* Plenty, according to an independent review handed to the Morrison government back in October 2020

* It called the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act ineffective, outdated - essentially not up to the task of protecting Australia's most important animals, plants, habitats and places

* Review chief Professor Graeme Samuel found successive governments failed, over 20 years, to fix fundamental flaws

* The Act didn't even properly define what it was trying to achieve and the environment continued its steady, unsustainable decline over that time

WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE:

* The review made 38 recommendations to fix the federal laws, which kick in when developments might affect nature deemed to be of national significance

* The Morrison government attempted to address some recommendations but was criticised for starting work before releasing the review

* Labor's Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek will on Thursday reveal how Labor will deal with the recommendations

* Two big ones have already been promised: new laws flagged for next year, and legally enforceable national environmental standards to underpin them

* The minister has also promised an independent federal environment protection agency in response to the review's call for new independent bodies to police the environment

* But other important recommendations have not been addressed including two on climate change, which is not mentioned in the existing Act

* One says developments should have to disclose the full scope of their emissions, the other says they should have to consider how effective their mitigation efforts will be under different climate scenarios

* Another politically tricky recommendation is to end the exemption native forest logging has from national protections for endangered species

* So too is the recommendation to expand the water trigger beyond coal seam gas and coal mining activities to other potentially damaging industries that could hurt significant water resources, such as groundwater and rivers

Australian Associated Press