{"id":128478,"date":"2025-09-08T20:05:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T20:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/128478\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T20:05:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T20:05:08","slug":"no-go-zones-to-be-created-in-overhaul-of-environment-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/128478\/","title":{"rendered":"‘No-go’ zones to be created in overhaul of environment laws"},"content":{"rendered":"

“No-go” zones where development will “simply not be allowed” will be created in the overhaul of Australia’s environment laws, Environment Minister Murray Watt has confirmed.<\/p>\n

And to speed up the development process, areas will also be created where individual assessments and approvals will not be required.<\/p>\n

The minister is pushing ahead with discussions to fix the “broken” laws, which will be introduced to parliament by the end of this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a speech to the Smart Energy Council this evening, Senator Watt is expected to confirm the first details of the reworked laws, including a new “regional planning” model that takes projects from being assessed on an individual basis to considering their cumulative impacts on a habitat.<\/p>\n

The idea was a key recommendation of Graeme Samuel’s landmark review that concluded the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act was failing nature and business.<\/p>\n

“This approach \u2013 identifying ‘go’ and ‘no go’ zones in various regions up-front \u2013 would shift the focus from project-by-project development, to effective planning for our environment and for sustainable development,” Senator Watt is expected to say.<\/p>\n

“Individually, developments may have minimal impact on the national environment, but their combined impact can result in significant long-term damage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Equally, the need for individual projects to be assessed in a particular region, with all the environmental information that entails, adds to the cost and delay in obtaining approvals.”<\/p>\n

\"aerial<\/p>\n

Under EPBC reforms, some zones would be ruled out from development, while rules around others could be relaxed. (Supplied: Bellingen Activist Network)<\/p>\n

The minister said he expected it would be a particular advantage for the renewable energy sector, who are racing to build in line with a goal to have 82 per cent of Australia’s energy supplied by renewables this decade.<\/p>\n

Renewables make up about half that amount, with planning laws sometimes causing years-long delays to projects \u2014 and the minister says the success or failure of the government’s climate goals<\/a> depends on those laws being reformed.<\/p>\n

“If we are to reach our ambitious climate and renewable goals, we need to ensure our environmental laws are working and unnecessary duplication is removed,” Senator Watt said.<\/p>\n

\"Murray<\/p>\n

Murray Watt has sped up his timeline to overhaul Australia’s environment laws. (ABC News: Keane Bourke)<\/p>\n

Regional plans could account for cumulative harm from development, climate change<\/p>\n

Under the reforms, the government would be able to partner with states and territories to develop regional plans, which would feed into state planning laws.<\/p>\n

Graeme Samuel’s review said that model could guarantee a certain outcome for a habitat or region, such as protecting a place of heritage, while not dictating how that should be achieved.<\/p>\n

Each regional plan could identify where and in what form development is acceptable or encouraged, and therefore does not need approval or could receive automated approval.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, plans would mark where development must be avoided, or where it is acceptable so long as damage is offset.<\/p>\n

Each could also include what matters a development would have to consider up-front, restoration priorities and monitoring requirements, and regular re-assessments to ensure plans were achieving their intended environmental outcomes.<\/p>\n

The Commonwealth would not have to create plans for every region \u2014 rather, it could set standards or national expectations that could then be incorporated into state or territory plans.<\/p>\n

Trials of regional plans are already underway in several states \u2014 for example, Queensland is trialling regional plans for wind farms in the Collinsville area in the state’s north, and for mineral mining in the Julia Creek and Richmond area in north-western Queensland.<\/p>\n

The federal government is continuing to consult on its environment reforms, which are expected to be introduced in November, the final sitting fortnight of this year.<\/p>\n

The government attempted to reform the EPBC Act last term, but it was shelved amid heated debate in the lead up to the federal election.<\/p>\n

Senator Watt brought forward the timeline for his reworked EPBC reforms after last month’s economic reform round table found more common ground on finally fixing the laws than the government had expected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“No-go” zones where development will “simply not be allowed” will be created in the overhaul of Australia’s environment…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128479,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[61286,64,63,75,15854,7688,13558,19158,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-128478","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-approvals","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-epbc","13":"tag-housing","14":"tag-planning","15":"tag-renewables","16":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}