Environmental law and policy in Australia

The legal structure of resource use in Australia is not conducive to ration al policy-making. The authority to manage resides with the states, which ha ve enabled extensive parochial development of natural resources at the expe nse of resource rents and environmental quality. This has been achieved wit h administrative-type legislation, at the expense of common law adjudicatio n. This decentralized structure is complex but has no inherent coordination or direction to achieve any satisfactory resolution. Where the Federal Gov ernment does not have direct legislative authority for initiatives in the n ational interest, recent High Court decisions - particularly the Franklin D am case - clarify that the Federal Government does possess the basis of ini tiative for conserving the environment.