{"id":"BILL-r7394","name":"Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (Customs Charges Imposition) Bill 2025","slug":"environment-protection-and-biodiversity-conservation-customs-charges-imposition-bill-2025","collection":"bill","jurisdiction":"commonwealth","status":"in_force","isInForce":true,"actNumber":null,"makingDate":null,"administeringDepartment":null,"currentVersion":{"id":446026,"registerId":"commonwealth-BILL-r7394-current","compilationNumber":null,"startDate":"2026-05-05","status":"royal_assent","reasons":null,"registeredAt":null},"sections":[],"analysis":{"summary":{"status_summary":"The bill received royal assent on 1 December 2025 and became Act No. 64 of 2025.","complexity_score":3,"likely_questions":["What activities connected to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act will incur customs charges?","When are the regulations expected to be made and the charges implemented?"],"complexity_factors":["Depends on subordinate regulations to set specific charges and matters","Operates within constitutional constraints on taxation powers"],"plain_english_summary":"The Act authorises regulations to impose customs-style charges to recover Commonwealth costs associated with administering the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. Charges must be cost‑recovery only, may be fixed or formulaic, and can include exemptions; they affect people and businesses needing EPBC approvals (eg importers/exporters of regulated wildlife, plants or goods). The law respects constitutional limits, applies to state/territory Crown and external territories, and awaits regulations to fix matters and amounts."},"flash_summary":{"complexity_score":4,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"This Act is narrowly framed as an enabling, cost‑recovery tool: it authorises the government to prescribe customs‑style charges by regulation for matters connected with administering the EPBC Act (section 7). It does not itself change substantive environmental law, create new approval pathways, or broaden protected matters. Compared with the broader reform package (which substantially changes the EPBC Act’s substance), this Act remains a technical instrument to allow charges; it does not grow the policy scope beyond that enabling purpose. The main expansion of executive discretion is procedural — moving detail into regulations (sections 7–10) — rather than changing the statutory objects of the EPBC regime."},"complexity_factors":["Short primary text: 10 substantive sections (1–10) with limited standalone definitions","Extensive delegation to regulations (sections 7 and 10) shifting substantive detail to subordinate instruments","Cross-reference to EPBC Act: charges must be \"connected with the administration of the EPBC Act\" (section 7) — scope depends on external statute","Constitutional constraint: charges limited to duties of customs under s55 of the Constitution (section 7(4))","Cost‑recovery test requiring Ministerial satisfaction (section 8(2)) creates procedural and evidentiary questions","Allowances for multiple charges or charges covering multiple matters (section 7(3)) increase regulatory design permutations","Exemptions entirely left to regulations (section 9) — adds conditional complexity when implemented","Extra‑territorial and extension provisions (sections 4–5) add jurisdictional reach considerations","Commencement by proclamation with 12‑month fallback (section 2) adds staged implementation complexity","Interplay with taxation principles (declares charges are taxes at section 7(2)) and section 6 carve‑out for State property"],"plain_english_summary":"**What this law does, in plain English**\n\n- This Act lets the Commonwealth impose customs-style charges (i.e. duties of customs) by regulation for matters connected with running the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). In practice it creates a power for the executive to set and collect specified charges tied to EPBC administration instead of the Parliament setting each charge in the Act itself (see sections 7 and 10).\n\n- The regulations may either fix a dollar amount for a charge or set a method for calculating it (section 8(1)). Before a regulation that prescribes a charge is made, the responsible Minister must be satisfied the charge is set to recover no more than the Commonwealth’s likely costs for that matter (section 8(2)). Regulations may also provide exemptions (section 9).\n\n- The Act treats the prescribed charges as taxes (section 7(2)), limits them to charges that are duties of customs within the meaning of section 55 of the Constitution (section 7(4)), and gives the Governor‑General power to make regulations to implement the scheme (section 10). The Act applies beyond the mainland (external Territories and extra‑territorial acts) and binds State Crowns (sections 4, 5, 3). It expressly does not impose a tax on State property (section 6).\n\n**Who it affects**\n\n- Parties who interact with the EPBC Act regulatory system in ways the regulations pick out — for example importers, permit applicants, or other persons subject to administrative processes that the regulations link to customs charges (see section 7). The text of the Act does not itself list liable persons; that detail is left to regulations.\n\n- The Commonwealth executive: the Minister must be satisfied about the cost‑recovery level (section 8(2)), and the Governor‑General makes the regulations (section 10). The Act enables the department or agency that administers EPBC to collect additional revenue streams via the regulations.\n\n**How it works mechanically**\n\n- Parliament has passed an enabling Act that does two things: (a) authorises regulations to prescribe customs duties tied to EPBC administration (section 7); and (b) constrains how those regulations are to be framed (amount or method—section 8(1); cost‑recovery requirement—section 8(2); exemptions—section 9).\n\n- The regulations will specify what exact activities or transactions attract a customs charge, who pays, and how much (sections 7–9). The Act does not itself create specific charges or rates — those come later in regulations.\n\n**Why the government says this matters (and the mechanism by which it would matter)**\n\n- The Explanatory Memorandum frames these enabling Acts across the reform package as providing cost‑recovery tools so that the Commonwealth can recover administration costs and, in related bills, allow the Commonwealth to levy restoration or other charges as alternatives to offsets. This particular Act confines those tools to customs duties and to matters connected to EPBC administration (sections 7 and 8).\n\n**Practical effects, trade‑offs and implementation issues to watch**\n\n- Who pays and how much will be determined by regulation, not by this Act (sections 7–10). That concentrates decision power in the executive and makes stakeholder attention shift to the regulation‑making process.\n\n- The Act requires the Minister to be satisfied charges are set to recover no more than the Commonwealth’s likely costs (section 8(2)). That is an explicit cost‑recovery constraint, but it leaves room for judgment about what counts as Commonwealth costs and how they are estimated.\n\n- Because the enabling power is expressed as imposing duties of customs (section 7(4)), the scheme is constitutionally tethered to the meaning of a customs duty under section 55 of the Constitution. That limits the types of charges that can be imposed under this Act and may shape how regulations are drafted.\n\n- Administrative and compliance costs will shift to regulated parties once regulations are in force: preparing to pay a charge, adjusting commercial decisions where charges affect costs, or applying for exemptions where available (sections 8–9). These are private costs borne by those the regulations target.\n\n- The Act allows multiple charges for the same matter and one charge to cover multiple matters (section 7(3)). That drafting flexibility helps administrators design complex cost structures but also increases the scope for detailed and potentially technical regulations.\n\n- Implementation risk and political economy: the Act places significant detail in delegated instruments. Stakeholders therefore have an incentive to engage intensively with regulation development (amounts, exemptions, liability classes). The regulation route also concentrates discretion about exemptions and methods of calculation in the executive (sections 8–10), which creates lobbying incentives and raises the importance of transparent regulatory processes.\n\n- Enforcement, collection and interaction with other revenue rules: the Act declares these charges to be taxes (section 7(2)) and excludes taxation of State property (section 6). How the charges are collected and enforced — and how they interact with other customs, excise or fee regimes — will depend on the drafting and administrative arrangements in the regulations and any implementing instruments.\n\n**Summary — who pays, who decides, what changes**\n\n- Who pays: those identified in future regulations as liable for customs charges connected to EPBC administration (s 7; regulations to set liable persons and exemptions under s 9).\n\n- Who decides: the Governor‑General (via regulations) and the responsible Minister (who must be satisfied about the charge’s cost‑recovery level) (sections 8 and 10).\n\n- What changes: the Act does not itself set specific charges; instead it creates a legal pathway for the Commonwealth to impose customs‑style charges linked to EPBC administration, subject to the cost‑recovery constraint and constitutional limits on customs duties (sections 7–9)."}},"importantCases":[],"_links":{"self":"/api/acts/environment-protection-and-biodiversity-conservation-customs-charges-imposition-bill-2025","history":"/api/acts/environment-protection-and-biodiversity-conservation-customs-charges-imposition-bill-2025/history","analysis":"/api/acts/environment-protection-and-biodiversity-conservation-customs-charges-imposition-bill-2025/analysis","conflicts":"/api/acts/environment-protection-and-biodiversity-conservation-customs-charges-imposition-bill-2025/conflicts","importantCases":"/api/acts/environment-protection-and-biodiversity-conservation-customs-charges-imposition-bill-2025/important-cases","documents":"/api/acts/environment-protection-and-biodiversity-conservation-customs-charges-imposition-bill-2025/documents"}}