Overview
The Australian Government’s Environment Protection Reform Bills were passed by the Australian Parliament on Friday, 28 November 2025. These reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) were based on the recommendations of the 2020 Independent Review of the EPBC Act (the Samuel Review).
The Environment Minister can make National Environmental Standards under the new laws. These standards will:
help protect the environment
give businesses clear rules to follow
make sure decisions are made fairly and consistently.
We have developed draft National Environmental Standards for:
Matters of National Environmental Significance (MNES)
Environmental Offsets.
We developed these drafts in consultation with stakeholders.
We are seeking feedback on the draft policy papers and legislative instruments for each standard.
Public consultation will be open until 5pm AEDT on Friday, 30 January 2026.
Consultation documents
The policy papers and legislative instruments for the draft MNES Standard and draft Environmental Offsets Standard are now available for comment.
The policy papers explain how the standards intend to work with the reformed EPBC Act. These papers accompany the legislative instruments.
The legislative instruments formalise the standard as law under the reformed EPBC Act. Therefore, they include legal terminology and references.
Scope of consultation
Your comments will help us revise the draft standards to be fit-for-purpose and ensure they support the reforms in delivering:
Stronger environmental protection and restoration
More efficient and robust project assessments
Greater accountability and transparency in environmental decision making.
The standards were released for consultation at the same time of the bills to provide transparency of how they are intended to look and operate.
We will revise the standards to incorporate feedback and to make them align with the legislation. This includes the change of test for the minister to be satisfied that a proposal or action is ‘consistent’ with the standards.
You will be able to provide further feedback on the revised standards when they are released for the minimum 20-day statutory consultation.
The minister may also release other National Environmental Standards for consultation to support implementation of national environmental law reforms.
This consultation process seeks feedback specifically on the draft MNES Standard and draft Environmental Offsets Standard. We are not inviting feedback on the broader EPBC Act at this time.
Consultation documents
Have Your Say
You can now provide feedback on the policy papers and legislative instruments for the draft MNES Standard and draft Environmental Offsets Standard
To have your say on the draft MNES Standard:
read the draft MNES Standard policy paper
read the draft MNES Standard legislative instrument
provide your feedback through this Have Your Say platform by 5pm AEDT on Friday, 30 January 2026.
To have your say on the draft Environmental Offsets Standard:
read the draft Environmental Offsets Standard policy paper
read the draft Environmental Offsets Standard legislative instrument
provide your feedback through this Have Your Say platform by 5pm AEDT on Friday, 30 January 2026.
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