The Albanese government’s new bill to protect Tasmanian salmon farming has passed the lower house, despite experts warning it could stop communities challenging other decisions, including coal and gas developments, and may not even be effective in its principal aim.
Labor’s changes to amend the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act sailed through the House of Representatives on Tuesday evening, with 111 votes in favour and 14 votes in opposition, and were due to be dealt with in the upper house on Wednesday.
The government plans 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 in the 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.”
Plibersek on Tuesday rejected criticisms that the changes weakened environmental protections and said they were “balanced and sensible” changes designed to “protect jobs”.
The government came under pressure to explain the legislation in question time in both houses of parliament, 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”.
The 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”.
“We need to have a proper look at the salmon industry outside of the pressure of an election campaign and the politics,” she said
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.
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, adding that the change was being “done under the cover of the budget”.
“Murky legal questions about the environmental consequences must be answered before the Senate rushes this legislation through.”
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”.
David Pocock, an independent senator 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.”
On Monday, amid internal angst from pro-environment MPs, the government said it remained committed to broader reforms to strengthen environmental protection and speed up decision-making.
“We will consult on specifics in a second term with the states, business and environment groups,” a spokesperson said.
– with additional reporting by Henry Belot
