
Show your support for new laws
We can secure strong new national laws that actually protect the environment.
We live in a truly special country. But weak environment laws and government inaction have made Australia a world leader in extinction and deforestation.
Self-interested corporations are riding roughshod over communities to damage our environment & health. They're taking advantage of our weak laws to trash our forests, wildlife & climate.
Right now, the Government is running a once-in-a-decade review of Australia’s failed national environment laws. This is a chance to deal with Australia’s appalling extinction record by bringing in strong new national nature laws that work and independent watchdog to enforce them.
The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (the EPBC) is Australia’s national environment law. It might have a long, boring title but it should be doing something incredibly important for us all. The EPBC is meant to stop threatened species like the Leadbeater's possum and iconic Tasmanian Devil from going extinct, safeguard our natural places and ensure all governments work together to protect Australia’s environment and natural diversity of life.
Yet our current protections and laws leave many of Australia's animals facing extinction. The Government is required to review the EPBC every ten years, and in 2019-2020 we have a once-in-a-decade chance to deal with Australia’s extinction and deforestation crises.
Having strong, effective environment laws is vitally important as right now Australia leads the world in mammal extinction and is second only to Indonesia for biodiversity loss.
The Government has to choose if they’ll fix these problems or be persuaded by the calls from big business to weaken our wildlife protections even further.
We want to get as many community submissions as possible made into the review of the EPBC taking place now, to tell the government that we expect strong new nature laws - see our handy guide to making a submission.
At the heart of the problem is this: our national environment laws are not currently working to protect the environment.
It’s actually working to help big corporations get developments approved. Almost all projects (99.7%) assessed by the Federal Government get rubber-stamped, with just 2% later knocked back by the courts. It doesn’t even mention or deal with the escalating problem of climate change.
Nothing is off-limits for destruction. Old-growth forests are being bulldozed and logged. Oil drilling threatens the pristine waters of the Great Australian Bight. Projects that clear the habitats of critically-endangered wildlife are rubber-stamped and species are going extinct with no-one taking action to stop it. Vital water catchments are being mined and drained by big businesses with communities powerless to protect their environment.
Australia’s forests, waterways and wildlife are now in crisis—and once they’re gone, they're gone forever. Consider these facts:
We need to secure a real future for the native wildlife we care about and protect the forests and landscapes they live in, with cleaner air, more resilient soils, healthy oceans and a climate we can rely on. We need to properly protect and restore our environment so Australia can be resilient in the face of climate change.
To truly protect and restore Australia’s nature, we need a new Australian Environment Act that commits the Australian Government to end deforestation of old-growth forests and critical habitat for endangered animals, to end extinction and to protect our vital waterways and catchments.
We need a National Environment Commission that can be an independent voice for the environment and lead a national approach to planning for the future. The Commission will develop National Environment Plans so:
We need an independent National Environmental Protection Authority to:
We need to give power back to communities by guaranteeing community legal rights to ensure that environment laws are enforced fairly and transparently, to have decisions reviewed on the basis of their merits and to ensure all communities have a say in decision-making.