In May 2021, the Australian Government released the National Soil Strategy as Australia’s first national soil policy. It is a 20-year strategy that ‘provides a national vision and shared goals and objectives between the Australian Government and state and territory governments for managing soil across all landscapes.’

The strategy has three overarching goals to be achieved by 2041.

1. Prioritise soil health.
2. Empower soil innovation and stewards.
3. Strengthen soil knowledge and capability.

The strategy and the national action plan are the joint responsibility of the Australian Government and state and territory governments. The national action plan is being delivered in partnership with the soil science and research community, not-for-profit organisations, Natural Resource Management organisations, and industry bodies. The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (the department) is the Australian Government entity leading the design and implementation of the strategy and the national action plan.

This audit examined the effectiveness of the department’s design and early implementation of the strategy and the national action plan. It provides assurance to the Parliament over the department’s design processes; arrangements in place to implement the strategy; and delivery of soil initiatives listed in the interim action plan.

Key findings:

• The department’s design and early implementation of the strategy and the national action plan was not effective, except for its stakeholder engagement activities.
• The design processes to support the achievement of the government’s objectives were partly appropriate. There was limited evidence used to inform the development of the strategy and the national action plan. The national action plan does not specify which of its priority actions relate to which goals or objectives in the strategy.
• Effective arrangements are not in place to support implementation of the strategy and the national action plan. While progress has been made in implementing the initiatives in the interim action plan, the department had no framework or process in place to assess the impacts of individual initiatives on the overall implementation of the strategy.