8 December
2006 - Key changes to strengthen Australia's federal
environment law were passed by the Senate late
last night, the Minister for the Environment and
Heritage, Senator Ian Campbell, said today.
Senator Campbell said the amendments
to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity
Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC) would allow the Australian
Government to provide even stronger protection
for Australia's environment while ensuring decisions
can be made more strategically.
Changes to the law will provide
for:
More timely decisions and assessments
and approval of projects;
More streamlined processes, less red tape and
duplication between the Australian and state governments;
Strengthened enforcement and compliance provisions,
ensuring that action can be taken against people
who breach the law without the need for expensive
court proceedings;
More strategic provisions for assessing threatened
species and heritage nominations;
An approach which will better allow for strategic
and regional planning assessments to ensure that
the cumulative impacts of development are considered,
particularly along our coasts.
"The EPBC Act is world-class legislation
which has delivered major environmental achievements
and has now been significantly strengthened,"
Senator Campbell said.
"The amendments include
common-sense changes to reduce red tape and streamline
processes to allow sound development to continue
while maintaining maximum protection for the environment.
"The centrepiece change
is the flexibility of a more strategic measure
of environmental protection rather than the traditional
project-by-project approach.
"The strengthened provisions
for strategic assessment and bioregional planning
will mean for the first time in our history, the
Australian Government can put in place a strategic
overlay for development on a landscape on regional
scale.
"With this new approach,
we should be able to avoid the 'salami slice'
environmental protection of the past that has
resulted in large areas, particularly on our coastline,
suffering environmental degradation simply because
no-one has considered the cumulative or regional
impact of a whole series of individual projects."
Further information about the
proposed amendments, including the complete list
of amendments is available at: www.deh.gov.au/epbc
Rob Broadfield
