The previous government sat on the State of the Environment Report. They received it before Christmas and never released it. It is a shocking document, telling a story of crisis and decline in Australia’s environment.

The report shows that:

• Australia has lost more mammal species to extinction than any other continent.  
• The Murray Darling experienced its lowest water level on record in 2019; and  
• The Black Summer bushfires burned more than 8 million hectares of native vegetation and killed or displaced up to 3 billion animals.

At the election, Australians voted for the environment. The Albanese Labor Government takes this responsibility seriously.

The new Australian government will be guided by three essential goals: to protect, to restore, and to manage Australia’s unique environment.

We will protect our national heritage from future destruction, restore environments that have already been damaged, and actively manage our landscape, oceans and waterways, and the critical places we’ve vowed to protect.

You can’t be serious about the environment if you’re not serious about climate change. That’s why, as one of our first acts of the new Parliament, we are legislating a more ambitious 2030 emissions reduction target. 

We’ve also begun the process of reforming our environmental laws, establishing an Environmental Protection Agency, making it easier for First Nations Australians to protect their cultural heritage, and setting a national goal of protecting at least thirty percent of our land and thirty percent of our oceans by 2030.  

A healthy environment sits at the heart of our national legacy.

The new Labor Government understands this. After a wasted decade – after a decade going backwards – we won’t waste another minute.