To the new environment minister, Murray Watt: it’s time to get reforms right | Lyndon Schneiders
The long -awaited reform of the laws of the national environment is an incomplete action for the forty -eighth parliament and the re -elected dairy government.
Senator Murray Watt, Queensland, has good respect within the government and has a reputation to make difficult decisions and gather the owners of diverse. Both of these characteristics will be in installments if the minister succeeds in the place where others have not succeeded.
Throughout the election campaign, expectations were raised that failed attempts in the last parliament to reform and reform the Environmental Protection Law and preserve the 1999 biological diversity It will be a priority for the Prime Minister in this term.
Three major attempts to reform environmental laws have failed over the past fifteen years, including in the first period of the Rudd government, during the Maurison government and again. Everything ended in more division and confusion.
For the environmentalists, the need for the Australian government To play a stronger and more clear leading role In inhaling the prolonged decline in the health of the natural world, there is an article of faith, supported by a set of pent -up scientific reports Highlighting the loss of wildlife and incomparable biological diversityThe effects of climate change.
The extinction is not a moment in time, but rather the result of thousands of small decisions and retail over many years. The bitter harvest of extinction has been widely baked in the future of our nation. Without an urgent change, including the restoration on a large scale and the re -equipment of the country that has been previously cleared, we leave the future a scene free of birds and wonder.
From the natural perspective of the world, the current laws contain many gaps through which a truck can drive. the Registration of original forests and land cleansing on a large scale Labor and dietary lands rich in carbon and biologically continues to obtain green light.
For business, laws are seen as putting complex and ineffective brakes on the environment on economic development, including displaying renewable energy sources, and new housing developments on the outskirts of our major cities and new mines.
The curse of our unified government system and the constitution that was formulated to meet the needs of Australia in the late nineteenth century means that when it comes to protecting the environment and supporting new development, decision -making between all classes of the government is conflicting, complex and confusing. We get the worst of all worlds, as the process outperforms the results of the environment and development at each level.
Nevertheless, a plan for permanent reform was presented by Grame Samuel, who conducted an independent review of the effectiveness of laws in 2020. These recommendations became the heart of the positive positive plan developed by Minister Tania Blibersk in late 2022.
The positive positive plan focused on three main concepts. The first was an unambiguous supportive commitment by the Australian government to create and enforce clear national environmental standards.
These new and powerful standards aimed to ensure that the government has fulfilled its commitment to protecting “national environmental importance” in all decisions and supporting long -term conservation planning, including support for recovery plans and regional plans and integrating real partnerships with first nations.
The second element of reform aims to simplify decisions regarding major development projects, including through reform and possible accreditation of the state government evaluation regulations and the project approval systems, in line with the requirements of national environmental standards.
The third reform was the establishment of an independent agency to protect the environment to build confidence and accountability in decision -making, ensure the application of standards, and projects that were compatible with the policy of daily environmental policy.
These three columns for policy reform are still very important to build a solid path forward. To present them, it needs leadership from the highest levels of government at the federal level and the federal level. Attempts to push these complex reforms have failed through the Ministry of Environment alone every time over the past fifteen years.
Moreover, unless countries are initially brought in, many reforms on the land required to stop the loss and enhance the restoration of nature will fail, as countries eventually retain most forces to protect the environment.
The role and influence of the Western Australian government in help Scottle Reforms last chapter It is an example. It is easy to throw rocks from outside the tent – it is time for the state prime minister to become part of the solution instead of blockers.
Long -term reform will not be easy, but we have now beented 15 years since the first reforms have been presented to the laws of the national environment, and everyone has lost, especially the natural world. Watt bear a tremendous responsibility, as the Prime Minister and his treasures do, to obtain it properly this time and bring parliament with them. Without support in the Senate, the reforms will again remain anywhere on the vine.
