Environmental law reforms will fail to close ‘deforestation loopholes’ affecting Great Barrier Reef, says Ken Henry

The former head of the federal Treasury will use a Brisbane speech on Wednesday to warn that the Albanese government’s planned environmental law reforms will fail to close “deforestation loopholes” that directly threaten Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef.

Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation chairman Ken Henry, who served as Treasury secretary from 2001 to 2011, will tell a Committee for Economic Development of Australia lunch that Labor’s planned reforms to the Environment Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act will fail to address one of the reef’s greatest threats.

While Henry welcomed the proposed reforms – which he said reaffirmed the Commonwealth’s role in asserting Australia’s national interests, and injected greater planning certainty and consistency – more needed to