Reforming Australia's Federal Framework: Priorities and Prospects

Tiernan, Anne-Maree

doi:10.1111/1467-8500.12180

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 5 publications

(5 reference statements)

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“…For example, streamlining planning often leads to measuring biodiversity using simplified assessment tools which are easily applied by consultants, leading to these systems delivering nature improvements designed to optimise the delivery of the specific biodiversity features chosen in policy, potentially driving homogenisation of habitats (Lave et al, 2010;Rampling et al, 2023;Tillman & Matthews, 2023). These and other governance challenges such as capacity shortages in regulators have led to systemic implementation failures (Bezombes et al, 2019;Evans, 2017Evans, , 2023Samuel, 2020). biodiversity offsetting policy, and the challenges of conducting robust impact evaluations of jurisdictional biodiversity offsetting policies.…”

Section: The Evidence Underpinning Biodiversity Offsettingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the impact of biodiversity offsetting on native vegetation

Ermgassen

Devenish

Simmons

et al. 2023

Global Change Biology

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Biodiversity offsetting is a globally influential policy mechanism for reconciling trade‐offs between development and biodiversity loss. However, there is little robust evidence of its effectiveness. We evaluated the outcomes of a jurisdictional offsetting policy (Victoria, Australia). Offsets under Victoria's Native Vegetation Framework (2002–2013) aimed to prevent loss and degradation of remnant vegetation, and generate gains in vegetation extent and quality. We categorised offsets into those with near‐complete baseline woody vegetation cover (“avoided loss”, 2702 ha) and with incomplete cover (“regeneration”, 501 ha), and evaluated impacts on woody vegetation extent from 2008 to 2018. We used two approaches to estimate the counterfactual. First, we used statistical matching on biophysical covariates: a common approach in conservation impact evaluation, but which risks ignoring potentially important psychosocial confounders. Second, we compared changes in offsets with changes in sites that were not offsets for the study duration but were later enrolled as offsets, to partially account for self‐selection bias (where landholders enrolling land may have shared characteristics affecting how they manage land). Matching on biophysical covariates, we estimated that regeneration offsets increased woody vegetation extent by 1.9%–3.6%/year more than non‐offset sites (138–180 ha from 2008 to 2018) but this effect weakened with the second approach (0.3%–1.9%/year more than non‐offset sites; 19–97 ha from 2008 to 2018) and disappeared when a single outlier land parcel was removed. Neither approach detected any impact of avoided loss offsets. We cannot conclusively demonstrate whether the policy goal of ‘net gain’ (NG) was achieved because of data limitations. However, given our evidence that the majority of increases in woody vegetation extent were not additional (would have happened without the scheme), a NG outcome seems unlikely. The results highlight the importance of considering self‐selection bias in the design and evaluation of regulatory biodiversity offsetting policy, and the challenges of conducting robust impact evaluations of jurisdictional biodiversity offsetting policies.

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Section: The Evidence Underpinning Biodiversity Offsettingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the impact of biodiversity offsetting on native vegetation

Ermgassen

Devenish

Simmons

et al. 2023

Global Change Biology

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“…Australia not only lacks a 'federal society' to underpin its federal system, but, along with Germany (Bendel and Sturm 2010), is the least regionally diverse of any federation; it is 'territorially or spatially homogeneous' (Aroney et al 2012:273). This helps explain the extent of centralisation and the widespread ambivalence towards federalism (Tiernan 2015;Fenna 2019a). It was this homogeneity that led US federalism scholar William Riker (1964:113) to ask 'why they bother with federalism in Australia' at all.…”

Section: Federalism Without a Federal Societymentioning

confidence: 99%

The revival of Australian federalism? Trends and developments in Commonwealth–state relations

Fenna¹

2023

Dilemmas in Public Management in Greater China and Australia: Rising Tensions but Common Challenges

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This chapter reviews developments in Australian federalism since the start of the new millennium, situating them in the context of longer-term trends and tendencies. After rehearsing the chief characteristics of the Australian federal system, it considers the way different issues have shaped the continuing evolution of that system in recent years. Two of those issuesclimate change politics and the COVID-19 pandemic-stand out for the way they seem to have given Australian federalism a new lease on life when centralising forces have otherwise prevailed. The chapter examines the way those challenges have brought the states to the fore and ventures some evaluation of their significance.

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“…Examples of under‐resourcing include regulators not being unable to send staff to assess offset sites or conduct basic compliance checks (Carver & Sullivan, 2017; Samuel, 2021). Overstretched regulators in Australia sometimes defer the most complex aspects of offset decisions until after developments are approved, when opportunities for public accountability and engagement are severely restricted (Evans, 2023). This is in part because of a lack of capacity to deal with reconciling different values expressed by stakeholders at the public consultation stage.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Achieving biodiversity net gain by addressing governance gaps underpinning ecological compensation policies

Rampling,

zu Ermgassen,

Hawkins

et al. 2023

Conservation Biology

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Biodiversity compensation policies have emerged around the world to address the ecological harms of infrastructure expansion, but they have historically experienced weak compliance. The English government is introducing a requirement that new infrastructure developments demonstrate they achieve a Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG). Previous research has highlighted governance gaps that risk undermining the policy's ecological outcomes and explore the risks caused by capacity constraints in regulators. However, the magnitude of their effects on the policy's potential biodiversity impacts remains unexplored. We collated BNG information from all new major developments across six early adopter councils from 2020–2022. We quantified the proportion of the biodiversity outcomes promised under BNG which are at risk of non‐compliance, explored the variation in strategies that developments use to meet their biodiversity liabilities, and quantified the occurrence of simple errors in the biodiversity metric calculations. Large developments and energy infrastructure are more likely to meet their liability within their own development footprint, and small developments more likely to purchase offsets. We estimate that 27% of all biodiversity units fall within governance gaps that expose them to a high risk of non‐compliance. Ideally, more robust governance mechanisms would be implemented to cover on‐site biodiversity unit delivery. Alternatively, more of these units could be delivered through the off‐site biodiversity offsetting; in the latter case, we estimate that the demand for offsets could rise by a factor of four, increasing the financial contributions generated by BNG for conservation activities on private land. Lastly, we find that 21% of applications contained a simple recurring error in their BNG calculations, half of which have already been accepted by councils, hinting at under‐resourcing in councils assessing developments. Our findings demonstrate that resourcing and governance shortfalls risk undermining the policy's effectiveness at halting biodiversity loss and require addressing to ensure the policy benefits nature.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

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Reforming Australia's Federal Framework: Priorities and Prospects

Cited by 6 publications

References 5 publications

Evaluating the impact of biodiversity offsetting on native vegetation

Evaluating the impact of biodiversity offsetting on native vegetation

The revival of Australian federalism? Trends and developments in Commonwealth–state relations

Achieving biodiversity net gain by addressing governance gaps underpinning ecological compensation policies

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