Tell the Environment Minister to set strong national nature laws!
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We need strong nature laws!
Dear Minister Plibersek When federal Labor came to power, as Environment Minister you pledged to turn around the worsening state of the Australian environment. I acknowledge the welcome progress made by the government on climate action. However the promised reform process around the national environment laws – which should be framed to protect biodiversity - has become bogged down in political processes. In the latest example, proposed laws to create an independent environmental regulator, Environmental Protection Australia, appear stalled in the Senate. This is a real problem. A stream of audits and reviews have shown Australia’s environmental laws – which were originally established under conservative PM John Howard, and never provided adequate protection for the environment - are simply not fit for purpose. As was noted in the independent review by Graeme Samuel in 2020, the laws are simply not protecting nature. Change is necessary. We welcome the fact that Labor drafted stronger laws, and attempted to pass at least some change – the bill to create an independent environmental regulator, Environmental Protection Australia. But it ran into major roadblocks. We know that mining companies such as Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting and Rio Tinto pushed for the regulator to be stripped of its powers in a private letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. We know that the Coalition will only support weak reform options. Crossbenchers and the Greens say to win their support, Labor must end native forest logging nationally and require consideration of climate damage when assessing projects such as new coal mines for approvals through a Climate Trigger. The Greens, Senator David Pocock and Senator Lidia Thorpe say they are willing to work with Labor to pass strong EPA legislation – with new measures to stop forest destruction and climate harm, and embed First Nations’ voices in decision-making. We urge you to seize this opportunity to deliver new national environmental protections, including establishing a strong EPA, by working with progressive parts of the cross bench. Please do what is needed and refuse to bow to the fossil fuel industry by delaying these laws or doing a deal with the Coalition that delivers a weak EPA.
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