Submission on the Proposed Biodiversity Bill 2025 (SA)

NELA has welcomed the opportunity to provide a submission to the Department for Environment and Water into the proposed Biodiversity Bill 2025 (SA). The Bill an important first step for South Australia in establishing the State’s first biodiversity legislation.

NELA cautions the South Australian government that the Biodiversity Bill contains components of existing biodiversity laws that have been found to be problematic in other jurisdictions in Australia. The major shortcomings include reliance on offsets and broad discretion for decision-makers (which generally leads to uncertainty and weaker protections). NELA has also made some simple suggestions that could avoid this biodiversity law from being ‘trumped’ by planning, property, mining, water, and forestry laws, as has often been the case in other jurisdictions.

NELA submits that with a few tweaks to improving the governance arrangements, then the Bill may be able to achieve more for biodiversity than which has been achieved by comparable laws in other jurisdictions.

The full submission can be found here.