Blog by Dr Richard Yin, CCWA President
On the first Monday of the year, in a courthouse in Karratha in WA’s Pilbara, the weakness of existing environmental protection laws was on full display.
Oil and gas giant Santos, with a market capitalisation of $22.1 billion, had just pleaded guilty to spilling 25,000 litres of oil into the ocean off WA’s coast in 2022.
A whistleblower subsequently accused Santos of a cover-up, tabling evidence in Parliament that showed the spill had led to the deaths of at least three dolphins and that other marine life including sea snakes were found writhing in agony by Santos staff.
In 2025, at a time when our nature is threatened by extreme weather events on a weekly basis, what was the penalty for spilling oil in the ocean and killing dolphins?
...$10,000.
Or 40 cents for each litre of oil that Santos spilled.
A climate protestor in Perth was fined almost the same amount last year for spraying water-soluble paint on the windows at Woodside, the largest fossil fuel company in the country.
Our nature laws are failing to deliver the environmental protections we need and the penalties that will send the right message to companies.
By the end of last year there were 41 new flora and fauna species added to the endangered species list with another 138 species under assessment. The current list standing at 2,142 is a clear indication we need a drastic shift in environmental protection.
Our Prime Minister recently announced that his government’s flagship Nature Positive reforms would be shelved until after the next election opening the door to more political interference and lobbying. The review of our Federal nature laws was finalised in 2021, revealing that our nature is in an overall state of decline and our laws failing. We don’t need more watering down of laws, we need effective laws.
The negotiation of these laws behind closed doors with secret reports and under the threat of aggressive media headlines should not be the standard for public policy in Australia. Particularly when the issue at hand is our natural environment, that we all have a stake in, that we love and depend on.
Polling last year shows that 78% of West Australians want stronger nature laws that should matter to the PM and to the Premier as they head to the polls.
Meanwhile, heatwaves are scorching our land and seas and our natural world is crying out for stronger action and protection. WA has been sweltering through a record heatwave, with temperatures pushing 50 degrees across the state.
The LA fires reminded us all of the immediacy of the climate crisis as this year began, but we shouldn’t need flames wreathing Hollywood landmarks to bring home the risks for the nature we all love. Also in WA in January, a 400 year old Tingle tree, second only in size to the great Californian redwoods, was killed by a prescribed burn that got out of control. In the current climate, we cannot control the effects of the weather.
We need to get serious about delivering better outcomes for nature and that means getting the laws right to improve decision making independent.
Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has shown a huge degree strength on the Nature Positive laws and it's disappointing that the Prime Minister has not matched that commitment and strength and instead succumbed to threats from industry and media in WA.
This is why we need an independent national Environment Protection Australia (EPA) to take politics out of environmental decision making.
We need an EPA that can make the tough decisions based on science and evidence not media headlines and political threats.
And we need real action to protect nature and prevent the worst of climate change.
Earlier in the year, more dead marine life washed up on the Pilbara coast. 30,000 dead fish, turtles and octopus were found at 40 Mile Beach just a stone’s throw from another Santos gas plant, and only a few kilometres from Woodside’s Burrup Hub, the largest gas export facility in the Southern Hemisphere. The government has confirmed that this latest disaster is likely the predictable outcome of an extreme marine heatwave that has already caused coral bleaching across the Kimberley and may also have killed whales there.
This is directly caused by climate change driven by WA’s rising greenhouse gas emissions, greenlit by a WA government which just approved the extension of Woodside’s Burrup Hub until 2070, by which time it would emit 6 billion tonnes of CO2 if the federal government approves it too.
With heatwaves scorching our land and seas, our natural world is crying out for stronger action and protection. Anthony Albanese has made a grave mistake by weakly capitulating to fossil fuel propaganda when an overwhelming majority of voters want a government that stands up for our nature.