NSW Environmental Offsets An "Appalling" Mess Of Double-Counting, Profiteering And Inertia
There should be a major reform of New South Wales’ environmental offsetting schemes following a Guardian Australia investigation that revealed “appalling practices”, the state’s environment minister, Matt Kean, has said. Kean told a NSW budget estimates hearing on Tuesday some issues uncovered by the Guardian’s reporting were now the subject of investigations by integrity bodies. “It’s clear there needs to be root and branch reform of the scheme both from a policy level and an integrity level and we will be doing both,” the minister said on Tuesday.
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Guardian Australia uncovered major problems earlier this year in the way offset schemes – which are supposed to compensate for environmental destruction caused by development – were being delivered. Some promised offsets never eventuated and offsets by the federal government for the western Sydney airport on commonwealth-owned land already had heritage protections – a practice that is known in offsetting as “double dipping”.
Guardian Australia also revealed that consultants from a company that advised governments on major developments in NSW made windfall gains of tens of millions of dollars by selling offsets to the government for those same developments.
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The Labor MLC, Penny Sharpe, asked when a long promised reserve would be delivered that was supposed to be protected as an offset to compensate for habitat clearing caused by Sydney’s M7 motorway – which opened to traffic 15 years ago. “Fifteen years later we don’t actually have a proper offset,” she said. Officials confirmed at the hearing that remediation works at the bushland in Colebee, near the western Sydney suburb of Marsden Park, were under way and they expected the site would be transferred to the national parks and wildlife service in late 2022.
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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/oct/26/nsw-environmental-offsets-to-be-reformed-after-appalling-practices-revealed-minister-says