How Australia’s “Landmark” Environmental Reform Got Captured

Written by urbanwronski

The theatre of Environmental Reform, Part One of A Four-Part Investigation

Five years after Professor Graeme Samuel exposed the catastrophic failures of Australia’s environmental laws, the Albanese government has finally delivered its response. They’re calling it “historic reform.” Every major independent environmental organisation in Australia says it falls dangerously short.

This four-part investigation examines what actually happened when Labor’s Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 passed the Senate on 28 November. It’s a case study in how corporate capture works in contemporary Australian democracy, not through corruption or conspiracy, but through the mundane mechanics of political compromise.

Why This Matters

Australia leads the world in mammal extinctions. We’ve destroyed 7.7 million hectares of threatened species habitat since 2000, an area larger than Tasmania. We’re a global deforestation hotspot. The 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires killed 3 billion animals. Six mass coral bleaching events have hit the Great Barrier Reef in a decade.

The Albanese government approved 31 fossil fuel projects while claiming climate leadership. Now they’ve passed environmental laws that make it illegal for the Environment Minister to consider climate damage when approving new coal and gas projects.

That’s not policy failure. That’s the policy working exactly as designed, for the industries that matter to government more than the environment they’re supposed to protect.

How Australia’s Government Convinced Us It Cares About The Bush (Spoiler: It Doesn’t)

Part One: The Theatre of Environmental Reform

When every credible environmental voice in Australia says your “landmark” reform is inadequate, that’s not balance. That’s capture.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stood before the nation on 27 November 2025 and declared victory. His government’s environmental reforms, he proclaimed, were “a great win for the environment and a great one for business.”

He got both right. Just not in the way he intended.

Because here’s what actually happened: Five years after Professor Graeme Samuel delivered a scathing 268-page demolition of Australia’s environmental laws (laws he found “outdated,” “ineffective,” and trusted by precisely nobody) Labor has delivered a reform package that every major independent environmental organisation in Australia says falls short. Not just short. Dangerously, systematically, deliberately short.

This isn’t fringe criticism from radical activists. This is the Environmental Defenders Office, Australia’s leading environmental law experts with 40 years of legal practice. This is the Australian Conservation Foundation with 700,000 supporters. This is the Climate Council, WWF-Australia, Greenpeace, The Wilderness Society, and The Australia Institute. Organisations with scientific credentials, legal authority, and decades of institutional memory.

Every single one says the same thing: this bill doesn’t deliver the fundamental reform Samuel demanded and Australia’s collapsing environment desperately needs.

What Samuel Actually Said

Let’s start with what the government claims to be implementing. Samuel’s review wasn’t some wish list dreamed up by greenies. It was built on 30,000 submissions and found Australia’s natural environment in “overall state of decline” with the nation leading the world in mammal extinctions: 39 species since European settlement, the latest being the Christmas Island Shrew in October 2025.

His recommendations were clear and interconnected. Samuel explicitly warned governments against “the temptation to cherry pick from a highly interconnected suite of recommendations.” He demanded:

  • Legally binding national environmental standards with clear, enforceable outcomes, not optional guidelines
  • An independent National EPA with real teeth: stop-work orders, auditing powers, enforcement capability free from political interference
  • Comprehensive Indigenous cultural heritage protection. Samuel wrote that “national-level protection of the cultural heritage of Indigenous Australians is a long way out of step with community expectations. As a nation, we must do better.”
  • Indigenous knowledge at the centre of decision-making, not as tokenism. He found the Act reflected a “culture of tokenism and symbolism” that “forgoes the enormous benefits” of Indigenous knowledge
  • No cherry-picking. All reforms were interconnected and necessary together

Following the Juukan Gorge catastrophe where Rio Tinto destroyed 46,000-year-old sacred sites, Samuel was particularly brutal about heritage protection. The current system, he wrote, prioritises Western science while Indigenous knowledge and views are “diluted in the formal provision of advice to decision-makers.”

That was five years ago. What did we get?

What The Environmental Defenders Office Found

The EDO doesn’t mince words. These are Australia’s environmental lawyers, the people who actually litigate environmental cases, who understand the fine print, who know how laws work in practice versus political spin.

Their assessment: “Long-awaited EPBC reforms fall short of fixing a failing Act.”

Managing Lawyer Revel Pointon laid it out: “There are positive elements, like stronger penalties, the introduction of National Environmental Standards, and restrictions on approving unacceptable impacts. But these Bills still leave major loopholes, wide discretion, and no requirement to assess or control greenhouse gas emissions or large-scale deforestation, both significant threats to our environment and communities.“

Let’s break down what EDO found:

Climate Assessment Absent: The bill requires disclosure of scope 1 and 2 emissions only, not scope 3 downstream emissions when fossil fuels are burned. And here’s the spanner in the whole works: disclosure is not assessment. The Environment Minister cannot consider whether emissions will destroy our climate. EDO states this contradicts international law and the recent International Court of Justice advisory opinion. As Pointon put it: “Requiring only partial disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions, and not assessing them, is not environmental protection.”

Discretion Remains the Core Problem: “New ministerial powers to make rulings and protection statements have been added to existing broad national interest exemptions. All of these powers are open to abuse in the wrong hands.” This isn’t hypothetical. The Albanese government approved 31 fossil fuel projects while claiming climate leadership. Give them more discretion?

National Environmental Standards Aren’t Mandatory: There’s “no clear requirement that Standards be made.” Samuel recommended a full suite of specific, mandatory standards as foundational.

Labor made them optional. EDO warns: “We need to see the National Environment Standards before legislation is voted on to ensure that they meet Professor Samuel’s recommendations of clear, enforceable outcomes.”

Major Exemptions Remain: The bills keep exemptions for large-scale deforestation and “prior authorisations” that have allowed destructive activities (agricultural land clearing, shark nets) to continue without federal oversight even when they significantly impact matters of national environmental significance.

“Pay to Destroy” Becomes Law: The introduction of “restoration contribution payments” allows developers to pay money into a fund instead of securing real offsets. EDO is blunt: this is “essentially ‘payment for destruction’, a regression from current policy.” The Australia Institute’s research shows this replicates NSW’s problematic biodiversity offsetting scheme, which creates “time lags in responding to environmental impacts and reducing the likelihood that such responses will replace like with like.”

Water Protections Weakened: The bills remove the exemption that prevented devolution of the water trigger for unconventional gas and large-scale coal mining. Federal oversight of water resources, crucial for protecting aquifers from fracking, can now be handed to states.

The Climate Council’s Verdict

Australia’s leading independent climate science organisation delivered a submission to the Senate inquiry that should shame the government. Their assessment:

“Parliament has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to strengthen Australia’s environmental and climate frameworks to genuinely protect our precious natural environment from major threats. However, as they currently stand, the proposed reforms do not address the biggest threat to Australia’s environment: climate change.“

The Council notes the fundamental contradiction: Labor claims climate leadership while passing environmental laws that explicitly forbid considering climate damage. “Currently, neither Australia’s current laws and policies, or these proposed reforms, manage the risk posed by the unchecked expansion of highly-polluting coal, oil and gas projects.”

Here’s the data the government hopes you’ll ignore: Climate Council polling showed 80 per cent of Canberrans want climate impacts considered under the legislation. In the marginal seat of Bean (which Labor held by just 350 votes) 44 per cent of Labor voters said they’d be less likely to vote Labor if climate protections aren’t included. That’s 18,555 fewer first-preference votes, spelling certain defeat.

Labor ignored them all.

The Council maintains that while the government ruled out a climate trigger (making climate a Matter of National Environmental Significance) “even without a climate trigger, there are plenty of ways this bill could be stronger on climate.” The bill chose none of them.

The Australian Conservation Foundation’s Disappointment

ACF is not some radical outfit. Founded in 1965, it’s Australia’s national environmental organisation with over 700,000 supporters: mainstream, credible, historically willing to work with government. They initially supported many of Labor’s proposed reforms.

Their assessment now? Acting CEO Paul Sinclair warned: “Weak laws will put more valuable forests under a bulldozer, pollution into the atmosphere and destroy Australia’s natural wealth.”

When Labor deferred reforms in February 2025 (backing away from essential legally enforceable national environmental standards) ACF described being “deeply disappointed.” The organisation that had backed Labor’s vision found themselves watching those commitments evaporate.

ACF’s concern goes beyond specific provisions. They’re watching a pattern: governments that want productivity benefits from streamlined approvals without the hard work of setting and enforcing genuinely protective environmental standards. The emphasis on “$7 billion in economic benefits” over environmental outcomes tells them everything about priorities.

What Greenpeace and WWF Documented

Greenpeace’s submission to the Senate inquiry identifies the structural flaws that make this bill a regression, not reform:

“National Interest” Exemptions Are Dangerously Broad: The definition allows exemptions for projects addressing “Australia’s obligations under an agreement with one or more other countries.” Greenpeace notes this is “extremely and unnecessarily broad”, it could drive a coal train through environmental protections. “It is fundamental that any national interest exemptions only apply to genuine emergency situations, so as to avoid becoming what would in effect be a backdoor for wide ranging ministerial discretion.”

Offsets Lack Integrity: “The proposed offset fund is too flexible and could mean that projects are approved with no real guarantee that genuine offsets will be delivered, or that environmental outcomes will be achieved. Public reporting and transparency around offsets is required and there needs to be assurance offsets are available before proponents use the fund.”

Fossil Fuel Projects Should Be Excluded From State Approvals: “Given their high level impact on MNES, fossil fuel projects should be excluded from any accredited approval arrangement with a state or territory. All powers should remain with the Commonwealth.”

WWF-Australia is equally direct: “These bills do not go far enough to protect our fragile environment.” The organisation notes that Regional Forest Agreement exemptions continue allowing logging without proper federal assessment, leading to habitat destruction. Since the EPBC Act commenced in 2000, 7.7 million hectares of threatened species habitat has been destroyed, an area larger than Tasmania.

WWF’s call is simple: “Close Australia’s deforestation loopholes and address the impact of climate change on the environment.” The bill does neither.

The Pattern Across Every Critique

When independent organisations from different backgrounds (legal experts, climate scientists, conservation biologists, policy analysts) all identify the same problems, that’s not coincidence. That’s evidence.

Every major environmental organisation criticises:

  • Climate change inadequately addressed: no climate trigger, no impact assessment, scope 3 emissions excluded, no ability to refuse projects based on climate harm
  • Excessive ministerial discretion: subjective decision-making rather than objective, enforceable standards
  • Weakened offset regime: “pay to destroy” transfers environmental responsibility from developers to public purse
  • Major exemptions remain: Regional Forestry Agreements, prior authorisations, large-scale land clearing
  • Devolution without safeguards: including the water trigger, handed to states without binding federal standards
  • Indigenous heritage protection inadequate: no meaningful implementation of Samuel’s recommendations
  • Standards not mandatory or finalised: Parliament voting without seeing what “standards” actually require
  • Rushed process: 1,500 pages introduced with minimal scrutiny time

This isn’t nitpicking. These are fundamental flaws that undermine the bill’s claimed purpose.

Independent MP Zali Steggall summed it up in Parliament: “Nature and our environment need a better system, and this bill is not the saviour that’s required.” She challenged Labor backbenchers: had any of them actually read the 1,500 pages provided on Thursday for debate the following week? “The question is: are we supposed to take the government on good faith that what is said to be in this legislation actually is in the legislation?”

Source: Zali Steggall MP Parliamentary Speech, November 2025

Key Sources:

To be continued in Part Two: What the Greens Won, And What Got Away…

What You’ll Find In This Series:

Part One: The Theatre of Environmental Reform
We lay out what Professor Samuel actually recommended versus what Labor delivered. Then we let Australia’s leading independent environmental experts speak: the Environmental Defenders Office, Climate Council, Australian Conservation Foundation, Greenpeace, WWF-Australia, The Wilderness Society, and The Australia Institute. Every single one identifies the same fundamental flaws. When organisations with scientific credentials, legal authority, and decades of institutional memory all say the same thing, that’s not ideology. That’s evidence.

Part Two: What The Greens Won, And What Got Away
The Greens extracted real concessions: native forest logging exemptions “sunset” in 18 months, coal and gas removed from fast-track approvals, the national interest loophole closed for fossil fuels. These wins matter. But the triumphalist, win-win- narrative skips the rogue elephant in the room: Labor still refuses to consider whether new coal and gas projects should exist at all.

We examine the $300 million forestry transition fund, the “pay to destroy” offset mechanism, and trace the precise mechanics of how policy capture actually operates.

Part Three: The Climate Silence
This law about protecting Australia’s environment doesn’t mention climate. Not in any binding way. The Environment Minister cannot reject coal and gas projects on climate grounds. The law expressly forbids that consideration. We present the polling data Labor hopes you’ll forget (70 per cent want climate embedded, 44 per cent of Labor voters would reconsider their support), explain what genuine environmental commitment would actually look like, and examine the political calculus behind choosing industry pressure over majority voter preference.

Part Four: The Real Question, And The Lesson
Did Labor’s reform stop environmental degradation, or just slow it enough to look serious while keeping the machinery of destruction functional? We measure the bill against Samuel’s recommendations, synthesise what every independent expert told us, and explain the four-step pattern of managed decline. This is how you capture environmental policy without killing the environment entirely: you write laws that prevent environmental protection from working, then declare victory and hope nobody looks too closely.

A Note On Sources

Every claim in this investigation is backed by documentation from independent environmental organisations, Samuel’s review, parliamentary submissions, polling data, and the legislative text itself. We quote extensively from expert assessments because their words carry more weight than ours. This isn’t opinion dressed as analysis. It’s analysis backed by the people who know environmental law, climate science, and conservation biology better than anyone in Australia.

The government will celebrate this bill as historic environmental reform. The independent experts are telling a very different story. This investigation lets you decide who to believe.

This is a detailed, documented examination of how environmental policy gets captured in contemporary Australian democracy. It’s long because the subject demands it. Each part can be read independently, but together they form a comprehensive case study in political compromise, corporate influence, and what happens when governments prioritise industry demands over scientific advice and majority voter preference.

Read with attention. Share widely. Remember when you vote.

Published as a four-part series:

  • Part One: The Theatre of Environmental Reform
  • Part Two: What The Greens Won, And What Got Away
  • Part Three: The Climate Silence
  • Part Four: The Real Question, And The Lesson

Author’s Note: This investigation draws on submissions to the Senate inquiry from the Environmental Defenders Office, Climate Council, Australian Conservation Foundation, Greenpeace Australia Pacific, WWF-Australia, The Wilderness Society, The Australia Institute, and analysis of Professor Graeme Samuel’s 2020 Independent Review of the EPBC Act. All quotes are sourced and verifiable. The complete reference list is available on request.

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