The Hon Dr Jim Chalmers MP
Treasurer
Dear Dr Chalmers
The Albanese Government has delivered a comprehensive package to boost productivity and reduce regulatory costs in the 2026 federal budget.
While I appreciate that the package is intended to facilitate development, I am deeply concerned by plans to devolve environmental approvals to state and territory governments and use artificial intelligence to assess and fast track approvals.
The Australian people love and cherish wild places and want to see state, territory and federal governments all play a role in protecting nature.
This move to devolve powers and use AI directly threatens to accelerate the destruction of nature, particularly if very weak national environmental standards are approved in their current form.
If bilateral agreements are made, state and territory governments will be able to greenlight mining, energy, and land clearing projects under federal laws as they impact nationally significant environmental values like critically endangered species, world heritage areas, and RAMSAR wetlands. Such a move, normally promoted by conservative governments, suggest that the Albanese Government is planning to eventually vacate the field when it comes to decision-making under our national environment laws. This will not be acceptable to most Australians. The federal government has a responsibility to keep decision-making powers for destructive projects like the North-West Shelf and Browse Basin in WA, which threatens to destroy Scott Reef.
Sadly, many of Australia’s state and territory governments are not strong enough to resist industry pressure over environmental decision-making. We need a national tier of environmental decision-making to ensure matters of national environmental significance are considered at the highest level.
I urge you to abandon plans to
- Further devolve environmental approvals powers to state and territory governments, and
- Use AI to fast track environmental approvals.
Yours sincerely