Changes to Australia's environment laws would risk return to 'confusion', inquiry told

Former senior official warns of going back to the community unrest of the 70s and 80s over conservation issues

Changes to environment law planned by the Morrison government would spark a return to the environmental confusion" of the 1970s and 1980s, when there was sustained community unrest over conservation issues, according to a former senior bureaucrat responsible for the legislation.

Gerard Early, now a director with Birdlife Australia, told a Senate inquiry that history suggested a plan to change environment laws to hand greater responsibility for development assessments to the states would just increase risk and uncertainty over proposals, not reduce them as intended.