Ken Henry has a dire warning on this forgotten issue

Unfortunately, Henry’s main purpose that day was not to talk about the IGR, but a report he had just handed to the NSW government fingering the state as a wanton destroyer of the environment.

This particular development application was granted in 1983, when it was legal to pump raw sewage into Bondi Beach.

His comments on that received little attention, even though the report’s warnings were arguably more dire, more imminent, more urgent, more troublesome and a great deal less hypothetical than the need to address a gradually shifting tax base.

Henry, who is the chairman of Wildlife Recovery Australia and the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation, led the independent review of the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016.

It was predictably scathing in concluding the act “is not meeting its primary purpose of maintaining a healthy, productive and resilient environment, and is never likely to do so”.

It found biodiversity across the state to be at risk from multiple factors.

“Clearing of native vegetation, intensifying land use, a growing population and associated infrastructure development has led to the destruction, alteration and fragmentation of habitat across the state,” it says.

This is being exacerbated by the effects of climate change, weed infestation, feral animals, native forest logging, and the over-extraction of water from the state’s river system, which affects the downstream states as well. Big time.

Developers have long held sway in NSW

The environmental record of both Liberal and Labor governments in NSW, a state in which developers have held sway for decades, has been appalling, and the report confirms that.

For a brief moment, governments in Australia at least paid lip service to the triple bottom line when it came to development decisions, but there was no evidence of that in NSW.

“The first and most important thing is that, if the environment is going to have a chance, then environmental considerations have to have primacy in policy thinking,” Henry said.

“It’s not going to be any good in the future to say, well, the environment is nice to have, but really we’ve got to focus on investment here, or a residential development there, or a mining project here, or continuing to log native forest over there – that those things are more important than the environment.”

The act, he said, was ambitious but overridden by laws which allowed, for example, rural land clearing, forestry and mining.

The review called for laws that ensured “net gain” or “net positive” must underpin decisions that had environmental consequences in NSW.

There has pretty much been silence in NSW from both major parties over the environmental destruction that has gathered pace in recent years under governments of both stripes.

After federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek last year tabled the delayed 2021 State of the Environment Report, only federal Labor MP Michael Freelander, who has witnessed large-scale destruction of koala habitat in his seat of Macarthur, spoke out.

“We’ve had complete inertia. Nothing has happened as we’ve watched our environment deteriorate,” Dr Freelander told The Australian Financial Review at the time.

“I think the National Party are a large part of the blame, but Labor is to blame as well for allowing pretty much unfettered urban sprawl and very little in the way of environmental protection.”

Acting on climate change was important, he said, but unless there was immediate action to stop environmental destruction, there would be nothing left to protect from global warming.

This isn’t about NIMBYism

One of the most incredulous and still preventable examples of habitat destruction under way in NSW is related to the dozens of so-called zombie developments that stretch from the NSW Mid North Coast to the far south.

In the interest of transparency, this column is a signatory to a community petition opposing one of the developments, and has attended a meeting as a private citizen.

This particular development application was granted in 1983, when Neville Wran was premier and it was still legal to pump raw sewage into Bondi Beach and pour heavy metals into Sydney Harbour.

This is not about NIMBYism.

All the zombie developments stretch back decades. In most cases, locals had no idea that what was pristine forest or coastal wetland, rich with marsupials, birds, snakes and monotremes, was approved for development years ago – until a fence and a sign suddenly appeared.

Under NSW law, once approved, always approved. Local councils don’t have the money to challenge approvals in court and the former Liberal government and the current Minns Labor government don’t want to know. They say it’s a matter for the councils.

The defenders (developers) say the developments are needed for housing, but there is no way in the world such land would be approved for housing or anything else under current environmental laws. You wouldn’t get to stage one.

In his review, Henry refers to them as “legacy development consents that were granted before the BC Act commenced and can proceed with no biodiversity assessment or offsetting because these requirements did not exist when they were approved”.

“There are no legal options to stop these developments proceeding if the proponent had physically commenced work within five years of approval being granted.”

(Sticking in a fence post counts as work.)

He recommends “the government should consider whether a periodic refresh of approvals or expiry on new development applications should be required”.

The only MPs taking up the issue are the NSW Greens MPs Cate Faehrmann and Sue Higginson who last week met residents from dozens of action groups from the coast who have formed an alliance to fight the zombie developments.

And the major parties wonder why they are leaking votes to the left.

Intergenerational crisis, indeed.