“In Australia, your vote should decide the policies of government, yet a series of international agreements, subject to little democratic oversight, threaten the future of our agriculture and resources sectors,” said Morgan Begg, Director of Research at the Institute of Public Affairs.
In 2022, the federal government signed up to the international Nature Positive Plan, which seeks to lock up 30 per cent of Australia’s land and sea area from development. In a report released today, emeritus professor of government at the University of Tasmania, Aynsley Kellow, details how this has been imported to Australia without parliamentary scrutiny or debate.
“The Nature Positive implementation process has been marked by a total lack of governance. The federal government has entered into commitments with international organisations without the scrutiny of parliament because they do not meet the technical definition of a treaty,” said Mr Begg.
Further, in refusing IPA freedom of information requests, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water has acknowledged there are some 221,200 documents, totalling over 1.15 million pages relating to the government’s Nature Positive plans.
“There has been a total lack of transparency. At the very least, the parliamentary committee responsible for reviewing treaties must be empowered to urgently review Nature Positive-related international agreements,” said Mr Begg.
“This episode has exposed the pervasive influence of international ‘soft laws’ over the direction and development of domestic laws. It is critical that these are not snuck onto the political agenda without the awareness or involvement of the Australian people.”
At present, the parliament is currently debating the establishment of a federal environment protection agency, which will transfer significant regulatory powers from the elected minister to an unelected bureaucrat.
“The transfer of power from a minister, who is elected and accountable to the public, to a bureaucrat represents a seismic shift away from democratic accountability to the unelected bureaucracy,” said Mr Begg.
“These bills have been directly inspired by the international Nature Positive agreement. What else has the federal government signed us up for that we do not yet know about?”
Further, the Nature Positive Plan was adopted as the federal government’s response to Graeme Samuel’s review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
“Instead of delivering promised regulatory streamlining, the federal government is adding radical objectives promoted by green international organisations at the expense of Australia’s farming and resources sectors,” said Mr Begg.
To download the IPA’s research click here.
