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Robust structures and processes are needed to provide accountability and enable the community to be confident they are working well. The EPBC Act should be amended to establish robust processes to accredit the regulatory processes and environmental management arrangements of other parties based on the National Environmental Standards. Transparent pathways should enable the Commonwealth Environment Minister to intervene in a proportionate and escalated way at times when accredited arrangements are not performing well, or failing, or where there is serious risk of environmental harm. A new, independent, statutory position of Environment Assurance Commissioner (EAC) should be created to provide independent monitoring, audit and transparent public reporting on the operational and administrative performance of all parties operating or accredited under the EPBC Act, including decisions by the Commonwealth.

The EPBC Act does not facilitate maintenance or restoration of the environment. Cumulative impacts on the environment need to be addressed, threats properly managed and past degradation rectified. Adaptive planning is required that supports management of the environment at the national and regional (landscape) scale. Government needs to provide clear direction and facilitate and coordinate the contribution of investment from others, especially the private sector, to support the scale of restoration required.

Cumulative impacts on and threats to the environment are often not well managed under the current settings of the EPBC Act. Existing provisions for more strategic approaches that can consider cumulative impacts such as bioregional plans and strategic assessments, have a history of limited use. The approach to planning for recovery of threatened species and ecological communities is piecemeal. Planning to address key threats not a requirement under the Act and there is no clear mechanism to enable a quick response to acute threats. Opportunities for coordinated national action and investments to address key environmental challenges such as feral animals, habitat restoration and adapting to climate change, are ad hoc rather than a key national priority.

Comprehensive planning is required to enable cumulative risks to be managed, response to future impacts coordinated and clear priorities for restoration identified to address historical impacts. National level plans are required to address pervasive issues that would benefit from strategic coordination such as management of feral animals or adaptation of the environment to climate change. Regional level plans would allow for planning at the right scale, consideration of cumulative risks and key threats, support effective planning for sustainable future development and direct investment in protection, conservation and restoration to where it is most needed.

Government investment in restoration, while a constant feature of government policy, is often not well coordinated to prioritise investment in a way that achieves the greatest possible biodiversity benefits. The regulatory levers of government, including offsets, should align with the priorities of plans. Immediate change is required to the current EPBC Act offsets policy to ensure that offsets do not continue to contribute towards environmental decline. There are also opportunities to better align investment in restoration with investment in carbon markets.

The scale of investment required to enable future development to be sustainable means that environmental restoration cannot be delivered solely by direct government investment. There is potential for private investment in restoration and natural capital to be incentivised. These incentives can be delivered through better information, co-investment or tax mechanisms. Government has a role to play in encouraging investment, though it is outside of the EPBC Act.

Compliance and enforcement under the EPBC Act is ineffective. A National Environmental Standard for compliance and enforcement is recommended. The Commonwealth should establish an independent Office of Compliance and Enforcement within the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment.

The complexity of the EPBC Act, the infrequency with which many interact with the law, lack of transparency, and limitations in the powers and resources available to the regulator makes voluntary compliance and the pursuit of enforcement action difficult. There is limited evidence of proactive compliance effort and the compliance posture of the Department is reactionary.

The Commonwealth should assign independent powers for Commonwealth compliance and enforcement to the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, and compliance functions should be consolidated into an Office of Compliance and Enforcement with a full suite of modern regulatory powers and tools, and adequate resourcing. A new National Environmental Standard for compliance and enforcement should be implemented to ensure a robust and consistent approach to compliance and enforcement of the EPBC Act or accredited arrangements. The Commonwealth should retain the ability to intervene in project-level compliance and enforcement, where accredited parties are not effectively dealing with egregious breaches.

Decision-makers, proponents of development and the community do not have access to the best available data, information and science. There is insufficient capability to understand the likely impacts of the interventions made. Unacceptable information gaps exist, and many protected matters are not monitored. A quantum shift in the quality of data and information including a long-term strategy, standards and clearly assigned responsibility is needed.

There is no clear, authoritative source of environmental information that people can rely on. The many disparate sources of information are hard to navigate and not always reliable. Large amounts of valuable environmental data collected are not shared, efforts are duplicated and there is no clear national strategy for environmental information. The lack of coordination drives higher costs for government and industry and derives fewer benefits from the investments that are made in information collection and curation.

The right information is not available to inform decisions. Available information is skewed towards western environmental science and does not adequately consider Indigenous knowledge of the environment or social, economic and cultural information. Unacceptable information gaps exist, and many matters protected under the EPBC Act are not monitored at all. Cumulative impacts and future challenges like climate change are not effectively considered, and advances in modelling capability are not being used. The Department’s systems for information analysis and sharing are antiquated. The current information system will not allow the full benefits of EPBC Act reform to be realised.

A national supply chain of information will deliver the right information at the right time to those who need it. Better data and information are needed to set clear outcomes, effectively plan and invest in a way that delivers them, and to efficiently regulate development. The Review recommends a framework to deliver a national environmental information supply chain that will complement the other recommended reforms. This includes a supply chain Custodian with a clear legal mandate and a clear strategy, so that each investment contributes to building and improving the system. Clear requirements for the provision and use of data and information should be immediately mandated through the National Environmental Standard for data and information.

Effective monitoring, evaluation and reporting of the EPBC Act is essential to achieve improved environmental outcomes and maintain public trust. The recommended Ecologically Sustainable Development Committee should be assigned responsibility for developing a coherent monitoring and evaluation framework for the EPBC Act. Reform is needed to provide a basis for the Commonwealth's national leadership and reporting role, including a revamp of the national State of the Environment report.

Currently there is no effective framework to support a comprehensive, data-driven evaluation of the EPBC Act. The current monitoring and reporting requirements in the EPBC Act do not span its operation. Not all requirements are met, and monitoring and reporting that is done lacks coordination. A lack of long-term monitoring makes it difficult to establish a baseline against which to evaluate performance. To determine whether the EPBC Act is operating effectively and efficiently, this Review has relied on diverse, disparate and, at times, patchy sources of information and the knowledge of contributors. In modern public policy, this is unacceptable.

The recommended Ecologically Sustainable Development Committee should be assigned responsibility for developing a coherent framework to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the EPBC Act and delivering an annual statement on environmental performance. The framework should be framed around individual plans for each National Environmental Standard for MNES and be underpinned by a National Environmental Standard for environmental monitoring and evaluation of outcomes.

There is no consistent approach to monitoring and reporting on outcomes across the national environmental management system. Meeting Australia’s international and national reporting obligations currently involves repeated, high-cost efforts. The mechanism established under the EPBC Act to provide the overarching national story on environmental outcomes – the national State of the Environment report – has no clear purpose, no feedback loop and lacks a coherent framework that supports consistency over time.

The Commonwealth has a clear leadership role in developing a broader monitoring and evaluation framework in collaboration with jurisdictions, to better understand the performance of the different parts of the national environmental management system. This includes a revamp of national State of the Environment reporting to include future outlooks and require a government response, and accelerating the development and uptake of the national environmental-economic accounts as a tool for tracking Australia’s progress toward sustainable management of the environment.

The EPBC Act is ineffective and not fit for current or future environmental challenges, and reform is long overdue. A commitment to a clear pathway of staged reform, including substantial legislative changes, is required to achieve the improvements. Continuous, incremental improvement is needed – reform cannot be ‘set and forget’ nor should individual elements from the package of reform be implemented in isolation. Broad reform is needed.

A commitment to a clear pathway of staged reform, including substantial legislative changes, is required to achieve the improvements. This requires ongoing monitoring and evaluation, and adjustments as lessons are learnt and new information and ways of doing things emerge. Stakeholders must be willing to accept reform, facilitated by sensible incremental changes. For long-term economic growth, environmental improvement and the effective protection of Australia’s iconic places and heritage, the full package of reforms must be realised.