1. Environmental Reform in the Northern Territory
Confidence, certainty and transparency
Karen Avery
Department of Environment and Natural Resources
June 2019

2. What is environmental reform?
Improved environmental impact assessment and project approval system
Replacing the Environmental Assessment Act which has operated since 1984
Introducing an environmental approval
New regime for environmental protection and management
Improving management of wastes, litter and pollution
Improving management of environmental impacts of mining
Bringing consistency to land clearing.
The environmental regulatory reform program is about creating a contemporary environmental framework that provides certainty for investor, builds community confidence, and delivers better environmental outcomes.
Government’s reforms to the environmental regulatory framework are being undertaken in two stages. The first stage is designed to improve the environmental impact assessment and project approval process. These reforms will improve environmental outcomes for those projects that may have a significant impact on the environment. They are contained in the Environment Protection Bill 2019 introduced into the Legislative Assembly in May 2019.
The second stage of reforms is to improve the Territory’s management of wastes, pollution, land clearing and the environmental impacts of mining activities. These reforms provide a range of environmental protection and management measures to generally improve environmental outcomes and address fragmentation in the current regulatory framework to achieve improved environmental outcomes.

3. What is environmental reform?
Improved environmental impact assessment and project approval system
Replacing the Environmental Assessment Act which has operated since 1984
Introducing an environmental approval
New regime for environmental protection and management
Improving management of wastes, litter and pollution
Improving management of environmental impacts of mining
Bringing consistency to land clearing.
Today, I’ll be giving you a little bit of information on this aspect – improving the management of wastes, litter and pollution.

4. Current environmental regulation
Issues
Limited number of regulated activities – focussed on waste
Relies on reactive management approaches – costs incurred from remediation and rehabilitation associated with clean up of environmental incidents
Skews approach to catching operators of unlicensed activities
Risk of more frequent incidents with more serious environmental impacts as NT develops
Increasing Government costs of compliance monitoring and enforcement – unsustainable
Inconsistent approaches between regulators based on tenure and not environmental impact
Environmental protection and management regulatory systems consist of a mix of proactive and reactive management approaches. Historically, systems have been weighted towards reactive management tools, such as issuing directions to an operator to improve environmental outcomes and prosecuting when environmental harm occurs.
While the Territory’s current regulatory framework contains most of the elements needed to create an effective environmental protection and management system, it is weighted towards the reactive management of environmental impacts.
This reduces the effectiveness of the system and can serve to encourage industry to avoid taking steps to meet their environmental obligations unless caught. This obviously negatively impacts community confidence in the capacity of the system to manage environmental impacts.

5. New environmental protection regime
Features
Enforceable general environmental duty (GED)
Authorisation schemes
System for identifying, remediating and managing contaminated land
Compliance and enforcement tools to manage environmental impacts and legislative breaches
Capacity for minimum standards/requirements for environmental protection
e.g. noise management guidelines, air emission standards
Replaces Waste Management and Pollution Control Act, Litter Act
The environmental reforms propose to re-weight the system in favour of proactive management approaches, while addressing existing inefficiencies and fragmentation, including gaps and duplications. In summary, the proposed environment protection and management framework will include:
A general environmental duty – which imposes a duty on all persons to minimise environmental impacts, including minimising the generation of wastes or pollution, and to remediate or rehabilitate any unauthorised impacts.
Authorisation schemes – registration, licensing and permitting schemes that impose specific requirements on persons when undertaking certain activities (including mining and land clearing).
A system for identifying, remediating and managing contaminated land.
Compliance and enforcement tools to manage environmental impacts and breaches of the legislation.
Capacity for the Minister and Department to specify minimum standards and requirements for environmental protection; e.g. noise management guidelines; air emissions standards.
The new framework will replace the Waste Management and Pollution Control Act and the Litter Act.

6. General environmental duty
Duty on all persons to minimise environmental impacts
Minimise environmental harm, including generation of wastes or pollution
Remediate or rehabilitate any unauthorised impacts
Monitor sites where impacts have occurred

7. Authorisation schemes
Environmentally high risk activity registration and licensing scheme
Specific requirements on those undertaking certain activities
Activities identified due to impacts on air, land, sea, water
Waste management activities
License or registration based on thresholds
Mining licensing scheme
Land clearing permits

8. Authorisation scheme structure
Licence
Registration
General environmental duty
Threshold S

9. Next steps
Environment Protection Bill 2019 currently being considered by Government
anticipated passage October/November 2019
Environment protection and management reforms
consultation in the coming months

10. Thank you