Enacted on 16 July 2000, it established a range of processes to help protect and promote the recovery of threatened species and ecological communities, and preserve significant places from decline.
Other changes include allowing minor changes to state and territory assessment processes without impacting the bilateral agreement, and the prohibition on matters involving the "water trigger" will be removed,[25] so that states can make their own decisions when assessing applications by large coal mines and coal seam gas projects that can impact water resources.
[27] Section 522A[28] of the Act requires that an independent review is conducted every 10 years, to examine its operation and the extent to which its objects have been met.
However it included 71 recommendations, "summarised into a reform package revolving around a nine-point plan":[37] In 2018, two studies looked at the representativeness of listed species,[30][38] and the other insects and allied invertebrates, proposing a new, strategic national approach for the conservation of these animals.
[39] A The Guardian reported in March 2018 that Australia had not listed any critical habitat in the preceding 10 years, and only five areas had been registered since the introduction of the Act, although more than 1,800 species and ecological communities had been classed as threatened.
[40] A study by the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science at the School at the University of Queensland was published in September 2019 as a "quantitative assessment on the effectiveness of the Act in regulating the loss of habitat for terrestrial threatened species, threatened ecological communities, or terrestrial migratory species", as there had been little quantitative study in this area.
It looked at whether the Act as implemented was achieving its objective of safeguarding Australia's biodiversity with regard to regulating loss of habitat for threatened species and ecological communities between 2000 and 2017.
While 1,390 (84%) species suffered loss, Mount Cooper striped skink, Keighery's macarthuria, and Southern black-throated finch lost 25, 23, and 10% of potential habitat, respectively.
[42] Published and tabled in Parliament[43] on 25 June 2020, the report found that the administration of referrals, assessments and approvals of controlled actions under the Act by the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (DAWE) was ineffective, disproportionate to environmental risk, errors have occurred, procedural protocols have not been followed, and the Department is "not well positioned to measure its contribution to the objectives of the Act".
[44] ANAO found that the Department did not have adequate performance measures in place; that administration had been poorly handled and that conflicts of interests were not well-managed.
[27] He also pointed out that "in the 20 years the laws have been in operation, threatened species habitat greater in size than Tasmania has been logged and cleared".
[42] A statutory independent review led by Professor Graeme Samuel AC and supported by an expert panel commenced on 29 October 2019 and is due to run for a year.
[45] The interim report, released in July 2020, concluded that the laws created to protect unique species and habitats are ineffective, and the "current environmental trajectory is unsustainable".
Criticism of the Act included that it is too focused on process rather than on clear outcomes, and that its current ad hoc, "project-by-project" approach does not address cumulative harm.
Among the changes the report proposes is a framework of legislated national environmental standards with legally enforceable rules, which would underpin all powers allocated to the states and territories.
She also indicated that it would start a process whereby responsibility for environmental approvals could be devolved to state governments, intending to put agreements before parliament in late August 2020, before the release of the final report, due in October.