A new bill being introduced by the Albanese government to protect Tasmanian salmon farming could stop communities challenging other decisions, including coal and gas developments, and may not even be effective in its principal aim, experts have warned.
The government plans to amend the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act to end a formal reconsideration by the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, into whether an expansion of fish farming in Macquarie harbour in 2012 was properly approved.
Environmental Justice Australia, which analysed the draft bill introduced to parliament on Tuesday, said the Albanese government was “simply wrong” to confidently claim its proposed legislation would only affect the salmon industry inthe harbour.
The organisation’s co-chief executive and lawyer, Elizabeth McKinnon, said the draft bill was not industry or geographically specific, prompting concerns the changes could have much wider ramifications and be applied to other decisions, including on mining, land clearing or housing and infrastructure development.
“We fear they’ll lead to alarming wide-scale rollback of environmental protections in federal law,” she said. “These changes … could gut the ability of community and environment groups to challenge destructive projects.”
The government came under pressure to explain the legislation in question time in both houses of parliament on Tuesday, with Tasmanian Greens senator Nick McKim asking if the bill “contains nothing whatsoever that would preclude it from preventing the environment minister from reconsidering fossil fuel projects, other mines, land clearing actions or large industrial developments”.
Government leader in the Senate Penny Wong responded: “These are specific amendments to address a flaw in the EPBC Act”.
“Secondly, I predict that it doesn’t matter what my answer is, you’re going to make those scare campaigns anyway, because you don’t support these changes.”
In the House of Representatives, the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said the Greens had “never seen a job they don’t want to destroy” and highlighted the government’s efforts to protect the Maugean skate, including $37.5m in conservation funding.
Separate preliminary legal advice to the Australia Institute had earlier questioned whether the legislation would do what the government wanted, suggesting the amendment might not survive a legal challenge if applied to salmon farming in the harbour.
The institute’s strategy director, Leanne Minshull, said the government’s proposed change to the law would “create more chaos than clarity”.
“Trying to push laws through at the last minute has never worked,” she said. “We need to have a proper look at the salmon industry outside of the pressure of an election campaign and the politics.”
The reconsideration of the Macquarie harbour decision was triggered by a legal request in 2023 from three environment groups, partly due to concern about the impact of salmon farming on the Maugean skate, an endangered fish species. Plibersek has been reviewing whether the 2012 decision that deemed the farming was not a controlled action – meaning it did not need a full federal environmental assessment – was correct.
Such reviews can be requested if substantial new information comes to light about risk of harm to a protected species or habitat after the decision is made. An environment department opinion released under freedom of information laws suggested that it could lead to salmon farming having to stop in the harbour while an environmental impact statement was prepared.
The new legislation would prevent reconsideration requests by third parties in some cases in which developments had been deemed “not a controlled action”. It would apply when the minister had specified in their decision that the development required state or territory oversight or management, was already under way, and had been ongoing or recurring for at least five years since the decision was made.
EJA said the absence of specific location or industry information in the wording of the bill meant the proposed legal changes could have implications that extended to many more projects that had been deemed not controlled actions.
“Not only has the Albanese government backed away from its promise to fix the broken environment laws in this country – it’s now quietly removing the ability of community members to scrutinise harmful projects,” McKinnon said.
A government spokesperson on Tuesday said the change was “a very specific amendment”.
“The existing laws apply to everything else, including all new proposals for coal, gas, and land clearing,” they said.
On Monday, amid internal angst from pro-environment MPs, the government said it remained committed to broader reforms to strengthen environmental protections and speed up decision-making.
“We will consult on specifics in a second term with the states, business and environment groups,” a spokesperson said.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Greens unsuccessfully moved to send the bill to an inquiry by a Senate committee
“The government’s rushed legislation to gut environment laws must be scrutinised properly,” the Greens environment spokesperson, Sarah Hanson-Young, said on Tuesday morning.
“Murky legal questions about the environmental consequences must be answered before the Senate rushes this legislation through.”
At a joint press conference with environment groups and independent MPs on Tuesday morning, Hanson-Young said “this is being done under the cover of the budget, because the Labor party knows it stinks, the law stinks, the rotten salmon stinks, and the whole process stinks”.
Andrew Wilkie, the independent MP for Clark, which covers Hobart and surrounding areas, described the move as “one of the most egregious attacks on our environment”.
The independent senator David Pocock said the legislation was an example of why voters should consider voting independent at the forthcoming election.
“[Australians] value nature, and they want to see politicians look to the long term.”
