EXPLANATORY STATEMENT

(Issued under the Authority of the Minister for the Environment and Energy)

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth)

Instrument under section 194D

Purpose and operation of the instrument

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (the Act) provides for the protection of the environment and conservation of biodiversity, including the protection and conservation of threatened species. Among these is the obligation to establish and amend lists of threatened species, threatened ecological communities and key threatening processes.

Subdivision AA of the Act outlines the nomination and listing process. Section 194D of the Act provides that prior to inviting nominations for an assessment period for a Subsection A list under section 194E, the Minister may determine one or more conservation themes that the Minister considers should be given priority in relation to an assessment period.

The purpose of this Instrument determines ‘Freshwater species and ecological communities’ as the conservation theme the Minister has determined to be given priority for the assessment period commencing 1 October 2017.

Consultation

Section 194D(3) of the Act states that the rule-maker, when deciding whether to establish a conservation theme under section 194D(1) of the Act, may obtain and consider advice from the Threatened Species Scientific Committee for the purposes of making the determination.. That advice was sought and considered prior to the making of the Instrument.

Section 17(1)(a) of the Legislation Act 2003 states that before the legislative instrument is made, the rule-maker must be satisfied that there has been undertaken any consultation that is considered by the rule-maker to be appropriate. As this Instrument only sets a conservation theme for nominations and the setting of the theme does not preclude nominations of any species, ecological community or key threatening process, public consultation was not undertaken.

Registration of the instrument

This Instrument is a legislative instrument for the purposes of the Legislation Act 2003.

The Instrument commenced on the day after it was registered on the Federal Register of Legislation. As provided in section 194D(4) of the Act, section 42 of the Legislation Act 2003 does not apply to this instrument (disallowance).

As the instrument is not a disallowable instrument, in accordance with Section 15J(2)(f) of the Legislation Act 2003 this explanatory statement is not required to and does not contain a statement of compatibility prepared under subsection 9(1) of the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011.

Authority: section 194D of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth).