Lock the Gate Alliance condemns Federal Labor’s environmental law reforms, saying they are worse than current laws, and take the country backwards on protecting environments, backwards on integrity, and backwards on community rights and interests.
The Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 passed the House of Representatives today and the wider reforms are currently being examined by a Senate inquiry. Lock the Gate urges all Senators to vote against these laws in their current form.
Lock the Gate has extensive history working with the application of current environment law in relation to coal and unconventional gas mines in operation or under assessment across the country.
The organisation says its view of the Bills is informed by this deep knowledge of existing laws, and expert legal analyses released by EJA, EDO and the Centre for Public Integrity.
The key components of the laws that take Australia backwards are:
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The “streamlined” process that will cut out local communities, Traditional Owners, and the public from having a say in decisions on coal and gas, renewables, and minerals projects;
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Handing decisions of national significance, including impacts on our water via the “water trigger,” over to state and territory governments, who have shown they can’t be trusted;
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Creating sweeping new corruption risks by giving the Minister unprecedented power to decide how and when the law is actually applied (known as “rulings”);
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Entrenching a broad “national interest” loophole which can be used to approve almost any development regardless of environmental impacts;
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Creating a new “pay to destroy” offset scheme that would allow developers to pay money into a fund in return for obtaining approval to clear habitat;
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Allowing the Minister to make a decision to switch off important safeguards for offshore gas projects, impacting First Nations consultation and environmental assessment.
Georgina Woods, Head of Research and Investigations at Lock the Gate said, “Labor’s proposed reforms would make national environment laws much worse.
"They would cut community consultation, create gaping new loopholes, and hand decisions of national significance to the states and territories, who have proven they can’t be trusted to protect Australia’s environment.
“The so-called streamlined assessment enables quick and dirty approval of all kinds of development, including mining and fracking, with no public consultation. Giving mining companies the inside running while local communities are cut out will hasten the path for many much-loved species towards extinction.
“The reforms open gigantic new loopholes that concentrate unchecked power in the hands of the Minister and create a major corruption risk, enabling mining companies to effectively apply for special rules to suit their interests.
“Australia will not restore the environment by enabling more bad decisions to be made more quickly and giving mining companies the inside running while local communities are cut out and overridden.”
ENDS