Background
The Australian Government is pursuing the most comprehensive and ambitious environmental law reform agenda in decades. The suite of environmental policies currently proposed make it clear that the Government is seeking to not only turn the tide from a picture of environmental degradation to one of restoration and repair across Australia but also to restore trust among business and the community in Australia’s national environmental protection regime.
The Government’s Nature Positive Plan was released in December 2022 and detailed a series of proposed efforts to halt and repair declines in nature. It sheds further light on the anticipated reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, including the development and implementation of National Environmental Standards, and the creation of a new Environmental Protection Agency to reinforce monitoring and compliance. To mobilise the finance needed to fund the transition, the Government is also proposing a nationally regulated ‘Nature Repair Market’, which would be the first of its kind globally.
The introduction of the Climate Change Act 2022 which set a formal net-zero by 2050 target into legislation for the first time in Australia’s history, and the more recent reforms to the Safeguard Mechanism also demonstrate that climate action is a high priority for the Government’s agenda.
Purpose
Against this background, the SDR Hub established an Australian Environmental Law Reforms Series, offering a platform to launch dialogues on Australia’s environmental law reform agenda in efforts to share knowledge across key stakeholders, identify current policy gaps and build consensus on key reforms to serve as strategic input and thought leadership for Government law and policy development. Discussions are focused on topical environmental reforms and related topics, aiming to encourage discussion across sectors in order to inform legislative and policy reforms.
The series of discussions typically adopt an informal roundtable format with small groups of stakeholders to foster a full and open dialogue. If you would like to be included in these dialogues, please indicate your interest by emailing Liz Hollaway and Eliza Northrop.
Past Events
- February 2023: Nature Repair Market Bill Roundtable
In February 2023, the SDR Hub launched the inaugural dialogue in this series on the Nature Repair Market Bill exposure draft released by the Government for consultation in December 2022. The Bill intends to close the finance gap for protecting and restoring our natural environment, building off Australia’s recent international commitments under the 2022 Global Biodiversity Framework. In particular, it provides an innovative market-based scheme to facilitate private sector investment in nature. A broad cross-section of relevant stakeholders was convened from business, banking, consulting, academia and the not-for-profit sectors to facilitate critical discussion on the Bill’s architecture, share knowledge across sectors, and develop key messaging to inform individual submissions. The SDR Hub’s final submission on the Nature Repair Market Bill can be found here.
