Environmentalists say our green goals don’t protect nature or work for business. Here’s how Labor plans to fix the problem

A long list of unfulfilled environmental promises presents a challenge to the Albanese government in its second term, after it recently approved a major gas project and halted reform progress in the past three years as it tries to balance protecting nature with creating jobs.

In his first decision as environment minister, Murray Watt gave provisional approval to Woodside to extend its North West Shelf gas project until 2070, overruling warnings from climate activists and traditional owners that it could damage rock art and produce vast greenhouse gas emissions.

Environment Minister Murray Watt (right) with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Watt’s initial act in the Albanese government’s second term, following its May re-election, followed a rocky environmental record for Labor in its first term. It failed to deliver on an election pledge to create a federal environment watchdog by 2025 and made limited progress on its open-ended promises to reform federal environment laws and enhance Indigenous heritage protections.

The government’s former environment minister Tanya Plibersek made three other ambitious pledges in 2022. She promised there would be “no new extinctions” of Australia’s native wildlife and to reform Indigenous cultural heritage laws following Rio Tinto’s legal 2020 destruction of the globally significant Juukan Gorge, which contained 46,000 years of cultural heritage, to expand one of its mines.

Plibersek also pledged to conserve 30 per cent of Australian land and 30 per cent of its seas by 2030 – known as the “30 by 30″ commitment – barring all extractive industry such as fishing or mining in line with the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.

Australian Conservation Foundation policy officer Brendan Sydes said the government needed to deliver on it promises to protect thousands of native plants and animals at heightened risk of extinction.

“There’s an urgent need to fix our national environmental laws. They’re not working, they don’t protect nature, and they don’t work for business either,” Sydes said.

“We’re now up to well over 2000 species listed as threatened under Commonwealth environmental laws and the numbers are only going up. They are being listed because they’re at imminent risk of extinction.

“Clearly, unless there’s a fair bit of work to turn things around, we’re just going to continue on that downward trajectory.”

A spokesperson for Watt said the government was committed to all its previous pledges and would initially focus on law reform, as Labor controls the lower house and only needs to secure support of either the Greens or the Liberal Party to pass legislation in the Senate.

“A high and immediate priority for the government is strengthening and streamlining our national environment laws and establishing a federal EPA [Environment Protection Agency],” Watt’s spokesperson said.

“We are making good progress towards achieving our 30 by 30 commitment, and the minister has strengthened our ocean protection commitments at this week’s UN Oceans Conference in France.”

The top priority for the Albanese government in its first term was to deliver its election pledge to create a federal EPA, which would police compliance of big projects that impact the environment, such as mines and tourism resorts, handing out fines for breaches.

However, following pushback from the mining lobby and West Australian Premier Roger Cook, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese intervened to kill Plibersek’s prospects of cutting a deal with the Greens to create the new watchdog.

Watt has committed to redouble efforts and create the EPA, and on Sunday announced that later this month, in the first sitting of parliament, the government would ratify Australia’s commitment to the Global Ocean Treaty, a legally binding agreement to conserve marine life in international waters where no one country has jurisdiction.

He also reaffirmed Australia’s commitment to the 30 by 30 initiative. About 24 per cent of Australia’s oceans and 26 per cent of its land mass are under conservation, but Labor’s pledge to protect a further 4 per cent of its land would cover an area larger than Victoria and Tasmania combined.

World Wildlife Fund Australia oceans campaigner Richard Leck said the government had put significant marine conservation in place during its first term, including at Cocos and Christmas islands, as well as Heard and McDonald islands, but it would need to tackle industrial fishing interests in places like the Coral Sea to deliver on its commitment.

“The government really needs to get [on] its skates over the next three years to meet this target of 30 per cent marine sanctuaries,” Leck said.

“It’s important that the fishing industry recognises that having a network of marine sanctuaries is as important for their industry as it is for the marine life that we all want to see protected long-term.”

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