Platypus are crepuscular, elusive, and there has been no long term monitoring of their populations making quantification of their decline possible. New South Wales and Queensland apparently have the sharpest population declines. The animal is thought to be extinct in South Australia. Victoria's state scientific advisory board has recently recommended an official listing of vulnerable for the platypus. In some areas affected by bushfires, palypuses have never returned. Being aquatic, they are affected by degraded water quality and flow diminution caused by human development and drought.
Australia's current federal government is considering amending the nation's environmental laws to allow more state and territorial approval powers. Greens and Labour have called the proposed changes a "sham". A report on the failures of Australia's environmental laws by the Australian Conservation Foundation was given to the government last month, but the proposed legislation does nothing to address key failures of national environmental law according to the report's chair. Government records show the proposed devolution of power to states was decided before the conservation report was submitted. The Abbott government has a standing policy of "streamlining" regulation similar to the discredited, anti-science Trump regime in the US.