On 1 July 2021, the new Victorian environmental laws will come into effect under the amended Environmental Protection Act 2017 (Vic), completely reforming and expanding the powers of the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA). The reforms aim to minimise the harm caused to both people and the environment from pollution and waste. The new regime will be centred on prevention with a focus on risk identification and management.
History
Five years ago, the Victorian Government initiated an independent enquiry into the EPA and environmental regulation in Victoria. The Inquiry’s Report (Report), released 31 March 2016, contained a total of 48 recommendations. The full Report can be accessed here.
The Victorian Government responded to the Report on 17 January 2017 (Response), supporting 40 of the 48 recommendations. The Response committed the Government to transform and modernise the EPA and associated environmental laws to coincide and keep pace with the everchanging legal, political and social landscape of environmental law in Australia.
As written in one of our initial articles in 2017 (see here), ‘[s]ignificant revisions of the Environmental Protection Act 1970 (Vic) [were] anticipated over the next two years’. As we predicted, this eventuated.
