✍️ PETITION: Don't Gut Australia's Environment Laws

The Government is proposing changes that will weaken our national environment protection laws and benefit destructive, extractive industries.

Australia Institute research shows the salmon industry is driving the endangered Maugean skate to the brink of extinction. But these changes go well beyond one industry, and could also prohibit civil society from challenging government decisions, prioritising the profits of polluting projects over transparency and due process.

That's not how democracy works.

We demand that these changes be rejected and Australia's environment laws be strengthened, not weakened.

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Why This is Happening

Thanks to our supporters, the Australia Institute Tasmania’s work was critical to triggering a federal EPBC review of salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour.
In 2023, we wrote to the federal Environment Minister with new scientific evidence showing the endangered Maugean skate, a ray-like animal with links to the dinosaurs, is at risk of extinction due in large part to salmon farming.
In November 2023, the Minister announced a review of salmon farming in the Macquarie Harbour by the Federal Government, under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
National environment law requires a decision from federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek ‘as soon as practicable'. Yet the Minister has had more than 12 months and there is still no outcome.
Now the Federal Government is proposing to weaken environmental protections and stop third-party civil society organisations like The Australia Institute from challenging environmentally damaging projects.

More than 50 environment and other NGOs have signed on to tell the Parliament: Don't Gut Our Environment Laws!

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