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Strategic Assessment Prospectus © Commonwealth of Australia 2013 Strategic Assessment Prospectus © Commonwealth of Australia 2013 This work is copyright. You may download, display, print and reproduce this material in unaltered form only (retaining this notice) for your personal, non-commercial use or use within your organisation. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, all other rights are reserved. Requests and enquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, Public Affairs, GPO Box 787 Canberra ACT 2601 or email [email protected] 2 | Strategic Assessment Prospectus CONTENTS STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT PROSPECTUS ����������������������������������������������������������������4 Overview ...................................................................................................................................4 Purpose ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������4 Strategic assessment under national environmental law ........................................................6 What are the benefits of a strategic assessment? ...................................................................7 How many strategic assessments have been completed? ....................................................10 What is the current program for strategic assessments? ...................................................... 14 Undertaking a strategic assessment ..................................................................................... 17 Prospectus for strategic assessments beyond 2013 ............................................................. 18 Contact us �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������19 3 STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT PROSPECTUS Overview Importantly, strategic assessments set clear goal posts for development in an A strategic assessment under the area, identifying areas for conservation and Environment Protection and Biodiversity areas suitable for development. They also Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) is a reduce the administrative burden for industry ‘big-picture’ tool that can provide conservation and government and give the Australian and planning outcomes for areas and regions community greater certainty about where where there may be multiple proposed sustainable development will occur in developments. Strategic assessments remove the future. the need for the assessment of individual projects, instead they mean a range of Purpose developments can proceed without further approval if undertaken under a policy, program The Australian Government is consulting with or plan endorsed under the EPBC Act. stakeholders in 2013 to plan for delivering the next phase of strategic assessments. Once a strategic assessment has been The purpose of this paper is to explain how approved, future projects in an area or region the Government is building an ongoing work do not need to be referred for assessment program for strategic assessments and to under the EPBC Act provided they are provide stakeholders with an opportunity undertaken in accordance with an approved to inform how future strategic assessments policy, program or plan. The Western Sydney will be prioritised, including through an Growth Centres strategic assessment, for expression of interest process. Further details example, has removed the need for the on the consultation process are outlined on individual assessment of approximately page 18 of this paper. 500 future referrals under the EPBC Act. 4 | Strategic Assessment Prospectus This paper also provides general information • discusses the strategic assessments to help stakeholders understand how that have been completed under national strategic assessments operate under national environmental law environmental law. Specifically, this paper: • outlines the Australian Government’s • provides an introduction to current program for strategic national environment law and assessments and strategic assessments • discusses how the Australian community • discusses the environmental, can be involved in shaping the future work economic and social benefits of program for strategic assessments. strategic assessments Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) is the Australian Government’s central piece of environmental legislation. It provides a legal framework to protect and manage nationally and internationally important flora, fauna, ecological communities and heritage places — defined in the EPBC Act as matters of national environmental significance. The nine matters of national environmental significance are: • world heritage properties • national heritage places • wetlands of international importance (often called ‘Ramsar’ wetlands after the international treaty under which such wetlands are listed) • nationally threatened species and ecological communities • migratory species • Commonwealth marine areas • the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park • nuclear actions (including uranium mining) • a water resource, in relation to coal seam gas development and large coal mining development. The EPBC Act also regulates the behaviour of Australian Government agencies and actions that occur on Commonwealth land where there may be a significant impact on the environment (even if that significant impact is not on one of the nine matters of national significance). For more information on the EPBC Act please visit: www.environment.gov.au/epbc/index.html 5 Strategic assessment Examples of policies, programs or plans that under national can be approved by a strategic assessment include, but are not limited to: environmental law • land use plans, schemes or policies at a In its response to the Independent Review local or regional scale of the EPBC Act, the Australian Government • environmental plans agreed to increase the use of strategic • industry growth programs approaches. Strategic approaches under the EPBC Act include strategic assessments • fire, vegetation or pest management and conservation agreements for marine and policies, plans or programs terrestrial areas, and bioregional plans for • water or mineral extraction/use policies Commonwealth marine and terrestrial areas. • building design policy guidelines, and • infrastructure plans and policies. What is a strategic assessment? For example, completed strategic A strategic assessment is a high level assessments to date have considered the assessment tool that enables the Australian ACT Government’s Molonglo and North Government to assess policies, programs Weston Structure Plan; Western Sydney and plans prepared by government agencies Growth Centres Strategic Assessment: and private industry. A strategic assessment Program Report; Delivering Melbourne’s is a systematic process for evaluating the Newest Sustainable Communities: Program environmental consequences of proposed Report; and the Water Access Program, policy, program or plan initiatives in order to Midlands Water Scheme, Tasmania. ensure they are appropriately addressed at the earliest stage in the planning process. Unlike project-by-project assessments, which look at individual ‘actions’ at individual sites, strategic assessments are landscape-scale assessments that examine a much larger set of actions or ‘classes of actions’ across a broad landscape. This means that once a policy, program or plan is approved, future projects that are undertaken in accordance with that policy, program or plan do not need to be referred for assessment. 6 | Strategic Assessment Prospectus What are the benefits of a Strategic assessments allow the Australian strategic assessment? Government and its strategic assessment partners to look closely at: Benefits for the environment • developing appropriate environmental management approaches across A strategic assessment is an important tool a landscape for protecting Australia’s unique environment • identifying how impacts to the environment while achieving sustainable development. can be avoided or mitigated It enables the Government and strategic • the consideration and consolidation of assessment partners to consider how best environmental offset options for impacts to protect matters of national environmental that cannot be mitigated, and significance early in the planning process. • developing ongoing adaptive management Rather than looking at environmental impacts of conservation areas identified as part of at the site level, a strategic assessment offers the strategic assessment process. the opportunity to closely examine cumulative impacts on the environment that occur when there are many projects being undertaken either in a single area or across a region. This allows for the assessment of broad scale environmental impacts that would not normally be in the scope of an individual project assessment. 7 What are environmental offsets? The term ‘environmental offsets’ refers to measures that compensate for the residual adverse impacts of an action on the environment. Offsets provide environmental benefits to counterbalance the impacts that remain after avoidance and mitigation measures. These remaining, unavoidable impacts are termed ‘residual impacts’. For assessments under the EPBC Act, offsets are only required if residual impacts on matters protected under the EPBC Act are significant. An offsets package is a suite of actions that a proponent undertakes in
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