The Business Council of Australia (BCA) welcomes the development of National Environmental Standards for the newly reformed Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, and appreciates the opportunity to provide comment on the first two Standards.
In the BCA’s view it is essential that the Standards are practical, science-based, and capable of delivering measurable improvement in environmental outcomes, while supporting ecologically sustainable development. They should reflect research driven insights, industry experience, and collaborative approaches that deliver ecological outcomes while allowing for the economic viability of projects.
The Standards are intended to provide the framework to deliver clear, strong environmental protection requirements, improved certainty for proponents on what their projects are being assessed against, and to facilitate the accreditation of state and territory assessment and approval systems.
This submission has been written to provide constructive feedback and recommendations to improve the clarity and workability of both the draft Standard on Matters of National Environmental Significance (MNES), and the draft Standard on Environmental Offsets (Offsets). While both policy papers and exposure draft of the legal instruments have been released, this submission focuses on the legal instruments given they are what is intended for application.
The BCA’s desire is that the Standards deliver on their intended purpose of underpinning and uplifting the operation of the EPBC Act and providing clear requirements for those operating and making decisions under the Act. Getting them right will be essential to the success of the revised Act, to both the environmental outcomes and the productivity benefits that the reforms are intended to achieve.