Conservationists have criticised a Morrison government plan to rush through legislation implementing new environmental approval rules, warning they will be too vague and will not improve wildlife protection.
The environment minister, Sussan Ley, has promised draft laws to change the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act will be introduced to parliament next month, before a review of the legislation has been concluded.
She said the legislation would allow bilateral agreements with states and territories to devolve approval powers and include a version of national environmental standards proposed by Graeme Samuel, the former consumer watchdog head who is leading the review of the EPBC Act.
The introduction of new, legally enforceable standards that set clear rules for protecting the environment and allowed sustainable development was the headline recommendation in Samuel’s interim report, released on Monday. He said they would underpin any agreements to leave project approval powers to the states.
Samuel found Australia was losing biodiversity at an alarming rate, had one of the highest rates of extinction in the world and the EPBC Act was not fit to address current or future environmental challenges.
His report included a prototype environmental standard and he has invited interest groups from across the spectrum – including business, mining, environmental and Indigenous organisations – to work together over the next two-and-a-half months to refine them before he makes final recommendations in October.
He told Guardian Australia he was comfortable with the prototype environmental standards being included in the legislation, but said they were in their infancy.
“It’s a start. It gives a very good indication of where we need to go, but it needs refinement,” Samuel said. “There is no doubt there will be a lot of work to be done over the next eight to 10 weeks.”
Interviewed on ABC radio, Ley said the prototype standards were “a good starting point” for legislation and could be updated later. She said waiting another six months would make a difference and action was needed now.
“What came through clearly with the report was how unsatisfactory the act is, so we’re certainly not going to sit on our hands for another few months and wait for more processes to take effect,” she said. “Graham has made clear recommendations that we can start implementing now.”
Birdlife Australia’s head of conservation, Samantha Vine, said she was concerned standards were being rushed into law before they were ready on the assumption they would be updated later.
Vine said the prototype standards were vague, the government was yet to explain how they would be enforced, and she would be more comfortable with the government’s approach if the rushed legislative included the creation of an independent regulator to enforce the new standards.
Ley has ruled out introducing an independent regulator, such as a national environment protection authority, and said the government would “strengthen compliance functions” within the environment department.
Vine said: “It’s pre-emptive to introduce this as legislation until we have more detail, particularly about what we’re going to do to stop the extinction of species. By all means, let’s have top-notch environmental standards, but let’s not rush them through.”
One of the challenges in developing standards identified by Samuel is a lack of monitoring data that gives a clear picture of the plight of species at risk. Campaigners have linked the lack of monitoring to a 40% cut in environmental department funding since the Coalition was elected in 2013.
James Trezise, a policy analyst at the Australian Conservation Foundation, said it was difficult to see how the prototype standards would improve the plight of threatened species.
The proposed standards say there should be “no net loss” of vulnerable or endangered species habitat, and “no detrimental change” to listed critical habitat of a species or ecological community. Conservationists have pointed out the register of habitat critical for the protection of threatened species is out of date, having not been updated for 15 years.
“The proposed species standards lack detail and don’t really represent any improvement on the status quo, which clearly isn’t working,” Trezise said. “A lot of work needs to be done to strengthen these standards in order to improve outcomes for threatened wildlife, and that’s a key test for these reforms.”
The Australian Marine Conservation Society said it was alarmed by the government’s rushed response. The society’s campaign manager, Tooni Mahto, said regulating environmental outcomes based on a set of standards could work, but they needed to be strong and clearly worded if they were to reverse years of the laws failing the environment.
“Currently, there is not enough detail in the interim report or from the government’s response on how these standards will protect endangered marine wildlife, the Great Barrier Reef and marine ecosystems,” Mahto said.
She said commonwealth oversight of threats from unsustainable fishing had been key to protecting endangered species. “Weakening any oversight means more risk to Australia’s unique and threatened marine wildlife,” she said.
Ley said the states would oversee environmental approvals only if accredited against commonwealth standards. “We are not handing this to the states to let them do what they want with it. We are maintaining commonwealth leadership. This is a commonwealth act that will continue to protect the environment and matters of environmental significance,” she told the ABC.
Samuel said suggestions Ley had dismissed his recommendation to introduce an independent regulator – “a tough cop on the beat” – were based on a misunderstanding. He said he recommended only that there be an independent compliance regulator, not a new body that was responsible for assessments, approvals, monitoring and compliance.
Samuel said the independence of the compliance regulator would be a function of culture, not structure, and it could come from within an existing department or agency.
Ley said the government did not need to “build a whole new regulator”. “We need to focus on compliance, on the outcome, on doing the job really well,” she said. “I’m certainly not against the independent cop on the beat concept, but we can do that within our departmental structures.”
