Annual report for the year ended 30 June 2024

Commissioner's overview

Section 16 of the Environment Act states that my role is “to review from time to time the system of agencies and processes established by the Government to manage the allocation, use, and preservation of natural and physical resources”.

That could be a completely anodyne, antiseptic affair. Except that Parliament inserted a purpose for that review role: it is “with the objective of maintaining and improving the quality of the environment.” Parliament has stated that, whatever the Government does in the name of the environment, my reviews of its handiwork should be founded on the premise that environmental quality should not be going backwards.

It is not hard to dig out evidence for the contention that our environmental management system has failed to hold the line. Gross emissions from greenhouse gases have climbed 14% since 1990, wetlands are decreasing across the country, many waterways have excessive levels of pollution and many of our native species remain at risk of extinction.

The last State of the Environment report released in 2022 noted a few tentatively positive trends that indicate things not everything is getting worse. Notably air quality was improving at many measurement sites (although our air pollution levels are still greater than WHO guidelines much of the time).

But the truth is that we do not really know with any confidence whether our efforts are making a difference to environmental quality. This point was at the heart of my annual report last year where I noted that without good quality environmental reporting, we lack a picture of how environmental problems are evolving over time.

Nothing has happened in the last 12 months to suggest that tackling this critical problem is a priority. What has been a priority is another convulsion of legislative reform, including the Fast-track Approvals Bill.

Fast-track brings into the open just the latest iteration in a long-running debate about the balance between economic and social progress on the one hand and safeguarding the environment on the other. It has long been convenient to argue that the two are not in conflict – that we should aim to have both. That would be nice. But we need measures to know if we are making progress in any direction.

The evidence, such as it is, suggests that we have done neither a particularly good job of protecting the environment, nor of building a more productive economy.

After nearly seven years as Parliamentary Commissioner, I am confident that the case has been made for sustained investment in environmental information that can be read alongside our economic score cards. I am increasingly confident that if that information can be made freely available to those who live and work closest to the natural environment and they can be empowered to use it, we will be able to make a difference.

This is a summarised version of the Commissioner’s overview. Read the full version in the 2023/24 annual report.