Address to the National Biodiversity Offsets Conference

Thank you for the invitation to join you this morning. I’d like to start by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the lands we’re gathered on today, the Ngunnawal people, and the deep and abiding connection of First Nations peoples to Australia’s lands and waters. I’d also like to recognise our hosts today, the Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand, and the work that you do to promote a sustainable future for Australia.

It’s been a big 12 months in environmental policy at the Federal level! You would know that late last year our government delivered on our commitment to strengthen and streamline our national environmental law, better known as the EPBC Act. Today, I’d like to update you on progress with those historic reforms and talk through what they mean for environmental offsets, which I know is the focus of this event.

EPBC REFORM First though, it’s worth remembering the purpose of the EPBC reforms. First, to drive long-lasting change, to strengthen protections for our precious natural environment. Second, to deliver more efficient and robust project assessments - speeding up the approval of the homes, energy and critical minerals projects our nation needs.

And third, to provide greater accountability and transparency in decision making. The reforms were hard-won and were only achieved with a balanced reform package that achieves those three things. We are working now to implement the reforms as quickly as possible, and the good news is that some of them are already well underway.

In addition, on 1 July this year, Australia’s first ever National Environmental Protection Agency was established - a strong, independent watchdog to improve environmental regulation and compliance. Led by John Bradley as the inaugural Chief Executive Officer, the National EPA is a signature feature of our reforms, with stronger new powers, such as new environment protection orders.

It has also been tasked with holding serious environmental rule breakers to account for the environmental harm they have caused. The creation of a National EPA is a long-held ambition that is now a reality, supported with more than $250 million in funding over the next two years alone. One month in, the EPA is already getting on with environmental assessments and compliance and enforcement activities, including for the changes to agricultural land clearing laws that were included in the reforms.

The statutory functions of the Head of Environment Information Australia (EIA) also commenced on 1 July this year. EIA is tasked with transparently reporting on trends in the environment, collecting information and producing consistent tracking of the state of Australia's environment. Better data is critical to protecting areas of high environmental value, all while enabling better, faster decisions by government and business.

In the meantime, we’re also working on transitional arrangements, developing supporting regulations and working with states and territories on new approval pathways – bilateral agreements, bioregional plans, and the transition of Regional Forest Agreements. Which are all crucial to achieving those three objectives - strong environmental protections, faster and better decisions and more transparency.

We’ll continue to consult widely throughout the implementation process - particularly about aspects that are new or different. NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL STANDARDS One of our biggest tasks this year has been the development of legally binding National Environmental Standards, which are a cornerstone of the reforms. As recommended in the Samuel Review, the new Standards will provide clear, consistent benchmarks for decisions, giving more confidence around environmental protection and more certainty to project proponents.

Standards will apply broadly across the Act and must be met for all proposals under the Environmental Assessment Pathways, Strategic Assessments, Accreditation and Bioregional Plans. The only exception, as recommended by Professor Samuel, would be where a project is approved, despite not meeting the standards, because it is in the national interest, which would be a very rare occurrence.

I thank all who have been part of the consultation process, which is now complete for the first four priority Standards: Matters of National Environmental Significance (MNES) Environmental Offsets Community Engagement Data and Information. We remain on track to make Australia’s first National Environmental Standards soon, and they will begin applying to assessments and approval decisions later this year, when the new approval tests commence.

To give one example, the Matters of National Environmental Significance (MNES) Standard sets out requirements for decisions to provide for the protection, conservation, and where appropriate, management, restoration and recovery of protected matters.​ It provides an overarching framework to guide decision-making and proponents, ensuring appropriate consideration of any adverse impacts to protected matters.

This includes that significant impacts are minimised to the full extent possible. The MNES Standard also includes the requirement to follow a Mitigation Hierarchy, setting out the sequential consideration of avoidance, mitigation, repair of impact, before consideration of compensation – otherwise known as offsets. ENVIRONMENTAL OFFSETS STANDARD That brings me to the Standard that might be of most interest to this conference – the Environmental Offsets Standard.

Often when we think about environmental offsets, we think in terms of trade-offs. About a fundamental choice between development or conservation. Jobs or nature.

But as with the way we approached the broader reforms to the EPBC Act, I think that is the wrong way to frame the debate. We believe that we can achieve both development and conservation and importantly, Australians expect all of us who work within this system to achieve both. They expect us to build the homes our communities need.

To deliver the renewable energy and transmission infrastructure that will underpin our future prosperity. To develop the critical minerals the world increasingly depends upon. And they also expect us to protect our most sensitive areas and leave Australia's extraordinary natural environment in better condition than we found it.

I think it’s important to acknowledge upfront that this hasn’t always been the outcome of our offsets system. There are good reasons why many people would be sceptical about the ability to achieve both development and conservation. That’s why we are intentionally seeking to reform the offsets system as a whole.

Offsets were never intended to be the end point, in and of themselves. They were never intended to become just another development input or simply another line item in a project's budget. They exist to address those impacts that genuinely cannot be avoided after real effort has been made to avoid them, minimise them and restore them.

Because in a country as large, sparsely populated and biodiverse as Australia, there is inevitably conflict between development and nature. But when we look at the system we do have to remember that the best protection starts with prevention. The best habitat is the habitat that remains undisturbed and the best threatened species recovery is the one that never required compensation in the first place.

When proponents invest early in site selection, project design and impact avoidance, everyone benefits and we achieve the three things that have been key to our reforms the whole way through. Firstly, nature is better protected Secondly, projects move through the system faster. And finally, communities have greater confidence in the transparency and integrity of our system.

The fundamental building block of this aspect of the reforms is the draft National Environmental Standard for Environmental Offsets, which is nearing completion. This Standard will represent the first time the requirements for environmental offsets have been formalised in a legally binding legislative instrument at the national level. The Environmental Offsets Standard builds on the mitigation hierarchy set out in the MNES Standard, providing a framework for offsets activities (where permitted) to adequately compensate for damage from the residual significant impacts of an action.

It is underpinned by three outcomes and eight core principles that will help guide proponents on what we are looking for when assessing applications – delivering transparency in the process. As you will see in the final standard, they go to matters including the feasibility of offsets, their measurability, their additionality and their like-for-like nature. In finalising all the standards, we have taken into account the widespread feedback on the earlier drafts we published.

I’m sure that many people in this room have worked hard on submissions to that consultation, and I thank you for your considered input. Ultimately, we want to get the balance right to achieve all three of our core goals and I think we are heading in the right direction. Once finalised, the Standard will be supported by guidance, published rulings and an updated offsets calculator – which we will also welcome your input on.

OTHER KEY REFORMS As I mentioned, the remainder of the reforms will start by 1 December 2026 at the latest. This is when proponents will have access to the new streamlined approval pathways and the new requirements under the EPBC Act commence. These are the most complex aspects of the reforms and require the most lead time to develop the supporting EPBC Regulations for consultation and develop guidance for implementation.

Before concluding, I wanted to highlight a few of these reforms, with particular relevance to environmental offsets. Firstly, and most importantly, there will now be a legislated requirement to compensate for any residual significant impact on protected matters, after appropriate consideration of the mitigation hierarchy. Further, we are shifting the dial from ‘no net loss’ to the environment to ‘net gain’ for the environment.

To ensure offsets more than compensate for any environmental damage that cannot be avoided, mitigated or repaired. This is critical to achieving the intent of the Samuel Review, in not just protecting nature, but in restoring it and turning around nature’s declining trajectory. We acknowledge that this is not something that will be easy to achieve – both in practice for proponents and in outcomes for nature.

That’s why to support this change, we are also providing more flexibility and more options in how proponents can offset their impact and meet the net gain requirement. For example, we are establishing a new Restoration Contributions scheme, allowing proponents to, in certain circumstances, make payments to acquit their offset liability. These funds will then be used to deliver strategic, landscape-scale offsets that deliver a net gain for the environment.

The funds will be managed by an independent statutory office – the Restoration Contribution Holder – with legislated requirements on how those funds are to be used. We will learn from what has and hasn’t worked in similar schemes and I understand that Shane Gaddes, who is leading this work, will be part of a panel later in this conference. The Contribution Holder will also be supported by a new statutory advisory committee to ensure that how we deliver the strategic offsetting projects is informed by the best possible advice.

We’ll be opening EOIs for that committee soon. We have also removed the restriction from utilising Nature Repair Market certificates as offsets. Not all Nature Repair Market projects will be used as environmental offsets.

A market participant will be able to choose whether their project is designed to be offset-capable, and the Market will continue to support voluntary action on nature repair. But we do expect this change will support broader participation in the Nature Repair Market, complement voluntary action and provide another assurance as to the robustness of offsets. Finally, we are making it easier to utilise ‘advanced offsets’ – that is offset projects that can begin and be recognised as offsets before they are required to be utilised to compensate for particular impacts.

This creates greater certainty for proponents, speeding up approvals and reducing the time lag between impacts on the environment and the beneficial outcomes of offset projects. We are supporting this through the creation of an advanced offsets register and a process, managed by the National EPA, for applying to have projects recognised on the register. In conclusion, you can see that a lot has happened since our reforms passed the Senate in November last year.

And we’re keeping up the pace to see through the implementation task. Ultimately, our reforms are about restoring trust in the system. Including trust that offsets are used only where they should be and trust that they genuinely will improve environmental outcomes.

And overall, trust that Australia can continue to grow our economy while safeguarding the natural world that belongs not just to us, but to every generation that follows. Thank you again for inviting me here to speak to you today, and I hope you enjoy what I am sure will be a very informative conference. We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of country throughout Australia and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture.

We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.