A key reason for the Minns Government’s overhaul of the NSW environment and planning laws is not for communities, not for good affordable housing, not for climate resilience but for the mining and development industry and their super profits.  

Minns candidly told a Sydney Investment Summit in October 2025 that he is keen to make NSW ‘the quickest, the easiest, the most direct state to develop and release big projects in’. He also told an international mining summit that he wants ‘quicker approvals and quicker productive mines.’  Minns constant messaging has been that the Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Planning System Reforms) Bill 2025 is about making it easier to build more mid-high rise apartments everywhere, regardless of thei9r environmental damage. Now Premier Minns has admitted that the new Bill will also apply to mining and power projects.  Despite NSW Labor’s rhetoric about being a party ‘better for the environment’ their planning legislation fails for climate action and biodiversity protection. Minns new laws will remove, weaken and obliterate controls to ensure a safe climate and accelerate biodiversity extinction.   Jeremy Buckingham MLC moved a last-minute amendment in the Legislative Council on Thursday 23 October 2025 calling for climate impacts and greenhouse gas emissions to be considered when assessing developments.   Write to your local MP calling on her/him to support this amendment when it is debated on Tuesday 11 November 2025.

Read more:

• Nature Conservation Council of NSW E-News Minns’s plan to fast-track mining projects exposed HERE
• Minns admits mining and power projects can be fast-tracked under contentious NSW approval laws’ – The Guardian 
• Update on the NSW Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Planning System Reforms) Bill 2025 from the Environmental Defenders Office 
• NSW planning overhaul removes corruption and environment safeguards, legal experts say’ – ABC 
  
  

Biggest rollback of planning protections in NSW history

The Minns Labor Government has introduced one of the largest rollbacks of planning, environment and community protects since 1979 with the first Environment Planning Assessment Act. Its new Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Planning System Reforms) Bill 2025 is a seismic change for NSW citizens in how development will affect planning and environment decisions in every local government area of NSW.

What does the Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Planning System Reforms) Bill 2025 do?

• removes health and safety from the Objects of the Act
• removes health and safety from the objects of the Act
• weakens the duty to consider environmental impacts,
• creates new fast-track approval pathways where decision-makers are prohibited from weighing the environment, climate impacts or the broader public interest.
• centralises power in a single senior executive, the Planning Secretary, at the expense of councils, independent agencies, and communities.

Why is the Bill so dangerous?

• “This Bill is the most dangerous change to our planning system we have ever seen. The Government is using the housing crisis as cover to ram through reforms that silence communities, weaken environmental protections and hand extraordinary power to one bureaucrat”- Greens MP, Spokesperson for planning Sue Higginson (3.10.25)
• “Protections for the environment are being stripped out across the Act. The duty to consider impacts on land, water, biodiversity and climate has been replaced with a proportionality test, allowing obligations to be watered down. At the same time, the Bill makes it possible that considering climate impacts under the public interest test could be deemed unlawful. These are not reforms for the future, they are a deliberate weakening of our ability to plan responsibly in a climate and extinction crisis”- Greens MP, Spokesperson for planning Sue Higginson (3.10.25)
• “The Bill also removes the requirement for bushfire hazard assessments, leaving communities more vulnerable at a time when fire risk is intensifying across NSW”- Greens MP, Spokesperson for planning Sue Higginson (3.10.25)
• “Community participation will be gutted. Local participation plans will be abolished and replaced with a single statewide plan controlled by the Planning Secretary. The result will be cookie-cutter consultation that ignores the specific needs and knowledge of local communities”- Greens MP, Spokesperson for planning Sue Higginson (3.10.25)
• “The Bill also undermines the protection of First Nations cultural heritage and Country. By funnelling approvals into the Development Coordination Authority, expert advice from Heritage NSW and the voices of Land Councils and Native Title holders will no longer be guaranteed a statutory role in decision-making”- Greens MP, Spokesperson for planning Sue Higginson (3.10.25)
• “This is not planning reform. It is a developer’s charter. It will open the door for damaging projects to be forced onto communities, strip out safeguards for biodiversity and climate, and put people at greater risk from fire and unsafe development”- Greens MP, Spokesperson for planning Sue Higginson (3.10.25)
• “All Members of Parliament who truly represent their communities should oppose this Bill. We need planning reform that tackles the housing crisis while strengthening, not dismantling, protections for communities, the environment and First Nations heritage” M- Greens MP, Spokesperson for planning Sue Higginson (3.10.25)

Read what Sue Higginson MLC has to say about the Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Planning System Reforms) Bill 2025 HERE

FOKE Summary

The Minns Labor Government has introduced the Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Planning System Reforms) Bill 2025. The Bill represents one of the largest rollbacks of planning, environmental and community protections since the Planning Act was introduced in 1979.

The Bill removes health and safety from the objects of the Act, weakens the duty to consider environmental impacts, and creates new fast-track approval pathways where decision-makers are prohibited from weighing the environment, climate impacts or the broader public interest. It centralises power in a single senior executive, the Planning Secretary, at the expense of councils, independent agencies, and communities.

Greens MP, Spokesperson for planning Sue Higginson said:

“This Bill is the most dangerous change to our planning system we have ever seen. The Government is using the housing crisis as cover to ram through reforms that silence communities, weaken environmental protections and hand extraordinary power to one bureaucrat,”

“Protections for the environment are being stripped out across the Act. The duty to consider impacts on land, water, biodiversity and climate has been replaced with a proportionality test, allowing obligations to be watered down. At the same time, the Bill makes it possible that considering climate impacts under the public interest test could be deemed unlawful. These are not reforms for the future, they are a deliberate weakening of our ability to plan responsibly in a climate and extinction crisis,”

“The Bill also removes the requirement for bushfire hazard assessments, leaving communities more vulnerable at a time when fire risk is intensifying across NSW,”

“Community participation will be gutted. Local participation plans will be abolished and replaced with a single statewide plan controlled by the Planning Secretary. The result will be cookie-cutter consultation that ignores the specific needs and knowledge of local communities,”

“The Bill also undermines the protection of First Nations cultural heritage and Country. By funnelling approvals into the Development Coordination Authority, expert advice from Heritage NSW and the voices of Land Councils and Native Title holders will no longer be guaranteed a statutory role in decision-making,”

“This is not planning reform. It is a developer’s charter. It will open the door for damaging projects to be forced onto communities, strip out safeguards for biodiversity and climate, and put people at greater risk from fire and unsafe development,”

“All Members of Parliament who truly represent their communities should oppose this Bill. We need planning reform that tackles the housing crisis while strengthening, not dismantling, protections for communities, the environment and First Nations heritage,” Ms Higginson said.