Australia’s reformed environment protection and biodiversity conservation framework: what it means for oil and gas

The passage of the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 marks the most significant overhaul of Australia’s federal environmental approvals framework in a generation. The Environment Protection Reform Act 2025 recast the environment protection and biodiversity conservation (EPBC) framework as a standards-based system, supported by new institutions, expanded compliance powers and limited approval discretion. For the oil and gas sector, the practical consequences of these reforms extend beyond the primary legislation. For a start, coal and gas actions were subject to a last-minute political deal that resulted in them being excluded from certain streamlined and facilitative assessment pathways, resulting in a differentiated approvals framework. Much of the regulatory impact will be driven by the implementation of new national standards, transitional arrangements, guidance materials and regulator practice as the framework moves into operation during 2026. New concepts such as unacceptable impacts, net gain and restoration obligations, enhanced emissions reporting, and revised assessment pathways will influence project risk, approval timeframes and evidentiary requirements across upstream, midstream and associated infrastructure developments. This paper provides an overview of the reformed framework from an oil and gas perspective, outlining what has changed and what remains unsettled. It highlights areas of uncertainty and regulatory risk, and concludes by identifying practical considerations for proponents, including early alignment of project design with emerging standards, robust technical justification of impact pathways and close monitoring of how the reformed system is applied in practice.