastyari quit the Senate as a result of revelations he’d promoted Chinese interests, Keneally took the casual vacancy.</p>
<p>After the 2019 election Keneally became the opposition’s deputy Senate leader, elbowing out right numbers man Don Farrell. This put her number four in Labor’s hierarchy. As home affairs spokeswoman she aggressively took the fight up to then home affairs minister Peter Dutton. They were well matched.</p>
<p>At Friday’s right faction meeting which endorsed her, Keneally described herself as the “accidental senator” and thought her “brawler” style better suited to the lower house.</p>
<p>Given her quick rise and her take-no-prisoners political approach, the question inevitably is: how high can Keneally hope to fly?</p>
<p>Those close to her say her move isn’t driven by leadership ambitions. Maybe not, but if her career up to now is any guide, it would be strange if she didn’t harbour them.</p>
<p>However she is not universally popular in the party and if Labor loses, it would be too early for her. The favourite to become opposition leader would probably be Plibersek who, while on the left, would overwhelmingly win a ballot among the rank and file, which gets a 50% say, with caucus having the other 50%. </p>
<p><strong>UPDATE: JOEL FITZGIBBON TO QUIT PARLIAMENT AT THE ELECTION</strong></p>
<p>Labor maverick Joel Fitzgibbon has announced he will not run at the next election.</p>
<p>Fitzgibbon, who holds the NSW coal seat of Hunter where there was a big swing against the ALP in 2019, quit the shadow cabinet last November, declaring himself on a mission to push Labor towards the centre on issue such as climate and coal, and put “the labour” back into the Labor party. </p>
<p>He said on Monday: “I feel I can now leave the parliament knowing Labor can win the next election under the leadership of Anthony Albanese”. </p>
<p>He said Labor would win “if it sells itself as a party of strong economic management and one with strong national security credentials. A party which encourages economic aspiration.</p>
<p>"A party committed to improving job security and lifting real wages. A party prepared to back our major export industries. A party committed to equality of opportunity for all, particularly our children”. </p>
<p>Fitzgibbon said climate change was an important issue for most Australians too but “should not be the subject of constant and shrill political debate”. </p>
<p>“Australia’s major political parties have a responsibility to build a community consensus on climate change policy,” he said, urging an end to the “climate wars”. </p>
<p>The Fitzgibbon announcement is not a surprise – Albanese had not expected him to stand again. </p>
<p>The Nationals have aspirations in Hunter, although polling done by the Australian Institute in June suggested Labor was in a reasonable position to hold the seat.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167772/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Keneally’s pushing aside of young lawyer, Tu Le, in the elecorate for Fowler has caused outrage in some Labor circles.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.