2026 John Sinclair Memorial Lecture, Brisbane

Good afternoon everyone and thanks very much for being here. I’d like to start, as we rightly do, by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the lands on which we gather today, the Turrbal and Jagera people, and pay my respects to their elders, past present and emerging. And given the nature of this event and its organisers, I think it’s also appropriate to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of K’Gari, the Butchulla people, and pay my respects to their elders as well.

Their care for the land and sea on and around that magnificent island really is something special and worth acknowledging. I would also like to thank Charmaine Foley and all present from the Fraser Island Defenders Organisation, for the invitation to speak to you all today. Your ongoing work to defend and protect K’gari has left a lasting legacy for us all to appreciate.

INTRODUCTION In May this year I got up early on a chilly Brisbane morning and drove out from my home on the Northside to the Redcliffe Aerodrome. There I boarded a light plane, with a few others, to visit Lady Elliott Island, off Gladstone. We spent the day inspecting the Southern Great Barrier Reef, learning how government funding is protecting its corals, fish and other marine life and how years of nature restoration efforts are bringing back the birds that had abandoned the island.

It was one of the better days in the job! A short time after we took off, we passed the beautiful Glasshouse Mountains as we snaked along the coastline heading north. We flew low over the Noosa headland and Cooloola and swung past the stunning Rainbow Beach.

Places I’ve enjoyed camping and bushwalking many times with my family and friends. And then we came upon the natural wonder that is K’Gari. The largest sand island in the world, World Heritage listed and home to the Butchulla people for tens of thousands of years.

Whose lakes, forests, wildlife and beaches are beloved the world over and have drawn royalty, celebrities and tourists alike to see its wondrous beauty. It was the first time I had seen K’Gari from the air at such low altitude - and it took my breath away. The thick forest canopy meeting the white sands, those pristine lakes and subtle marks of human settlement are something to behold.

Seeing K’gari from that vantage point gave a true sense of its significance and made me appreciate, even more, the work done by so many to protect it, including the man who we are here to honour today. JOHN SINCLAIR John Sinclair was a remarkable Australian. I am sad to say I never met John, but I know he was a revered and cherished friend to some in the audience today.

Including my old friend, Peter Shooter, who has shared with me some of John’s life story. Born into a well-known local family in Maryborough, John went to school and grew up in a community where he had great freedom to roam the surrounding bush with his brothers and friends and developed a deep feeling for nature, at a very early age. He was an active Boy Scout, which enhanced his bushcraft and also a sense of community.

His family was politically conservative, aligned to the Country Party of which his father was a member. John too was a member - perhaps one of the last conservationists left in what is now the National Party! John’s connections with K’gari were lifelong.

His parents were married on K’gari and his father built a house at Eurong. It became part of who John was and as life progressed, he grew increasingly enamoured of it. John spent 26 years working in the Department of Education and during that time completed a Degree in Economics as an external student.

He was a dedicated public servant and a strongly committed family man. But all that time John had a parallel love in his life – his love for nature. He joined the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland and rose to serve as its State President for eight years.

In 1968 John led his first WPSQ safari to Fraser Island, as it was known back then. His interest in the wonders of K’gari were growing and in the late 1970s things started to happen on the island that deeply concerned him. As I remember from my own childhood, Queensland politics was under the thumb of the dictatorial National Party Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen, who was fiercely pro-development and especially pro-mining.

To that end, Joh’s government had issued permits to explore for mining over large parts of K’gari and large mining companies wanted to go further, applying for mining leases. With John Sinclair at the forefront, a group of local environmentalists got activated and formed the Fraser Island Defenders Organisation (FIDO), to oppose what they saw as the potential damage to a natural treasure.

The rest is history. The battle was long, hard and brutal. It involved raising public awareness, protesting, lobbying, and taking legal action that eventually ended in a favourable decision in the High Court.

This was groundbreaking stuff and John was central to it all. His reputation grew – winning him The Australian newspaper’s Australian of the Year in 1976 - and it bought him into direct confrontation with the then Queensland Premier. Joh regarded John as a traitor, as John was a National Party member, and an employee of the Queensland Government.

Along the way Bjelke-Petersen did everything he could to silence John, including having his job transferred from Maryborough to Ipswich, a major disruption for John and his young family. But through all this, John continued his work to protect K’gari. Despite John working frantically on the campaign in his own time as a volunteer, his work in the Department of Education in Adult Education was of the highest order, and Joh simply could not find a legitimate reason to sack him.

Eventually he used the blunt instrument of declaring John’s position redundant, by resolution of an Executive Council minute. Joh thought he had won. He had effectively sacked John Sinclair and thought that would be the end of him.

It was not to be. John went on to establish a successful nature tourism venture – Go Bush Safaris – and continued the fight. Meanwhile, with the election of the Whitlam Government, pressure turned towards Canberra over the future of Fraser Island.

It became one of many issues that saw Whitlam and Bjelke-Petersen at loggerheads. Whitlam established an inquiry, which recommended ending sandmining on Fraser Island. But of course, Whitlam was kicked out of the Lodge by Governor-General John Kerr (an actual traitor) before being able to act on the recommendation, sparking concern about what the incoming Fraser Government would do.

Fortunately, mineral sand mining was eventually ended in 1976, by a decision of Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser who, new to office, upheld the findings of the inquiry and withdrew export licences for mineral sands from K’gari. Bjelke-Petersen was outraged. John Sinclair was delighted.

The long bitter campaign he had run with Joh had been resolved in his favour. John continued to advocate for the protection of K’gari and in the 1980s John and FIDO turned their attention to ending logging of native forests on K’gari. In 1989 Labor finally won Government in Queensland, after 32 years of authoritarian National Party Government.

With Wayne Goss as Premier, John and FIDO moved quickly to encourage the new Government to implement their progressive policies on K’gari and end logging. Eventually Goss appointed Tony Fitzgerald, whose seminal report had exposed the corruption of Joh’s Government, to do an inquiry into the future of the forestry industry on K’gari. The recommendation was that the industry was unsustainable and logging on K’gari ended in 1991.

The National Park was extended across the island and K’gari was World Heritage listed in 1992, affording it international attention and protection. While John sadly passed away in 2019, the impact of his work lives on today through FIDO and other environmental organisations. It has also become a model for engagement and advocacy on matters of heritage protection for iconic natural wonders.

A fight that goes on, to this day. Prior to its defeat, the previous Labor State Government was progressing a plan to add Cape York to the World Heritage list, a move that has stalled under the current LNP State Government. Last year I travelled to UNESCO headquarters in Paris, to support the bid of Traditional Owners, for World Heritage listing of the Murujuga landscape in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.

A bid that was successful and will protect the landscape’s ancient rock art and cultural significance for generations to come. And while there, I was pleased to secure the renaming of Fraser Island on the World Heritage List to adopt its traditional name, K’gari. Something supported by the Butchulla people and reflecting the formal name change by the former Queensland Government in 2023.

Two examples that demonstrate that protecting our precious environment is at the heart of every decision I make as Federal Environment Minister. And it’s why the Albanese Labor Government has made such strong progress in fixing our country’s broken environmental laws. EPBC REFORMS Reforming the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, better known as the EPBC Act, has been by far my biggest focus since taking on this role 15 months ago.

Those reforms were desperately needed, with Professor Graeme Samuel’s review finding, over five years ago, that the Act was fundamentally broken, in three ways. It was failing our environment, whose trajectory has continued to go backwards. It was failing the business community, with cumbersome and duplicated processes holding up decisions on important housing, energy and minerals projects.

And it was failing all of us - the wider community - with a lack of transparency and accountability undermining trust in the system. That’s why it was so important that late last year, our government was able to deliver on our election commitment, to strengthen and streamline the EPBC Act. These historic reforms were designed to fix those three failings I just mentioned.

First, to drive long-lasting change and strengthen protections for our precious natural environment. Second, to deliver quicker and more efficient processes to assess and approve those key 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. I could spend the rest of this speech running through all aspects of what is truly a huge reform package, but here are just some of the highlights of Labor’s reforms. For the first time, Australia now has a National Environmental Protection Agency, a strong, independent regulator with a clear focus on ensuring better compliance with, and stronger enforcement of, Australia's new environmental laws.

In another first, Australia now has National Environmental Standards, to ensure clear, strong benchmarks for decisions, to better protect the environment. We’ve introduced much higher penalties for the most significant breaches of environmental law. We have removed the exemption from the Act for high-risk land clearing and regional forest agreements.

This means that - just like every other industry - agriculture and forestry in RFA areas will now require Federal assessment and approval where they could impact on nationally protected matters. Here in Queensland, the land clearing changes are particularly significant, since poor clearing practices can see the destruction of threatened species and increased sediment runoff impacting the Great Barrier Reef.

These are changes that no Federal Government has been prepared to make, until now. We will also now require proponents of large emitting projects to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and their emission reduction plan in their referral documentation – another first. We have maintained the Federal power to assess and approve large coal and unconventional gas projects, where they might impact on water resources.

Because the water table in areas like the Murray Darling Basin obviously goes across state boundaries, and therefore the water trigger is absolutely essential. We have better defined what an unacceptable impact on the environment is in the project approvals process, so that projects that would irreplaceably damage the environment get a straight out no. And we have required, by law, that a proponent would need to avoid, mitigate or minimise the environmental impact of a project before offsetting it.

And if they do turn to offsets, then they've got to deliver a net gain for the environment – a key recommendation of the Samuel Review to ensure that we don’t just protect the environment, but restore it. Now there’s a lot more to these reforms than what I’ve just taken you through, but even that list shows you the breadth and significance of the changes we’ve made.

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. I’ll take a moment now to explain how the implementation of the reforms is starting to address those three key objectives – protecting what’s precious, powering productivity and increasing transparency. PROTECTING WHAT’S PRECIOUS 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 Graeme Samuel’s Review, the new Standards – which I signed off just last week - will provide clear, consistent benchmarks for decisions, giving more confidence around environmental protection and more certainty to project proponents. Put simply, the Standards set the rules for what projects must demonstrate, in order to be approved. 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. This would be a very rare occurrence. The first four Standards were finalised last week, after an exhaustive consultation process with environment, industry, First Nations and other groups and they set out the new requirements covering: Matters of National Environmental Significance (MNES) Environmental Offsets Community Engagement, and Data and Information.

They now apply to State and Territory processes that we accredit and agreements that we reach, and will apply to assessments and approval decisions for individual projects later this year, when the relevant amendments commence. To give one example, I’ll quickly explain how the Matters of National Environmental Significance (MNES) Standard will work. It’s not always understood that the Federal Government only regulates nine environmental matters, known as Matters of National Environmental Significance.

We don’t get involved in every environmental issue, but we do for those nine, which include potential impacts on threatened species or ecological communities, National and World Heritage sites, the Great Barrier Reef and wetlands of international significance. So the MNES Standard sets out the requirements that must be met, when assessing a proposed project, to ensure that we protect, conserve, and where appropriate, manage, restore and recover those nine nationally protected matters.​ This includes a requirement that significant impacts are minimised to the full extent possible.

The MNES Standard also includes the requirement to follow a Mitigation Hierarchy, meaning that a proponent’s efforts to avoid, mitigate and repair impact will be considered, before consideration of compensation – otherwise known as offsets. While guidance on these kinds of matters has been available before, what is significant about this and the other Standards is that they provide, for the first time, clear, written and legally enforceable rules that must be met, providing a greater level of environmental protection that has previously been possible.

POWERING PRODUCTIVITY Of course, providing a set of clear rules is also important to project proponents and assists them design their projects in a way that minimises environmental impact and obtains faster approval. And as I’ve said, that’s because the second objective of our reforms is to simplify our processes, to speed up the assessment and approval of the housing, energy and mineral projects we need.

Some of the key changes in our reforms to deliver on that objective include: A new Streamlined Assessment Pathway, to significantly reduce the timeframe for proponents who provide sufficient environmental information upfront. New and improved bilateral agreements with states to remove duplication for the assessment and approval of projects, against our national standards.

And regional planning, to deliver ‘go’ and ‘no go’ zones for development, based on their level of environmental sensitivity. We’re also using the new environmental standards to more clearly set out requirements for environmental offsets. Often when we think about 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. One of the ways we’re seeking to achieve that balance is through the new National Environmental Standard for Environmental Offsets, which is now complete.

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. And the first time that offsets are legally required to deliver a net gain for the environment, to help with its restoration and turn around its ongoing decline. Similarly, the Community Engagement Standard will set legally enforceable requirements for engagement with the community when considering a project’s impacts on matters protected under the national environment law including endangered species, habitats and heritage.

The CE Standard will achieve this by: setting clear expectations for community engagement encouraging open and transparent engagement with the community; and encouraging collaborative approaches to consider community views and impacts on protected matters. Finally, the Data & Information Standard sets requirements to ensure decisions made under the EPBC Act are made using data and information that is representative, transparent, comparable, reusable and ethical.

The Data & Information Standard provides clear and consistent requirements for collecting and supplying environment data and information. GREATER ENVIRONMENTAL TRANSPARENCY The third and final objective of our EPBC reforms is to increase the transparency and accountability around environmental decision making. We have to acknowledge a lack of trust about that decision making, among many in the community, and these reforms are an opportunity to change that.

That’s one of the drivers for the creation of Australia’s first ever National Environmental Protection Agency, which commenced operation on 1 July this year. For the first time, Australia now has a strong, independent watchdog to improve environmental regulation and compliance. Led by John Bradley – an experienced environmental regulator across various states - 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 and has access to and much higher penalties. 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. Seven weeks 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 a little-known, but very important, body that 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, so this change to strengthen EIA is of critical importance to the success of our reforms.

OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL PRIORITIES I’ve focused on our EPBC reforms today and time does not permit me to detail some of the other priorities of our government, when it comes to environmental protection, such as: Investing in further action to protect the Great Barrier Reef, which resulted in retaining its iconic World Heritage status. Delivering on our commitment to protect 30 per cent of Australia’s land and sea by 2030 so that it can recover and replenish – a target we are well and truly on the way to meeting.

Protecting our most threatened and vulnerable species from diseases such as the highly deadly strain of bird flu now on our shores – part of our commitment to no new extinctions. And approving over 150 renewable energy projects, an important step in meeting our ambitious and achievable emissions reduction targets, while investing in research to minimise their environmental impacts.

That, of course, complements the tremendous work of my colleagues, Tanya Plibersek and Chris Bowen, who have worked so hard to advance our government’s climate and environmental agenda. Put it all together and I truly believe that John Sinclair would nod his head at the Albanese Government’s record on our natural environment. Because it’s only Labor Governments that can actually deliver for our environment.

And we do that because securing a healthy natural environment matters to working people. It’s Australia’s working people whose health, lifestyles and jobs rely on clean air, water and nature. Australia’s vast landscapes and our unique wildlife are renowned the world over, and we must do everything possible to protect them.

I am very proud of our great party’s strong environmental legacy. From Gough creating the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and ratifying the World Heritage Convention. To Hawkie stopping the Franklin Dam, establishing Landcare and returning Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park to its traditional owners and Keating delivering our first ever endangered species protection laws.

And Kevin and Julia taking real action on climate change, and protecting the Murray-Darling Basin. And now, under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, we’re cementing more important reforms, including our first ever National EPA, delivering lasting change to protect the environment. I acknowledge that some of that work has had the support of the Greens Party.

And I hope we see that more often, rather than previous occasions where they’ve obstructed that progress, making perfect the enemy of the good. Right now, we are seeking the Greens Party’s support to put in place a new methodology which would allow State Governments to generate carbon credits by stopping native forest logging. Something you would think the Greens would support, but on which they are deeply split.

I certainly hope common sense prevails and they work with us, to achieve real environmental outcomes. Because there is more to do, to reverse the decade of environmental neglect we saw under the Coalition, who haven’t changed and now want to burrow down extreme right wing rabbit holes, in the pursuit of One Nation. Abandoning net zero, abolishing the environment department and letting development rip without regard for the consequences.

In conclusion, whether it be the work of John Sinclair, his comrades at FIDO, environmental groups and successive Labor Governments, there is much to be proud of, in the nature protection space. But we must acknowledge that that work is at serious risk. There has never been a clearer political divide between those who want to protect our precious nature and those who simply don’t care about it.

Or even worse, those who want to exploit it for their personal gain, with no regard for ensuring the ongoing management of our unique flora and fauna. And sadly, we still see parallels from John Sinclair’s times today. Many of the same battles he fought are being fought again or have the potential to flare up again.

At a federal level, One Nation want to completely scrap all government spending on Climate Change, the Environment and Water. That would have a devastating impact on our country’s ability to protect and restore the environment, putting enormous pressure on philanthropic and volunteer organisations to do all of the heavy lifting on it. But they can’t form government without their dutiful lap dogs in the Liberal and National Parties, who seem intent on following One Nation down the garden path of divisive and chaotic policy ideas.

At a state level here in Queensland while the Crisafulli Government cannot, as yet, be compared to the Bjelke-Petersen regime, we continue to see a stunning step backwards on climate and environment policies. Whether that be their ideological opposition to renewable energy projects, the cleanest and cheapest from of power available here in Queensland, that will help slow climate change.

Or their refusal to sign up to national rules for new data centres, regulating the massive amounts of energy and drinking water they can use. It is my view that there is a lot that we can all learn from John Sinclair. John thought that nature is worth protecting.

I agree and I know you do too. John stood up against political parties that were not focused on the public good or the long-term interests of the environment. That’s what my colleagues and I do down in Canberra every single day.

And John never gave up on his beliefs in the face of long, drawn out and at times vicious campaigning against him, and I encourage everyone to do the same. More than ever, it is vital that those of us who want to see greater protection for Australia’s beautiful environment, including places like K’Gari, come together to fight for it. Where there is division and chaos, we must meet it with unity and hope.

And, like John Sinclair, we will win. Thank you very much. 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.