Graeme Samuel says if Tanya Plibersek gets the EPBC Act overhaul right, it’ll be out before the federal election

Graeme Samuel says conservationists demanding quicker action from the government to overhaul the EPBC Act need to ‘chill’, after latest reforms didn’t touch environmental standards.

Environment and Water Minister Tanya Plibersek won’t say when the government will introduce its planned overhaul to the EPBC Act.

The architect of a landmark review calling for a total rewrite of national environmental laws has declared he’s confident the Albanese government will release its legislation before the election and urged conservationists demanding quicker action to “take a chill pill”.

Appearing before a Senate inquiry into Australia’s extinction crisis, Graeme Samuel, who in early 2021 released his independent review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, warned business and green groups would have to compromise and accept they’d only get around 80 per cent of their wishes in the revamped laws.

It comes a day after Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek released the government’s second stage of its Nature Positive Plan, which included faster environmental approval decisions, an Environment Protection Agency to act as a “tough” green cop and a new body providing the latest environmental data and updates.

Green groups have lashed the government for failing to outline when it will unveil its proposed overhaul to the EPBC Act, which is considered the more substantive part of the package.

Professor Samuel - who has spoken with Ms Plibersek and senior bureaucrats - could not guarantee the changes would be made public before the federal election, which is due by May next year, but added: “It depends on how complex the laws are and how much work now needs to be done by government to get them right.

“If government is of a mind and the Minister is of the mind they’ve done all the work and they’ve got the laws into as good a position as they ever will be, then I’m hopeful, indeed confident we’ll see them before the election.”

Professor Samuel lashed “naysayers” from Western Australia who didn’t want action but urged conservationists to be patient.

“I would say just sit and wait, take a chill pill. I think you’ll find what we’re going to get will satisfy all their aspirations as set out in the Nature Positive Plan the Minister announced some time ago,” he said.

“What we’re going through is a really complex process now, redrafting some legislation, which as I said before, has been an abysmal failure over 25 years and we need to get it right this time. I think the Minister is headed along that direction.

“If the mining community in particular accepts that what they’re going to get out of this, and business as well, will be an efficient, speedy but a very rigorous form of environmental protection, then I think we’re all looking forward to a bright future for environmental protection and biodiversity conservation in this country.”

Bleached and dead coral around Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef. Australia's famed Great Barrier Reef is teetering on the brink, suffering one of the most severe coral bleaching events on record -- the fifth in eight years -- and leaving scientists unsure about its survival.

Ms Plibersek would not confirm if the government wanted changes to the EPBC Act through parliament by the end of the year but said “we’re absolutely full steam ahead”.

“We’re doing a massive consultation on our new laws. The current Act is around 1000 pages. The legislation that replaces it will be similar. It’s big and it’s complex as we’re going as fast as we can while still talking to environment groups, business groups and the broader Australian community,” she told ABC TV.

The Coalition has blasted the government for its “secretive” consultation process, with opposition environment spokesman Jonno Duniam saying there was clearly no prospect of Ms Plibersek’s “promised full, comprehensive overhaul of the EPBC Act being legislated at any time in the foreseeable future”.

“Tanya Plibersek originally said that there wasn’t a moment to spare - and that she would create new laws that would be better for business and the environment, and that these laws would be in parliament by the end of 2023. So far, we have none of those things,” he said.

“There is now a completely unclear and undefined timeline on EPBC reform, and instead an expanded bureaucracy with no new laws to administer.”

Jennifer Rayner, Climate Council head of advocacy and policy, said the EPBC Act was the fundamental problem that needed to be addressed and there was a “real lack of clarity” about the government’s intentions to reform the legislation.

“Everyone who’s been part of this conversation needs clarity as to how the government will move forward now - that’s both in a time sense and also what will be covered in this law,” Dr Rayner said.

“What has been included so far has been window dressing and there’s no substantive inclusions in the reforms on the table so far that meaningfully embed climate in this Act or protect nature from climate change.”

Stakeholders expected to receive a departmental update on Friday.

“We should have further information on the consultation process, on the legislative review plan. We’d expect there’d be further detail on the road map to 2050,” Civil Contractors Federation Australia chief executive Nicholas Proud said.

“Thousands of our contractors across Australia building roads, schools, and hospitals should have a clear understanding of when the next stage will be introduced and how new regulations will be implemented in relation to their business.”