After a decade in the wilderness, Labor still lost on the environment

The Albanese government has emerged from a near decade in opposition without a plan that is ready to roll to tackle the slow train wreck that is Australia’s extinction crisis.

Federal Environment and Water Minister Tanya Plibersek spent much of her time during her first major speech in the portfolio explaining that she needed more time to figure out what she would do to halt the staggering wildlife and habitat losses Australia is suffering.

Federal Environment and Water Minister Tanya Plibersek released the State of the Environment 2021 report at the National Press Club on Tuesday. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“Six weeks into the job I’m not going to start ruling things in or out,” Plibersek told the National Press Club in Canberra. “I haven’t even begun to do the amount of consultation that I want to do.”

Compare this with the Climate Change and Energy portfolios. Chris Bowen went to the May election with a swag of policy commitments.

Labor promised to legislate a higher greenhouse emissions reduction target in the first week of parliament, impose tougher rules on Australia’s largest industrial polluters, drive up the proportion of renewable energy in the electricity grid to 82 per cent by 2030 and invest $20 billion of taxpayers’ money to help make that happen.

Plibersek on Tuesday released the five-year independent scorecard commissioned by the government, the State of the Environment 2021 report, which showed that federal laws are failing their fundamental objective - to stop species disappearing off the face of the planet.

It found, between 2000 and 2017, that 93 per cent of the vegetation was felled without federal approvals for threatened species habitats and since 2016, when the previous report was released, 17 mammal species were either added to the endangered list or upgraded to the critically endangered list, as well as 17 birds and 19 frogs.

During the recent election campaign, Labor promised to create an independent environment watchdog and on Tuesday Plibersek also committed to an overhaul of federal laws next year. But she said there is “a lot of consultation to be done” before she can say what the reforms would look like.

Plibersek also said she will implement the findings of the Samuel Review, a 10-yearly assessment of federal laws released last year. A key finding was that state governments’ native forest logging rules do not comply with federal law and urgent reform is needed to impose national standards.

When asked what she is doing to uphold federal laws, Plibersek said state logging regimes will be reviewed in “coming years” and she will hold “important conversations” with the states.

It begs the question why, if Labor created substantial energy and climate policies during its decade in opposition, it didn’t do the same for the environment?

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