Final post from me on this topic - too much time on my hands to...

Final post from me on this topic - too much time on my hands to number crunch on the weekend. When I was looking at referrals to the EPBC that were "Clearly Unacceptable" these are given early on and the application doesn't progress any further - but a referral still can get a final not approved decision from the Minister. So, from the EPBC portal, it isn't possible to search or filter to break down the decisions that make it to an approval decision stage to see how many were not approved (you would have to view every single one on its merits to know this - a few hours work!). But luckily, I found this audit below conducted in 2019 that looked at every referral to the EPBC since the start of the act - what is on the portal now is only searchable from 2008 onwards. So the flow chart shows that for referrals that were considered controlled actions, just 11 were not approved with 1050 approved with or without conditions. So yes, still just on a 99% approval rate.

https://www.anao.gov.au/work/performance-audit/referrals-assessments-and-approvals-controlled-actions-under-the-epbc-act