This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Labor’s Environment Action Network (Lean) has warned the ALP it will not give up on securing a significant overhaul of federal environment laws in the first term of a Shorten government, and a national environment protection authority to police the framework, despite an embarrassing process stuff-up with the draft policy platform.

A draft policy platform signed off by the ALP national executive and circulated to conference delegates last month suggested both policy commitments and a national environment commission would be adopted by the party’s national conference in December – but the shadow environment minister, Tony Burke, has now put the brakes on.

Burke has written to the party’s national secretary, Noah Carroll, arguing the initiatives were not signed off by the national policy forum in September, and the specific commitments were included in the draft platform in error.

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It is unclear why the mistakes were not picked up by Burke until last week, given they have been in circulation since September, and reported by a number of media outlets. In any case Burke wants the commitments deleted before the December conference, and says they will now be debated on the conference floor.

The mix-up on environmental policy commitments comes as Labor is due to finalise its energy plan, which is expected to include an ongoing commitment to the national energy guarantee, with a more ambitious emissions reduction target.

Felicity Wade, Lean’s national convener, has acknowledged that an administrative error appears to have been made with the party’s draft environment platform, but she has warned Burke the grassroots campaign within Labor will intensify to ensure the specific commitments are ultimately included in the policy platform.

Lean is pursuing a new environment act, a science-based EPA to oversee development decisions and a national environment commission to develop legally binding plans and standards for protection.

“A slip-up in process doesn’t change the fundamentals,” Wade told Guardian Australia. “Lean will continue to advocate on behalf of the 470 local branches that have endorsed the position reflected in the current draft platform.”

“We look forward to debating this vital reform on the conference floor.”

Wade warned Labor not to “waste” an opportunity in government. “Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke achieved world-leading environment outcomes, and that wasn’t just the headline stuff, like saving the Franklin.

“It’s now time for Labor to embrace structural changes and get rid of this bad Howard-era framework and we shouldn’t waste getting government – we should pursue reforms when we know we have an environmental catastrophe going on.”

Environmental approvals are always a sensitive and divisive political issue, but the internal pressure to strengthen the framework from grassroots ALP members in the run-up to the national conference will be fuelled by a new report from the Labor thinktank, the Chifley Research Centre, to be published on Monday.

The new report, prepared in conjunction with Lean, calls for a new legislative framework to replace the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act “in order to enshrine federal government leadership in issues of national and international environmental importance”.

The Chifley report also calls for the creation of a national environment commission. Chifley’s executive director, Brett Gale, said the commission would have an independent institutional structure and be “responsible for a new development approvals process that would get rid of the current system with its long delays and lack of clarity around development approvals”.

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“It would provide open and transparent approvals to set guidelines, thus delivering better outcomes for the environment, communities and business,” Gale says.

He says the commission would have a policy focus, conduct Productivity Commission-style inquiries into major environmental issues, and be an advocate for the environment in the national debate.

The Chifley report says community confidence in the environmental protection framework will be enhanced if an independent regulatory agency led commonwealth development approvals “aided by greater clarity of expectations and design of the approvals process at the outset”.

The report warns that all key indices of the natural world – “native species, native vegetation cover, water quality – are being degraded at an alarming rate” and the natural environment had gone backwards over the 20-year lifespan of the environment protection framework.

“With threats to the environment – including climate change and rapid population growth – expected to escalate over coming years, we need a new environmental governance regime that is up to the task and the demands of the 21st century,” the report says.

“Many of the challenges that face us cannot be solved with our traditional approaches. The current laws do not even mention climate change and its impacts.

“Environment laws and institutions must arbitrate between competing interests, as this is inevitably a game of trade-offs,” the report says. “The current approach fails both business and Australia’s natural heritage.”