Australia passes landmark law overhauling nature protection

Paul-Alain Hunt, Bloomberg News on Nov 27, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

Australia passed a landmark bill to overhaul the nation’s environmental laws after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government struck a deal with the left-wing minority Greens party.

Both houses of the country’s parliament passed the legislation, Environment Minister Murray Watt said in Canberra. It amends the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, a framework widely viewed by industry and environmental advocates as outdated and in need of reform. Past efforts to update the laws, the most recent earlier this year, had foundered.

The new laws strengthen protections for the environment while also streamlining approval processes for major developments in areas like mining.

“As a result of these laws being passed, Australia’s natural environment will be better protected for generations to come,” Watt said.

“In addition, these reforms will deliver much quicker processes to ensure we can deliver the housing, renewables and critical minerals that our country desperately needs,” he said. Earlier on Thursday, Watt said the bill could inject up to A$7 billion ($4.5 billion) into the economy.

Australia, the world’s driest inhabited continent, is constantly grappling with trade-offs between its powerhouse mining and energy industries that underpin the nation’s prosperity, and its unique and often fragile environment. The new laws will increase scrutiny of major projects related to the country’s three largest exports: iron ore, coal and liquefied natural gas.

The government will now establish a nationwide Environmental Protection Authority and require large projects to disclose their emissions, Claire Smith, partner and head of Environment at law firm Clayton Utz, told Bloomberg by phone.

“We’ve been waiting on reforms for the environment for 15 years,” she said. “The earlier Act was overly complex, and frankly, it wasn’t actually protecting the environment. There’s much bigger penalties for impacting threatened species and other contraventions, which could see fines as high as A$825 million.”

The new EPA will operate concurrently with separate bodies by the same name in Australia’s eight states and territories. The law also creates national standards to guide departmental decision-making.

While the Greens party pushed for resource projects to be assessed on their carbon-emission intensity, it was not successful.

“The government has other legislation that regulates carbon impacts, but the new law requires emissions disclosure,” Smith said. Most major resources companies in Australia, including its biggest miners BHP Group and Rio Tinto Group, already disclose their annual emissions.

_____

(With assistance from Keira Wright.)

_____