National Environmental Protection Agency Bill 2025

Mr BURKE (Watson—Minister for the Arts, Minister for Home Affairs, Minister for Cyber Security, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship and Leader of the House) (15:28): I thank the member for the issues that have been raised. The government will not be supporting this amendment. Thousands of decisions are made under the EPBC Act every year, including things like issuing permits.

Many decisions that would be published in the register are routine. Therefore, it would be undue administrative burden to require reasons to be published in every single circumstance. The current reforms, and specifically section 232 of the bill, provide that recommendation reports for approval decisions are published.

This is an improvement on the current process that we have, where interested parties need to apply for a statement of reasons.