“I’m going to take my time and do proper consultation to make sure we’re talking to stakeholders and bringing them with us. I don’t want to start putting timeframes on it just yet,” Plibersek said in an interview.
However,she committed to swiftly releasing the State of the Environment report,a five-yearly independent assessment of Australia’s natural assets,which has been shelved since the former government received it in December.
“What it tells us is that our environment’s getting worse,it’s under extreme pressure,we’ve got real problems with threatened species and habitat loss,” Plibersek said.
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Labor pledged to shake up the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act after a review by former competition tsarGraeme Samuel last year found urgent reform was needed to halt the decline of iconic sites and the extinction of threatened plants,animals and ecosystems.
Since colonisation,about 100 of Australia’s unique flora and fauna species have been wiped out. The rate of loss has not slowed over the past 200 years.
Plibersek said more stringent environmental regulations could be imposed without restricting business growth.