Mulloon Law Committee - update
Leaky weir at Peter’s Pond, ‘Mulloon Creek Natural Farms’, NSW
State-based Regulations
As we expand our landscape-scale repair and rehydration work out around Australia through the National Rehydration Initiative, the obstacles of state-based regulations continue to loom large. Despite some significant progress in NSW, the need for a national approach has become the real ‘end game’ if we are to substantially restore Australia’s degraded landscapes and boost their resilience to a changing climate. It would seem the Federal Government is well placed to standardise regulations if it follows suggestions and recommendations in the recent State of the Environment Report, released by the Minister for Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek.
State of the Environment Report
"The Australian Committee of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (Zischka et al. 2013) calls for all sectors ‘to break down jurisdictional silos and boundaries and create new models and partnerships..."
"Inland water management in Australia also suffers from lack of integrated management. Flow impacts (e.g. water extraction, changes in catchment hydrology) and nonflow impacts (e.g. grazing, introduced species, loss of instream habitat) are usually subject to different management accountabilities and planning arrangements. "
We need "Greater standardisation or uniformity of approaches to management. Areas that would benefit from standardisation include national environmental standards, environmental impact assessments, risk management (in particular, in response to climate change), and data capture and management (see Samuel 2020)."
NSW Infrastructure State Environment Planning Policy
In NSW, we anticipate that Planning Minister Anthony Roberts will release a new Infrastructure State Environment Planning Policy (ISEPP) later this year, following his department taking on-board the Mulloon Institute’s suggestions. While the ISEPP will certainly make gaining approval for our work less bureaucratic, it would appear the department is not yet keen on preparing a ‘code of practice’ that would substantially assist in implementing works on the ground.
Opportunity
With every state and territory having different legislation and regulations for environmental repair works, and given the urgent need of such works as described in the State of the Environment Report, there is a golden opportunity for the Federal Government to act on this with national consistency and standards.
We have approached the Federal Environment Minister to offer our experience in dealing with jurisdictions around Australia and hope that we can work with her and her department on what could be a very positive outcome for the environment, for agriculture and for our climate.