In a move that has surprised absolutely no one familiar with the Northern Territory's Country Liberal party, the Finocchiaro government has announced plans to delete a legal requirement that water be allocated to the environment. The Wilderness Society's chief executive, Kirsty Howey, called it a "blatant and shameless" attack on nature, which is a polite way of saying the government is literally trying to legislate the environment out of existence.

The proposed changes would scrap the rule that water allocation plans set aside water for rivers, springs, wetlands and water-dependent ecosystems. They would also remove a rule that total water use by industry remains below a limit set in each water allocation plan, and another requiring water resource management to comply with those plans. In short, the government is not just removing the guardrails; it's melting them down and selling the metal.

This comes as the government plans a major expansion of fracking, datacentres and agricultural development - because nothing says "sustainable future" like throwing water at gas companies while the rivers run dry. Howey warned the government risked trading the territory's aquifers and rivers for "short-term gain and profiteering" by the gas, agriculture and tech industries. "It's so blatant and shameless to literally be deleting the environment's water allocation," she said. "The scant safeguards that did exist - and they were threadbare - have just been ripped up altogether. They're not even pretending any more that they've got an interest in protecting these places."

The Central Land Council, representing Indigenous people in the southern half of the NT, said the government was trying to "covertly" remove the last remaining protections Territorians had in water use and management. CEO Les Turner said the move "actively undermines community aspirations for improved and transparent water planning laws" and "flies in the face of national trends." He noted that in August the high court quashed the NT government's decision to grant the Singleton Station licence because it had been unlawfully granted - and that under the new rules, native title holders wouldn't even be able to challenge such a licence in the first place. "This is especially troubling when we might be faced with future high-water-consuming developments like data centres looking to take advantage of lax regulations and free water," Turner said.

The bill also weakens the definition of "estimated sustainable yield" - the amount of water that may be taken from a water resource - and is part of a larger package that tinkers with marine pollution, heritage and mining legislation. Bree Ahrens, executive director of the Environment Centre NT, called it a "smash and grab bill that puts water and nature last" and urged the Albanese government to rule out handing federal assessment powers to "an increasingly rogue NT government that is dismantling water safeguards."

NT environment minister Joshua Burgoyne denied the bill dismantles environmental safeguards, insisting the territory's "core framework" of environment-related laws remained. "Our government remains focused on facts, not the fearmongering tactics of environmental lobby groups," he said, presumably with a straight face. He also pointed to the government's "track record of protecting the environment, such as extending the Limmen Bight marine park" - which is a bit like praising someone for recycling one bottle while they're siphoning the town's reservoir.

The bill follows a raft of earlier changes since the CLP won government, including scrapping the NT's renewable energy target, abandoning a promise to implement a 43% emissions reduction target by 2030, and creating a territory coordinator role with the power to override 32 territory laws to fast-track developments. At this point, the only thing being fast-tracked is the environment's exit.