Labor is being pushed to introduce tough new national rules for protecting threatened species exposed to disasters including bushfires and floods, with the former Treasury boss Ken Henry among advocates warning that risks to wildlife could reach a point of no return.
Months after a major rewrite of environment laws passed parliament, a consortium of animal protection and campaign groups want the Albanese government to standardise rescue, treatment and rehabilitation processes and help fund organisations working to protect species including endangered koalas in the May federal budget.
Criticised as Treasury secretary for taking five weeks’ leave to care for the rare northern hairy-nosed wombat in 2008, Henry is now the chair of Wildlife Recovery Australia.
He is leading a push for patchy state and territory wildlife protection to be coordinated at a the national level, part of a plan to turn around Australia’s biodiversity decline.
Some rescue services currently carried out by volunteers would be paid for by government under the proposal.
Along with organisations including RSPCA Queensland, Henry wants budget funding for services such as veterinary treatment and long-term rehabilitation for animals, much of which is currently delivered by volunteers.
He told Guardian Australia the five-year struggle to overhaul the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act has raised awareness but animals caught up in natural disasters needed better protection.
Last financial year, volunteers responded to more than 320,000 calls for help for sick, injured or orphaned wildlife. Nearly 130,000 rescue operations were conducted and vets assessed 51,000 injured animals.
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The soaring demand is being driven by climate change and habitat destruction.
“There’s a huge gap at both federal and state level,” Henry said.
“As a consequence of these pressures, more and more animals are getting in harm’s way. When they get in harm’s way, governments take very little interest. So it is left to volunteers to pick up the pieces and get those animals back into the wild.”
Ken Henry with a wombat in NSW’s Kangaroo Valley: ‘We need to have a good hard look at what’s going on.’
Currently responsibility for injured animals falls on the community.
Henry said practising vets in states including New South Wales are obliged by law to treat injured wildlife, without compensation.
“We need to have a good hard look at what’s going on here. We need a national approach.”
Governments have an opportunity to “sit down and work out a way to show leadership”, he said, amid heightened community awareness due to the climate crisis and events such as floods and bushfires.
In November, Labor secured a major overhaul of the EPBC.
Inspired by businessman Graeme Samuel’s 2020 review, the changes will better protect nature through new environmental standards and faster project assessments. It also establishes a new environmental protection agency and will subject native forest logging to national environment standards in 18 months’ time.
This week, the environment minister, Murray Watt, opened recruitment for the inaugural boss of the EPA. The agency is due to commence work in July.
Lisa Palma, the chief executive of Wildlife Victoria, said national leadership would help protect species including koalas.
“Wildlife is a national asset, yet the responsibility to care for injured animals falls almost entirely on underfunded charities and volunteers,” she said.
Dean Huxley, of the Western Australian animal rescue group WA Wildlife, said the volunteer workforce had reached a tipping point.
“Government investment is not a luxury item any more, it is essential. Without it there is a real risk that injured wildlife will soon have nowhere to go and that is something the community would not accept if it were widely understood.”
The federal budget is due to be handed down on 12 May.
