We should start at the beginning in assessing the Labor-Greens deal to revamp Australia’s national environment law. And the beginning is that, ideally, you would not start from here.

Despite its name, the 1999 Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act was designed under John Howard to allow developments to go ahead, usually with conditions attached that may limit the damage to nature.

The law does not prioritise environmental protection. It shouldn’t be a shock that it has spectacularly failed to deliver it. There is a case that the best approach would have been to scrap and replace the act.

Labor instead chose to amend the existing legislation, arguing it could improve it for both the environment and business, which has complained of long delays in approval decisions. It means the deal announced on Thursday is a repair job, not a complete rethink of how to best protect Australia’s unique wildlife and wild places as the country faces what scientists say is an extinction crisis.

It is worth noting there was no need for the changes to be rushed through this year. A committee inquiry is still under way. The Greens cut a deal at least in part because they feared if they didn’t, the government’s offer would evaporate and it would be content to make a much weaker agreement, from an environmental perspective, with the Coalition next year. The deadline was only political.

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The result is the changes have........

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