Now lawEnvironment & Energy Introduced in the House of Representatives, 30 Oct 2025

Nature law now bans unacceptable harm and lifts fines

This is the main bill in a set of 7 bills that rewrote Australia's national nature law in 2025. It changes how big projects such as mines, wind farms and housing estates get approved. It also changes what they must do to make up for harm to nature.

Official name: Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025

Who it affects

• Builders, miners and energy companies: They face new tests to get approval and must leave nature better off. They must report their gases, and can use faster paths.
• State and territory governments: They can approve projects for the federal government if their own rules meet national standards.
• Threatened species and protected places: They get new protection, including a ban on approving unacceptable harm.
• Community and environment groups: They have 28 days to ask for some decisions to be looked at again.
• First Nations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) people: A First Nations advice group must be asked about a standard for working with First Nations people. Cultural knowledge helps decide which species are listed.
• Offshore oil and gas companies: They may not need a separate approval under this law, if the rules of the body that checks offshore oil and gas safety protect nature just as well.

Samuel Review found big flaws

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 is Australia's main national law for protecting nature. We call it the nature law here. Big projects that could badly harm certain protected things need approval from the federal Environment Minister.

These protected things include threatened species and World Heritage places, which the United Nations lists as important to the whole world. They also include wetlands and the Great Barrier Reef.

In 2020 Professor Graeme Samuel led a review of the law. It is called the Samuel Review. It found the law was not working for nature, business or the community. It found Australia's environment was getting worse. It also found approvals were slow, complex and done in bits.

The government tried to change the law in 2024 but pulled the bills in February 2025. After the 2025 election, Environment Minister Murray Watt brought in a new set of 7 bills in October 2025. This one makes most of the changes. Its name is the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025. It changes the nature law and 11 other laws.

The government says the changes will protect nature better and make approvals faster. It says they also help housing, clean energy and key minerals. It points to its department's numbers. These say faster approvals could save the economy at least half a billion dollars, and maybe up to $7 billion.

This article describes the bill as it was first brought in. The Senate, Parliament's second house, later made 175 changes. Those are not covered here in detail.

National nature standards

The Minister can now make national environmental standards. These are rules the law makes you follow. They set what decisions under the law must achieve.

Approvals and many other decisions must fit with these standards. The Minister can change or cancel a standard. But the Minister must make sure this does not weaken the protection it gives.

Unacceptable harm banned

The bill sets out what counts as unacceptable harm to each protected thing. A project with unacceptable harm cannot be approved. Paying money or fixing land somewhere else does not change this. The company must change the project so the harm drops below the line.

Part of the test asks if the project would seriously damage something. That means it would leave the thing badly changed for the worse, compared to not doing the project at all.

Say a company wants to clear the last big patch of land a threatened species needs. If that would be unacceptable harm, the Minister must say no. It does not matter how the company offers to make up for it.

Net gain and restoration charges

Most projects still do some serious harm, even after the company tries to avoid it. This is called leftover harm. Under the new rules, all leftover harm must be made up for to a net gain. That means the repair work must more than make up for the damage.

A company can do this in two ways. It can fix up nature itself, such as by protecting and restoring other land. This is called an offset. Or it can pay a repair fee to the federal government.

That money goes into a new fund. A new independent official spends it on repair work for nature. A group of experts gives that official advice. The fee itself is set up by a separate bill in the set.

Faster project checks

Before this law there were six ways to check a project. The bill removes three of them. It puts in one new, quicker check. Under it, the Minister must decide within 30 working days of picking that path.

Three other paths are left. One is a check by a state process the Minister has approved. One is a full report on the harm to nature. The last is a public investigation.

The Minister can move a project to a better path part way through. If the Minister says yes, some small early works can start while a project is still being checked. A company can also hand back an approval it no longer needs.

Sometimes a project is found not to need approval. That finding now runs out after 5 years if work has not really started. The government says this stops land banking. That means sitting on approvals without using them.

Regional go and no-go zones

The Minister can now make regional plans with the states and territories. A regional plan maps a whole area into building zones and nature zones.

In a building zone, listed types of projects can go ahead with no more federal approval. The company just signs up the project and pays a fee. In a nature zone, listed types of projects cannot go ahead without a special let-off.

Each plan must also list the repair work needed to make up for the harm projects do. Breaking the rules of a plan can bring fines set by a court.

Say a state wants to build many wind farms in one area. A plan could mark where turbines can go fast and where they are off limits.

Bigger plans and state approvals

The Minister can approve a whole plan or policy, and the projects under it, all at once. This is called a strategic assessment. The bill fixes problems that made these hard to use. For plans that cover coal seam gas (gas drawn from coal layers underground) or big coal mines, the Minister must ask an expert science group for advice.

States and territories can approve projects for the federal government under special deals. Under the new rules, a state's process must meet the national standards and the net gain rule. It must also not allow unacceptable harm. A deal only works if the state makes certain promises. It can be paused or cancelled.

For offshore oil and gas, the Minister can say that projects do not need a separate approval. This only applies if the offshore oil and gas safety body has rules that protect nature just as well. That body must report each year on how it meets any conditions.

National interest exemptions

The Minister could already let a project off the law if this was in the national interest. That means it is best for the country as a whole. Now the Minister can add conditions to that let-off, and set how long it lasts. Let-offs can be changed, cancelled or handed back. They can be given quickly in emergencies such as bushfires.

The bill also creates a new national interest approval. The Minister can approve a chosen project that breaks the usual rules. It may not meet the standards, the net gain rule or the ban on unacceptable harm. This is only allowed as far as it is really needed for the national interest. The Minister must publish the reasons on the department's website.

Climate, nuclear and other changes

Companies seeking approval must now estimate two kinds of greenhouse gas. Scope 1 means gases the project lets out directly. Scope 2 means gases from making the power it buys. They must also say how they plan to cut them. The government says this is for information only. It is not weighed up in the approval decision.

The rule for nuclear projects gets a new name, radiological exposure actions. That means projects that could expose people or nature to radiation. The government says this cuts overlap with the national radiation safety agency. It also stops natural materials that give off radiation being caught by mistake.

Outside groups now have 28 days to ask the Minister to look again at whether a project needs approval. The answer may change, so a project now needs approval. Then the Minister can let it keep going while it is checked, with rules.

The Minister and the head of the new national environment watchdog can give rulings that explain how the law should apply. Decision makers must follow them unless that would be wrong in the case. Wildlife trade permits become more flexible. This matches the world treaty on trade in endangered species. A treaty is a deal between countries.

Threatened species and heritage

Plans to help threatened species recover can now cover just one group or area. Plans to tackle a key threat to nature can now cover just part of that threat.

A new protection statement will turn the science on a threatened species into clear rules for decision makers. The Minister must not act against it. There is also one new meaning of critical habitat. That means the places a species needs to survive.

Heritage listings become easier to update for small fixes, name changes or new heritage values.

Tougher fines and enforcement

The Samuel Review found some companies saw fines as just a cost of doing business. The bill raises the top criminal fine for the main crimes. For a person it goes from 420 penalty units to 1,000. A penalty unit is a set dollar amount used to work out fines. A company faces five times that, or 5,000 penalty units. Jail terms of up to 7 years stay the same.

Fines set by a court without a criminal charge get a new formula. The base top fine rises to 5,000 penalty units for a person and 50,000 for a company. A court can go higher. It can order up to three times what was gained from the breach. For a company it can order up to 10% of yearly sales. The cap is 2.5 million penalty units.

In urgent cases the head of the new agency can give orders to stop or limit serious harm to nature. The harm may be about to happen or may have happened. The head can also order checks on companies, including surprise checks. These would use checkers from an official list.

A new national watchdog

A partner bill creates the National Environmental Protection Agency. It is Australia's first national environment watchdog. This bill gives the agency's head powers under the nature law and eight other laws. These cover things like dumping at sea, dangerous waste, the ozone layer, gases from products, recycling and shipwrecks.

The agency will give out permits and licences and make people follow the law. The Minister can also hand project checks and approvals to it, but keeps the final say.

The Director of National Parks, the official who runs national parks, gets power to take cases to the Federal Court, a national court over harm in national parks and nature zones.

Reports on the state of the environment move to a new official, the Head of Environment Information Australia. Another bill creates that job. The first report under the new rules is due by 15 December 2028.

Start date

The bill was brought to the House of Representatives on 30 October 2025. That is the house of Parliament where the government is formed. The House passed it on 6 November 2025 with one change from an MP outside the big parties.

The Senate passed it on 27 November 2025. It made 84 changes from the government and 91 from the Greens. The House agreed to those changes on 28 November 2025.

The Governor-General, the King's representative, signed it into law on 1 December 2025. Its official number is Act No. 68 of 2025.

The power to make national standards started the day after it was signed. Most other changes start on a date the government sets, or 12 months after signing, whichever comes first. The parts that give powers to the new agency start when the agency's own law starts. The Parliamentary Library said that was due to be 1 July 2026.

How they voted

Its journey through Parliament

Official sources

• Bill page on aph.gov.au
• Text of the bill
• Explanatory memorandum
• Bills Digest

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