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NATIONAL

FY27 Budget papers are available here, with Budget paper 2 containing information on new programs.

Several environmental organisations criticised the Budget for inadequately funding nature restoration and conservation efforts, despite significant new funding to implement EPBC Act reforms.

The Biodiversity Council estimated that proportion of the federal budget allocated to on-ground nature programs has remained at 0.06% of the Budget, equivalent to just $1 for nature out of every $1,667 spent.

The Council noted that scientists have estimated that 1% of the Budget needs to be spent on nature to prevent further extinctions of native plants and animals, and to adequately restore and conserve land and sea areas.

WWF Australia said the budget's $500 million package to implement Australia's EPBC Act reforms - including $250 million to establish the National Environmental Protection Agency - was an important step forward for nature.

"This commitment shows the government is serious about making these reforms work," it said.

However, while the funding for EPBC-related reforms is welcome, "nature remains underfunded overall", WWF said.

The Invasive Species Council expressed concern at cuts to key pest and weed programs.

However, it welcomed a two-year allocation totalling almost $100 million to extend the Saving Native Species Fund, describing it as a "lifeline" for nature, which still left uncertainty about medium-term funding.

"Projects like deer eradication in World Heritage areas, gamba grass control in the Northern Territory, yellow crazy ant eradication in Queensland, and feral cat eradication on Kangaroo Island, all depend on sustained, long-term investment if we are to continue hard-earned wins that are happening on the ground," it said. 

Other organisations commenting on the Budget include:

The Investor Group on Climate Change, which said that, overall, the Budget "puts the brakes on new clean energy supply and will therefore harm Australian households and businesses".

The IGCC criticised cuts to clean energy programs, and also criticised proposed Capital Gains Tax changes that it said are likely to result in higher capital gains tax on global investment in Australia's renewable energy sector.

However, the IGCC noted that there were some minor measures to boost investment in early-stage climate tech, and it welcomed the continuation of the home battery program.

The capital gains tax changes applying to international renewable energy companies with projects in Australia were also criticised by the Clean Energy Investor Group.

The Chartered Accountants of Australia and New Zealand said the Budget "signals an important recalibration of climate related financial disclosure, with the government committing to consult on ways to improve efficiency and reduce burden, while retaining core reporting requirements".

The Smart Energy Council said it viewed the Budget as "cautiously positive for renewables, with important wins tempered by some difficult cuts".

It welcomed funding to implement environmental approval reforms, and $40 million of continued funding for EV charging infrastructure.

The Climate Council said fossil fuel multinationals had received "a massive free kick" in the Budget, with the diesel fuel tax credits scheme and foregone gas export tax revenue amounting to "more than $19 billion" annually.

The Australian Conservation Council said the Budget "contains at least seven times more spending on initiatives that damage nature and the climate than it allocates to climate and nature protection".

Meanwhile, law firms that have released commentary on climate and environment aspects of the Budget include Mallesons and Hall & Wilcox.

In his latest annual report on deploying enewable energy projects in regional areas, Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner Tony Mahar says "the challenges are more complex and deeper than I had even imagined".

Australia's energy transition is happening at an increasing pace and will affect different regions in various ways, Mahar said.

"Inevitably, it involves real disruptions and some uncertainty for communities, as it brings a lot of new things into the landscape - and change of this magnitude is never going to be easy."

In 2025 the Commissioner opened 205 new cases (including 170 complaints), which were related to about 78 projects. About 90% of the cases were for projects in NSW and Victoria.

Wind farms accounted for around 50% of cases.

The proportion of complaints about transmission decreased, as there are increasingly alternative pathways to deal with these, the Commissioner noted.

"My agenda and intentions remain clear," Mahar said. "To do what I can within my remit to improve the experience of the energy transition for regional communities." 

The Productivity Commission has released more submissions received in response to its draft paper on heavy vehicle reforms.

Tesla calls for a blanket exemption from curfews for electric trucks, and urges a faster rollout of heavy charging sites.

Modelling by the Energy Futures Foundation estimates that specified reforms would deliver an additional 467,000 electric trucks by 2050.

The Electric Vehicle Council says that heavy vehicle exhaust is responsible for approximately $6.2 billion in societal health costs and up to 2,000 avoidable deaths each year.

The Productivity Commission has published its submission to the statutory review of the Fringe Benefits Tax exemption for electric vehicles.

The submission calls for its phase-out, saying that the FBT exemption costs taxpayers between $1,000 and $20,000 per tonne of avoided greenhouse gas, "greatly exceeding the cost of other ways of reducing emissions".

The federal and Queensland governments have released a new Reef 2050 Catchment Water Quality Strategy, which replaces the previous Water Quality Improvement Plan.

The new strategy includes new targets to be achieved by 2032.

"Labor's net zero obsession is driving up inflation and destroying our economy," Opposition leader Angus Taylor said in his Budget reply speech. "That's why net zero must go."

Taylor also pledged to "abolish Labor’s hidden carbon taxes – like the so-called Safeguard Mechanism".

"Prioritising net zero and emissions reduction above all else has seen cheap, always-on power dismissed for expensive, sometimes-on, industrial-scale renewables – mainly sourced from offshore," Taylor said.

"Power prices have soared – causing households to struggle, businesses to close, and industries to move offshore," he said. "Far from a future made in Australia, our future is being made abroad."

Taylor added that a Coalition government would work with coal-fired power plant owners "to keep them running as long and as hard as possible to get electricity prices down".

The Coalition would also "re-write" Labor's EPBC reforms to speed up approvals, he said.

The Greens have instigated a Senate committee inquiry into the growth of data centres in Australia, which will examine the adequacy of existing regulatory frameworks.

"Every day I am hearing from people who are concerned about the impacts of AI on our environment, water and energy supply," said Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.

"We cannot allow Australia to become a dumping ground for energy-hungry data centres without proper scrutiny or public accountability or consultation, and that's what this inquiry will provide."

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency has announced a shortlist of seven projects for potential funding through round 2 of the Hydrogen Headstart Program.

Four of the projects would produce hydrogen that would be used to produce methanol (with one of these producing methanol and sustainable aviation fuel).

One project would produce hydrogen for conversion to green ammonia, one would use green hydrogen to manufacture urea, and another would produce hydrogen for use in the alumina industry.

Shortlisted applicants have until early September to submit their full applications.

QUEENSLAND

Quensland's Labor Opposition has unsuccessfully tried to disallow a waste regulation, arguing the LNP government had used the statutory instrument to "hide" a provision that will allow the shooting of flying foxes to continue.

When in government, the Labor party introduced measures that would have banned from 1 July a scheme allowing fruit growers to obtain permits to kill flying foxes.

This would have meant all growers would have to rely on exclusion netting.

However, a waste and recycling regulation introduced by the LNP last year repealed the deadline for phasing out the permit regime.

Labor's Leanne Linard said the repeal of the ban date was done "in a sneaky and underhanded way without any opportunity for consultation with environment and animal welfare groups".

"Flying foxes play a critical role in pollination and seed dispersal, particularly for rainforest trees and eucalyptus," added Linard, who is Queensland's shadow environment minister.

Environment Minister Andrew Powell rejected the criticisms, and said he expected the number of permits to kill flying foxes to continue on a downward trend. He noted quotas are in place that restrict the number of flying foxes that can be killed.

The disallowance motion was rejected on party lines.

Pacific Partnership's 312MW Hopeland solar farm, proposed for a site between Dalby and Chinchilla, has received EPBC Act approval.

NSW

As the NSW Parliament prepares to debate a government renewable energy Bill to speed the approval of priority clean energy projects, the Opposition last week introduced its own Bill, focused on wind and solar decommissioning.

The Opposition's Energy and Other Legislation Amendment (Renewable Energy Infrastructure) Bill 2026 (no. 2) would enable the introduction of a financial assurance regime to ensure end-of-life rehabilitation costs can be covered.

The Bill would also require development consents to specify that materials in wind and solar farms are reused or recycled at end-of-life.

Meanwhile, substantive debate is yet to commence on the government's Prioritising Renewable Energy Bill.

The government's Bill would create a framework for identifying Priority Energy Projects (PEPs), which could either be individual projects, or classes of projects.

In a sign that the state government is not taking Opposition support for granted, Planning Minister Paul Scully's second reading speech for the government Bill called out "confusion and division" between the NSW Liberals and Nationals.

"The challenge before the Opposition is does it support our previously shared goal of building out the State's renewable energy potential," Scully said.

The NSW government's latest tender for firming infrastructure has resulted in contracts being awarded to one battery energy storage system and one virtual power plant.

The contracts, known as Long-Term Energy Service Agreements (LTESA), have been awarded to AGL (for a 500MW/2,000MWh battery) and Enel X for 32MW/128MWh of demand response.

The tender round focused on projects capable of supporting the Sydney-Newcastle-Wollongong region, where electricity demand is increasing due to electrification and new industrial demand.

Together with the 1GW of firming already under contract, the latest tender increases the total to more than 1.5 GW, strengthening the ability of NSW's grid to respond during periods of peak demand and system stress.

Meanwhile, in the coming weeks, tender administrator ASL will open its first generation LTESA tender in two years. The tender will target 2.5GW of new generation capacity.

In parallel, a separate tender will commence that is seeking 12GWh of long-duration storage.

The NSW government is making an initial $60 million available to communities in the New England Renewable Energy Zone, through its Community and Employment Benefit Program.

The funding is being brought forward to ensure community projects can start to be delivered well before construction starts on REZ works.

VICTORIA

The Victorian government has determined that the environmental impacts of Westwind's proposed 1.65GW Warracknabeal Energy Park wind farm are acceptable, marking a major advance towards final approval.

Once complete, the $2.5 billion 219-turbine wind farm would have the capacity to meet the electricity needs of up to 1.2 million homes, equivalent to about 12.5% of the state's electricity requirements.

The project, which still requires EPBC approval, is expected to create almost 950 jobs during construction.

The wind farm will be built on agricultural land within the Western Renewable Energy Zone, and farming will continue as the farm is being built and once it starts operating.

Community benefit schemes associated with the wind farm will provide a minimum of $2,000 per turbine per year. Those payments are in addition to payments made to landholders hosting turbines and associated infrastructure.

A Victorian parliamentary committee inquiry into renewable energy for apartments has released almost 100 submissions.

Transcript is also now available from the inquiry's first two public hearings.

The Supreme Court has upheld EPA Victoria's argument that Cleanaway underpaid its landfill levy contributions for the Ravenhall landfill in Melbourne by nearly $7 million in 2017-2018.

Cleanaway used crushed rock from a neighbouring quarry as daily cover for the landfill cells, and the EPA successfully argued that levy payments were owed on the crushed rock.

The EPA and Cleanaway will now discuss costs and possible interest on the unpaid levy.

As Sustainability Victoria prepares to wind up at the end of next month, the organisation has released a YouTube video on its achievements.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Statutory development - gas production. The South Australian overnment will introduce legislation this week to remove the current ban on fracking for gas in the state's South-East.

The Energy Resources (Regulated Activities) Amendment Bill will repeal a moratorium that was introduced by the former Liberal government.

"The Australian Energy Market Operator has forecast increasing risks to gas supply in southern Australia from 2029, with additional supply required in many scenarios from 2030," Premier Peter Malinauskas said.

"By acting now, the government will allow any future proposals in the South East to begin the planning, technical studies and baseline environmental work needed to support regulatory assessment."

"South Australia has a long and successful history of safely regulating hydraulic fracture stimulation," the Premier said. "More than 1,300 wells have been fracture stimulated since 1969 in the Cooper Basin without impact on aquifers."

NORTHERN TERRITORY

Statutory developments - pipelines and mining. The Northern Territory Assembly has passed two bills - one amending the regulation of petroleum pipelines, and the other amending mining legislation.

Measures in the Pipelines and Petroleum Legislation Amendment (Industry Development) Bill will facilitate carbon capture and storage projects, by allowing CO2 to be transported in all licensed pipelines.

The Mineral Titles Legislation Amendment Bill includes provisions that the Territory government will "improve integration between environmental licensing and mineral titles administration".

The Northern Territory government is inviting expressions of interest to join the NT EPA as a non-executive board member.

Up to two people will be appointed, commencing in July 2026 for a period of up to three years. Applications close on May 27.

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