Environmental reform could slash government spending, lift productivity: expert

Urgent reform of Australia’s “broken” environmental laws would dramatically cut government costs and lift productivity growth, a leading environment expert claims. The Albanese government has faced continued pressure over Australia’s sluggish productivity growth, which is among the worst in the developed world. Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation chair Ken Henry said sweeping environmental reform could be the solution. The former Treasury secretary will tell the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday there is “no chance” the Labor government will meet its net-zero target while also delivering upon housing and infrastructure commitments without reform to state and federal environmental protection laws. “The Australian government has an ambition to massively increase critical minerals exports and downstream processing here in Australia,” Dr Henry is expected to state. “This means more mines, new industrial facilities, and more pressure being loaded onto broken EPBC project assessment and approval processes.” The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, or EPBC, is Australia’s main national environmental legislation. Dr Henry said the government’s pledge to erect 1.2 million homes by 2030 would require more land and transport, meaning more interaction with EPBC assessments. “These projects, be they wind farms, solar farms, transmission lines, new housing developments, land-based carbon sequestration projects, new and enhanced transport corridors or critical minerals extraction and processing plants, must be delivered quickly and efficiently,” Dr Henry will tell the NPC. “All these projects will be critical to enhancing economic resilience and lifting flagging productivity growth. “Boosting productivity and resilience relies upon environmental law reform. “But the biggest threat to future productivity growth comes from nature itself; more particularly, from its destruction.” Dr Henry will urge for a breaking of the “deadlock” to deliver sweeping reforms in a single package. They would include protecting Matters of National Environmental Significance guidelines by shifting the focus to regional planning, urgent finalisation of the effective national environmental standards, and formation of a national environmental protection agency. He will also urge for “genuine co-operation and a shared purpose” between business and environmental groups as well as between the states and federal government. “Environmental law reform provides an opportunity to reconstruct the co-operative federal reform capability we developed in the 1990s but have since lost,” Dr Henry will state. “A strong federal reform capability will be required to deliver other, even more challenging economic reforms. Environmental law reform can provide the template.” Dr Henry said there was “no point in building a faster highway to hell”, and while approvals needed to be granted faster, the environment needed to be protected. “In reforming the EPBC Act, we can get this right. We have had all the reviews we need,” he will say. “All of us have had our say. It is now up to parliament. Let’s just get this done.” The Labor government is contending with a raft of proposals to fix productivity, from superannuation reform to artificial intelligence and disability inclusion. At the same time, Environment Minister Murray Watt said in May that legislating a federal environment protection agency was a “very high and immediate” priority.

Environmental reform could slash government spending, lift productivity: expert

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