What does the 2024-25 Federal Budget say about environment, planning and First Nations issues?

What you need to know

• The Government has announced an investment of around $307 million of "nature positive improvements in our laws and institutions" in the 2024-2025 budget.
• This includes the already announced funding to establish the EPA and EIA and to strengthen and streamline environmental approval decisions.
• It remains to be seen whether funding provided to improve assessment pathways will have the desired effect of removing clogs in the approvals system and allow for more timely decision making.
• It seems unlikely that further reforms to implement Stage Three of the Nature Positive Plan will be introduced before the next election.

What you need to do

• Keep an eye on the introduction of legislation to create the EPA and EIA in early June 2024.
• Consider the potential impacts of the proposed reforms on your business and consider participating in consultation on environmental law reform either directly or through a relevant industry body.

Reminder: Where had the Federal Government landed on environmental law reform pre-Budget?

On 16 April 2024, the Australian Government announced that in the coming weeks it will introduce legislation to establish Environment Protection Australia (EPA) and Environment Information Australia (EIA). The EPA will administer the EPBC Act whilst the EIA will provide environmental data and information to the Government and public. We wrote about the EPA and EIA in our 13 February alert Overhaul of Australian environmental laws begins in earnest with release of detailed consultation papers.

It is not clear when the remainder of the reforms will be progressed. The Minister's 16 April 2024 announcement says that the Government will fully deliver the third stage of environment law reform contained in the Nature Positive Plan, and that there will be a comprehensive exposure draft of the new laws released for public consultation prior to their introduction to Parliament. However, no timing is mentioned and it is not clear whether this will occur before the next election due by September 2025.

The Federal Government has made several environment policy announcements as part of its 2024-25 budget, and many of the initiatives had already been announced.

What does the Budget say about the EPA and EIA?

The Minster for the Environment and Water's 14 May 2024 media release Advancing Nature Positive Australia says "We’re … investing around $307 million of nature positive improvements in our laws and institutions".

This includes:

• $121 million for Australia’s first national independent Environment Protection Agency with strong new powers and penalties to better protect nature (new EPA - already announced as part of the Nature Positive Reforms).
• $51.5 million for more accountability and transparency with new body called Environment Information Australia which will give the public and businesses easier access to the latest environmental data, release State of the Environment reports every two years, and report on progress on national environmental goals (new EIA - already announced as part of the Nature Positive Reforms).

Funding to improve the assessment system

The Budget's Future Made in Australia – Strengthening Approvals Processes section includes a number of measures designed to remove clogs in the Federal environmental approvals system. According to the Minster's media release, this includes $134.2 million to strengthen and streamline environmental approval decisions on priority projects, including renewables and critical minerals projects.

The Government had previously announced $96.6 million of this funding to be used to:

• support staff to assess project proposals, and support for businesses to help them comply with the law ($7 million);
• fund extra research into threatened species so sensitive areas can be more easily avoided and suitable projects can be more quickly approved based on robust, existing publicly available data ($65.1 million); and
• better planning with State and Territory Governments in seven priority regions so it’s clearer to business where complying development can more easily occur and where the ‘no go’ areas are ($24.5 million).

The Budget also includes $19.9 million to process assessments for priority renewable energy related projects.

Energy policy and the Future Made in Australia package

The budget contains detail on the Federal Government's $22.7 billion Future Made in Australia package (Future Made Package). The Future Made Package includes new policies, tax incentives and expenditure aimed at helping Australia become a renewable energy "superpower", securing its place in a changing global economic and strategic landscape.

We provide more detail about this in our 17 May 2024 alert: Supporting a future 'Made in Australia' – Energy policy announcements in the 2024-25 federal budget.

Native title and cultural heritage law reform and assessment pathways

The Budget includes a number of First Nations initiatives including:

• First Nations Justice Policy Outcomes: $43.1 million over four years and an ongoing $3.6 million per year towards improving justice outcomes for First Nations individuals.
• This includes $0.5 million to the Australian Law Reform Commission to review the future acts regime within the Native Title Act and $20.2 million over four years to the Federal Court of Australia and the National Native Title Tribunal to preserve culturally and historically significant native title records and address the backlog of native title claims and post-determination disputes.
• Strengthening Approvals Processes: $17.7 million to reduce the backlog and support administration of complex applications under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 (Cth) and progress the reform of Australia’s cultural heritage laws.

We will be writing about these issues further in our upcoming Native Title Year in Review 2023-2024 (to be published in early June 2024).

Other initiatives

The 2024-25 budget includes the following environment initiatives:

• Nature Repair Market: $35.6 million over two years from 2024-25 to continue developing the processes and systems needed to administer the Nature Repair Market. Further funding for the Nature Repair Market will be considered depending on its scale, complexity and demand.
• Circular economy framework: $23 million in 2024-25 to develop a new national circular economy framework, continue to tackle problematic waste streams, such as packaging, and get on with the development of a much-needed new recycling scheme for solar panels. Further funding for circular economy will be considered following development of the new framework.
• Climate and energy diplomacy: $76.5 million has been allocated to climate and energy diplomacy with Pacific and international organisations ahead of Australia’s bid to host the COP31 international climate summit.
• Guarantee of Origin Scheme: $32.3 million over four years to fast-track the initial phase of the Guarantee of Origin Scheme to measure and certify emissions intensity across the supply chain of key products, and to support expansion of the program to green metals and low-carbon liquid fuels.
• Australian Carbon Credit Scheme: $48 million over four years to implement reforms to the Australian Carbon Credit Unit scheme, to support the integrity of the net zero emissions scheme (including establishing the “Carbon Abatement Integrity Committee”) and improve First Nations' participation.

Next steps

Many of the environmental initiatives in the 2024-25 budget had already been announced.

It remains to be seen whether funding provided to improve assessment pathways will have the desired effect of removing clogs in the approvals system and allow for more timely decision making.

Legislation to create the EPA and EIA is likely to be introduced in early June 2024, but it seems unlikely that further reforms to implement Stage Three of the Nature Positive Plan will be introduced before the next election. The Budget allocates only $5.3 million to progress legislative reforms in 2024-25.

Businesses should consider the potential impacts of the proposed reforms on their business and if they should participate in consultation on environmental law reform either directly or through a relevant industry body.

Want to know more?

2024 – 2025 Australia Federal Budget Update (14 May 2024)
Summary of the 2024 – 2025 Budget.

Supporting a future 'Made in Australia' – Energy policy announcements in the 2024-25 federal budget (17 May 2024)
Outlines impact of the budget on the energy industry including a look into the Future Made in Australia package.

Nearing Net Zero – Future Made in Australia Act (13 May 2024)
Summarises the suite of incentives and subsidies for advanced manufacturing and clean energy projects packaged through the Future Made in Australia Act.

Australia's proposed National Environmental Standards (16 April 2024)
Outlines the proposed new environmental standards and includes a Stop Press about the Federal Government's announcement to stage the release of the reform legislation.

Assessment pathways under Australia's proposed new Federal environmental laws (28 February 2024)
Outlines the differences between the current and proposed new assessment pathways.

Overhaul of Australian environmental laws begins in earnest with release of detailed consultation papers (13 February 2024)
Provides an overview of the reforms and details of the proposed new Environmental Protection Australia (EPA) and Environment Information Australia (EIA).

No new Federal cultural heritage legislation in 2023 – but change is coming (25 July 2023)
Discusses Federal cultural heritage law reform.

Government set to reform national environmental laws but there are some challenges for industry (12 December 2022)
Discusses the Federal Government's Nature Positive Plan.

Authors: Leonie Flynn, Expertise Counsel and James Zhou, Graduate.