Australian Environment & Planning Year in Review 2025
Welcome to our Australian Environment & Planning 2025 Year in Review
Our national Environment, Planning and First Nations team is delighted to publish our inaugural Environment & Planning Year in Review.
This publication covers legislative, policy and judicial developments in Australia during 2025 relating to environmental and planning law, climate regulation, protection of biodiversity and contamination.
2025 was a significant year for environmental and planning reform in Australia. At a macro level, the year saw Australia grappling with the transition towards renewable generation, the ongoing phase-out of coal fired generation, housing affordability and the heightened need to balance development with environment protection, particularly for biodiversity conservation.
The highlight of the year was the Federal Government's success in enacting the long-awaited EPBC Act reforms designed to implement the recommendations of the Samuel Report. The EPBC Act reforms required extensive engagement with business and community groups and, not surprisingly, there were a range of compromises made to obtain support for the passage of the legislation. The reforms are significant and will reshape for the next generation the process for assessment and approval of Australia's largest projects and the protection of our national environment. The reforms introduce new requirements for decisions on new EPBC Act projects to meet national environmental standards, to not have unacceptable impacts and to provide a "net gain" in respect of biodiversity. They also provide the opportunity for greater participation by the States in the granting of EPBC Act approvals.
A consistent theme across Australia in 2025 was reform to State planning frameworks to tackle housing affordability, accelerate the roll out of renewable energy infrastructure and improve the efficiency of approvals processes. This was coupled with major advancements in biodiversity protection laws which are becoming ever more complex at both the State and Federal level.
As the rollout of renewable projects gathered pace across rural areas in eastern Australia and the impact on local communities rapidly increased, it became increasingly important during 2025 for proponents to take positive action to build a social licence for major projects. State Governments responded by introducing measures for social impact assessments and community benefit agreements between project proponents and local communities to assist in managing the community impacts arising from the roll out of the infrastructure. The need to manage project impacts on the local community was also highlighted by the High Court in a 2025 decision on private nuisance arising from the impact of a major infrastructure project on local community business.
Finally, at a global level, the law and policy around climate change continued to evolve during 2025 and the growing world-wide problem arising from PFAS contamination required further regulatory intervention at the domestic level.
Looking ahead, over the next 12 months we will see appeal court decisions on a number of climate change disputes, the commencement of implementation of the EPBC Act reforms and more interaction between project developers and the community as the rollout of renewable energy generation and transmission infrastructure accelerates.
Contents
- EPBC Act reforms: most significant change to Australia's environmental law in decades
- Deep dive into global climate change litigation in 2025
- NSW EPA's new prescriptive climate change mitigation requirements mean big changes for high-emitting industries
- Hefty fines for failing to report SF6 synthetic greenhouse gas imports
- Land Court recommends mine expansion not be approved because of inadequate GHG emissions mitigation measures
- Amendments to NSW environmental laws: a major number of minor amendments
- NSW Planning system reforms
- Amendments to Victoria's planning laws have commenced, but there is much more to come
- Queensland environmental reform continues
- Environment and planning developments in Western Australia
- WA's new State Development Act 2025 to streamline regulatory approval process for State significant development
- New powers to facilitate significant projects in Northern Territory
- New community benefit system means additional challenges for Queensland renewable energy projects
- Big changes for regulation of WA renewable energy projects
- NSW implements 'net positive' Biodiversity Conservation Act reforms
- South Australia's new Biodiversity Act: Key changes and next steps
- A new age of enforcement under the NSW Water Management Act
- The Victorian "general environmental duty": insights from recent decisions
- VCAT reinforces EPA's broad discretion on remedial notice recipients
- Recent developments in PFAS regulation around Australia
- Paving the way for 2032 – Recent amendments to the Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games Arrangements Act 2021 (Qld)
We hope you enjoy reading the publication and encourage you to reach out to us if you would like to discuss any aspect of the articles.
The articles in this publication are current as of 20 April 2026.
