Environment Law Reform Taskforce
Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water

To the Taskforce,

Revisions suggested to the exposure draft of the National Environmental Standard for
Matters of National Environmental Significance

Friends of Grasslands (FOG) is a community group dedicated to the conservation of grassy ecosystems in south-eastern Australia - natural temperate grasslands and grassy woodlands. FOG advocates, educates and advises on matters to do with the conservation of these ecosystems, and carries out surveys and on-ground work. FOG is based in Canberra and its members include professional scientists, landowners, land managers and interested members of the public.

Thank you for the opportunity to make a submission on the exposure draft of the National Environmental Standard for Matters of National Environmental Significance (MNES Standard).

For critically endangered grassy ecosystems, the MNES Standard could not be more important. In the attached, amendments are suggested to achieve desirable outcomes, enhance clarity and promote consistency. Summarising, the key amendments we recommend are as follows:

1. Replace ‘should’ with ‘must’. This will enhance compliance and promote consistent practice regardless of the jurisdiction carrying out the decision-making process.
2. Enhanced accountability. Edits suggested impose appropriate obligations on decision-makers.
3. Require a suitably qualified expert to be independent. This is to mitigate the current risk of industry employing their consultants and staff as ‘experts’. Independent has been defined as per a recent EPBC Act approval.^[1] In addition, expertise is defined as relevant to the protected matter and the principle.
4. Definitions required review, in particular:

• to refer to the meaning for the terms used in the offset standard;
• to refer to the EPBC Act significant impact guidelines;
• to include the definition of ‘independent’.

5. The standard confuses objective and outcome statements (s 5 and s 6) which, along with the table, have been revised for clarity. The objective statement for each controlling provision was an outcome statement.
6. An additional objective is inserted at section 5(3) to require monitoring and reporting sufficient to know whether the objectives in section 5(1-2) and the outcomes in section 6 are achieved.
7. At Item 8 of section 6(1), the matter protected is not a ‘marine ecosystem’ but the ‘Commonwealth marine area’. The outcome must pertain to the matter protected, i.e., the environment of the Commonwealth marine area.
8. Sub-sections 7(2-4) are removed because they weaken the protection of protected matters. These sub-sections provide that activities can satisfy the whole Standard if they meet only the principles in the Standard.
9. If the deletion of sub-sections 7(2-4) is not accepted, then there are three points that need amendment:

• Section 7(3) - Principle 4 (s 11) is required here, i.e., ‘Decisions must be supported by evidence, Indigenous engagement and effective consultation, monitoring and reporting’
• Section 7(4) – The decision-maker ‘must’ (not may) …
• Sub-section 7(4)(c) - Principle 3 (s 10) is required here, i.e., the proponents of development regulated by the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) must also be required to compensate for residual significant impacts.

10. Evidentiary requirements, including for the decision-maker to have a ‘high level of confidence’, are introduced for applying the mitigation hierarchy (Draft Principle 1).
11. In Step 2 of section 8 (Draft Principle 1), the text and note relating to mitigation has been improved to achieve an appropriate standard. More than simply identifying and listing mitigation actions, to understand residual significant impacts, an assessment is required of the likely effectiveness of each mitigation measure.
12. Furthermore, plans are needed to monitor the actual effectiveness of each applied mitigation measure. Adaptive management is required to correct observed failures, to reduce impacts as much as practicable through the lifespan of the approved action.
13. Draft Principle 2 is inadequate. This has been revised to include–in any assessment of adverse impacts on protected matters–consideration of matters raised in the existing significant impact guidelines, impacts on protected matters under different climate scenarios and the precautionary principle.
14. Draft Principle 4 is revised to enhance transparent consultation and require monitoring and reporting sufficient to confirm the objectives in section 5 and the outcomes in section 6 are being achieved.

Should any clarification or additional information be needed, please email advocacy@fog.org.au.

Yours sincerely

 

SIGNED

 

Professor Jamie Pittock

President, Friends of Grasslands

27 May 2026

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Reference:

[1] https://epbcpublicportal.environment.gov.au/_entity/sharepointdocumentlocation/88e1301a-a0fb-ee11-9f89-00224892a860/2ab10dab-d681-4911-b881-cc99413f07b6?file=2019-8398-Approval-Decision.pdf, p. 23

Attachment:

Comment on Exposure Draft