Press Release -Government Welcomes Native Vegetation and Biodiversity Regulations Report [10/08/2004]
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10 August 2004
THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSE TO RECOMMENDATIONS
IN THE PRODUCTIVITY COMMISSION INQUIRY INTO THE IMPACTS OF NATIVE VEGETATION
AND BIODIVERSITY REGULATIONS
While management of native vegetation and biodiversity is primarily the responsibility
of State and Territory governments, the Australian Government has an interest
in taking programme and cooperative measures with State and Territory governments
and other interested parties to conserve and manage biodiversity. The Australian
Government has a responsibility and an interest to promote the recovery of species
and ecological communities that are endangered or vulnerable, and prevent other
species and ecological communities from becoming endangered.
The Australian Government will pursue implementation of the Productivity Commission’s
recommendations through the Council of Australian Government process and intends
to put this on the agenda of the next meeting.
Recommendation 1
Before introducing new or amending existing native vegetation and biodiversity
policy, a comprehensive regulation impact statement or its equivalent should
be prepared that includes an assessment of the problem being targeted, expected
costs and benefits of the proposed policy, and an assessment of alternative
instruments. This assessment should be made public.
Recommendation 2
All native vegetation and biodiversity policies should be subject to
ongoing monitoring and regular independent reviews of all costs and benefits
in the light of articulated objectives. Reviews of performance should be published.
The Australian Government agrees with these recommendations. The Australian
Government notes that the Productivity Commission has found that state native
vegetation and biodiversity regulations are imposing significant and unnecessary
costs on landholders.
In developing the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act
1999 (the EPBC Act) the Australian Government prepared a comprehensive Regulation
Impact Statement. Further, the Department of the Environment and Heritage monitors
the EPBC Act through the preparation of an annual report on its performance.
The Australian National Audit Office has reviewed the EPBC Act.
To guide native vegetation policy development by all governments, the Australian,
State and Territory governments developed the National Framework for the Management
and Monitoring of Australia’s Native Vegetation. The Framework outlines
best practice for managing native vegetation including roles and responsibility
of governments and the community; planning and assessment activities; the formal
reserve system; communication and capacity building; the use of incentives;
best-practice regulatory mechanisms; and monitoring and evaluation. In April
2004, all governments, through the Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council,
agreed to review and update the Framework including addressing the range of
costs and benefits of vegetation management, together with various management
tools such as volunteerism, grants, market-based measures and regulatory approaches.
The Australian Government will take every opportunity to work with State and
Territory governments to assess alternative policy instruments to meet native
vegetation and biodiversity conservation objectives. For example, in April 2003,
the Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council allocated $5 million of
matching Australian Government and State/Territory funding from the National
Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality for the first-round of a National
Market Based Instruments Pilot Program. Eleven pilots, investigating a range
of market-based measures for conservation were selected. Interim lessons from
the pilots have recently been reported. These lessons will guide future policy
development.
Recommendation 3
Ongoing efforts are required to improve the quality of data and science
on which native vegetation and biodiversity policy decisions are based, particularly
‘on-the-ground’ assessments to test the accuracy of vegetation mapping
based on satellite imagery.
The Australian Government agrees with the recommendation.
Decision-making needs to be informed by environmental, social, demographic
and economic data and analysis, information on the impacts of previous decisions,
and use of community and expert knowledge. Knowledge gaps need to be identified
and addressed through a combination of new research, improved access to information,
greater consistency of key sets of data, and better communication. Both the
Australian Government and the States have roles in improving natural resource
information so that policy decisions are informed.
The Australian Government is funding the National Land and Water Resources
Audit, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Land
and Water Australia and other research and development organisations to improve
the quality of the data and the science on which native vegetation and biodiversity
policy decisions are based.
The Australian Government will continue to work with States and Territories
through the development of the National Vegetation Information System to ensure
greater consistency in the quality and attributes of native vegetation data
across Australia.
The Australian Government is also improving the quality and availability of
data and science being used to support EPBC Act decisions. As species and ecological
communities are listed under the EPBC Act, this information will be made available
to the community through the EPBC Act web site at http://www.deh.gov.au/epbc.
Recommendation 4
Current regulatory approaches should comply with good regulatory practice,
including:
- clear specification of objectives of the legislation so that guidelines
and decisions link back to these objectives, and performance of the regimes
can be monitored and assessed;
- minimisation of duplication and inconsistency by amalgamating and
simplifying regulations and permit requirements, for example, by rationalising
legislation and regulation within each State and Territory and/or by coordination
between agencies;
- assistance to, and education of, landholders to meet and to understand
their responsibilities by providing accessible information about those responsibilities,
and how they relate to sustainable land management practices and environmental
problems;
- statutory time-frames for assessing permit applications;
- consideration of economic and social factors where applications
to clear otherwise would be rejected on environmental grounds (a ‘triple
bottom line’ approach), with reasons for decisions to be given and reported;
and
- provision of accessible, timely and impartial appeals and dispute-resolution
mechanisms.
The Australian Government agrees with this recommendation.
The Australian Government is committed to enhancing landholder confidence in
natural resource planning and regulation without sacrificing environmental outcomes
or the interests of the community. This requires transparency, accountability,
statutory time frames for assessing permit applications, and provision of accessible,
timely and impartial appeals and dispute-resolution mechanisms. The Australian
Government will seek opportunities to cooperate with the states to meet these
recommendations.
The Australian Government welcomes the Commission’s findings that the
EPBC Act largely conforms to good regulatory practice, with opportunities for
public comment, processes that are transparent, and readily available information
about operation of the Act. The Australian Government is working with landholders
and other groups to educate them about the Act’s requirements and to reduce
any uncertainty about when the Act might apply. In accordance with the requirements
of the EPBC Act, social and economic factors are taken into account in approval
decisions.
The Australian Government agrees it would be desirable to reduce duplication
and inconsistency by improving alignment between the Australian Government and
State/Territory lists of threatened entities. The Department of the Environment
and Heritage will work with State and Territory agencies to address this issue.
Recommendation 5
Greater flexibility should be introduced in regulatory regimes to allow
variation in requirements at a local level. To this end:
- greater use should be made of the extensive knowledge of landholders
and local communities;
- regional committees and bodies should be given greater autonomy
(and support) to develop appropriate requirements; and
- some across-the-board rules, particularly those currently applying
to native vegetation regrowth, could be relaxed and replaced with requirements
that meet environmental objectives but which reflect regional environmental
characteristics and agricultural practices.
The Australian Government agrees with this recommendation. The Australian Government’s
Natural Heritage Trust and the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality
draw on the extensive knowledge and expertise of landholders and local communities
and give regional bodies greater autonomy to make collective land management
decisions.
Bilateral agreements between the Australian Government and each State and Territory
for the Natural Heritage Trust and the National Action Plan for Salinity and
Water Quality identify or establish appropriate regional bodies to be responsible
for developing catchment/regional natural resource management plans through
a community consultation process for the region.
The Australian Government requires effective participation by all key stakeholders
to ensure plans are based on a community process, are accurate, comprehensive,
well coordinated and able to be implemented. Indigenous communities, local government,
state agencies, resource managers, industry and communities, academic/scientific
community and environmental groups should be involved where relevant.
For example, in New South Wales, the Australian and NSW Governments have committed
$406 million to overhaul natural resource management in a bid to deliver greater
autonomy to local communities and landholders in managing the environment. The
changes will considerably enhance landholder and community involvement in natural
resource decision-making, and will see an end to broad scale clearing of remnant
vegetation. Governments, the NSW Farmers’ Association, conservation groups
and scientists support the changes.
The Australian Government agrees that regulation that creates a perverse incentive
to clear native vegetation regrowth before it is reclassified as remnant vegetation,
should be replaced with requirements that meet environmental objectives but
which reflect regional environmental characteristics and agricultural practices.
Recommendation 6
As a matter of priority, governments should seek to remove impediments
to, and facilitate, increased private provision of environmental services. Actions
could include:
- removal of tax distortions or lease conditions that discourage
conservation activity relative to other activities;
- removal of impediments to efficient farm rationalisation and/or
management and operation;
- research into, and facilitation of, sustainable commercial uses
of native vegetation and biodiversity; and
- enhanced provision of education and extension services to demonstrate
to landholders the private benefits of sustainable practices.
The Australian Government agrees with the recommendation and will work with
State and Territory Governments to seek to remove impediments to, and facilitate,
increased private provision of environmental services. As recommended by the
Productivity Commission (recommendation 1), implementation of proposed policy
approaches will be subject to assessment of the problem being targeted, expected
costs and benefits of the proposed policy, and an assessment of alternative
instruments.
For example, The Australian Government is funding research into sustainable
commercial uses of biodiversity. The research, being conducted by the Rural
Industries Research and Development Corporation, is conducting trials into the
commercial use of wildlife as an incentive to restore on-farm habitat.
The Australian Government is also encouraging the adoption of improved sustainable
management through programs such as the National Landcare Program, FarmBiz and
environmental management systems.
Recommendation 7
Landholders, individually or as a group, should bear the costs of actions
that directly contribute to sustainable resource use (including, for example,
land and water quality) and hence, the long-term viability of agriculture and
other land-based operations. Redistributive mechanisms may be appropriate in
some instances to share costs among landholders and regional communities.
Recommendation 9
Over and above agreed landholder responsibilities, additional conservation
apparently demanded by society (for example, to achieve biodiversity, threatened
species and greenhouse objectives), should be purchased from landholders where
intervention is deemed necessary and cost-effective.
The Australian Government agrees with these recommendations. It is important
to build a shared understanding and agreement around the roles, rights and responsibilities
for the delivery of natural resource management outcomes.
The Australian Government supports the principles that landholders, individually
or as a group, should bear the costs of actions that directly contribute to
sustainable resource use (including, for example, land and water quality) and
hence, the long-term viability of agriculture and other land-based operations.
Over and above agreed landholder responsibilities, additional biodiversity
conservation services sought by the community should generally be purchased
from landholders, where intervention is deemed necessary and cost-effective.
For example, purchase could be through providing transitional assistance payments
where mandatory biodiversity conservation standards are changed, incentives
for voluntary biodiversity management services, or purchase of specific biodiversity
management services.
It is the Australian Government’s position that, prior to the removal
of landholders’ rights, State and Territory governments must consult fully
with landholders and any other interested parties and meet any legal requirements
for direct compensation to property rights holders. This is a precondition before
the Australian Government will consider adjustment assistance.
The Australian, State and Territory governments have agreed through the Natural
Resource Management Ministerial Council to examine options for a national program
to address biodiversity decline. This will draw on lessons from the first-round
of a National Market Based Instruments Pilot Program, due to provide a progress
report in mid 2004, and experience from other programs such as the Victorian
BushTender trials and the Tasmanian Private Forest Reserve Program.
Recommendation 8
Regional institutions should be further developed and charged with
addressing regional and inter-regional resource sustainability issues within
broad parameters determined at national, State and Territory levels. Regional
bodies should provide for genuine regional consultation, representation and
decision making and be granted sufficient flexibility, authority and resources
to implement their decisions.
Recommendation 10
Public-good native vegetation and biodiversity objectives ideally should
be fed through regional institutions to promote coordination and consistency
of approaches, and therefore, least-cost ‘joint’ solutions.
The Australian Government agrees with these recommendations. Under the Australian
Government’s $4.4 billion investment for the Natural Heritage Trust and
the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality, new regional bodies
are developing and implementing natural resource management plans. These regional
bodies have a significantly enhanced coordination role in natural resource management
decision-making, priority setting and management of investments. These regional
bodies are promoting a consistent approach to achieve native vegetation and
biodiversity objectives.
The Australian Government is committed to a regional approach to improve the
management of our natural resources.