The products of Australia’s $83 billion agricultural industry feed and clothe the world, and lift people out of poverty and starvation. As a nation, Australia produces enough food to feed 75 million people each and every year.

Despite the significant and enduring contribution of Australia’s agricultural sector, the burden of red and green tape is immense and continues to grow.

In this report, environmental bureaucracy is defined as the relevant environment department, plus all of its related entities, such as the Environment Protection Agency. A list of the relevant agencies is provided in the Appendix.

Key findings:

• The federal environmental bureaucracy has more than tripled, while employment in agriculture throughout the country has declined by one-fifth.
• The cost of the federal government’s environmental bureaucracy has grown at almost three times the rate as the size of Australia’s entire agriculture sector.
• For every job created in the environmental bureaucracy, 14 jobs have been lost in Australia’s agricultural sector.