Opposition Leader Sussan Ley says the Coalition is willing to pass the government’s environmental protection laws if it makes some serious concessions in the legislation. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
The Federal Government wants its environmental protection laws passed in the Senate this week before parliament breaks for Christmas. Environment Minister Murray Watt says he is confident the laws will pass, but he’s not sure which party will help make it happen.
“It’s really a matter of whether it’s with the Coalition or the Greens,” he said on Monday morning (24 November).
“And the decision they’ve got to make this week is do they want to be part of passing historic reforms to our national environment reforms, or do they want to see the other side get in on the action and do it with us instead.”
The overhaul of Australia’s environmental protection laws seemed one step closer with the Federal Opposition signalling it is open to passing them.
But there’s a catch: Labor has to agree to a few Coalition proposals.
Because the government has an overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives, the legislation easily passed there shortly after its introduction.
But it is in the Senate where Labor needs support from either the Coalition or the Greens to pass the legislation.
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said on Friday morning (21 November) that she would be open to her team in the Upper House passing the government’s legislation if a few fairly significant tweaks were made to it.
The Opposition wants the bill to better define what would be known as an “unacceptable impact” on the environment and, on the flip side, what a “net gain” would mean from a proposed development.
“We are up for a sensible conversation about how to get this right, because we do want to see projects with a shorter timeline than they have right now,” Ms Ley said.
“What we’ve done is propose sensible changes to the government’s laws because we want them to work for business, industry, and of course, the environment, which needs protection.”
The Coalition wants to amend the legislation’s penalty provisions for environmental protection breaches, saying the size and scope of the penalties as they currently stand in the proposed laws need revisiting.
The Opposition also wants the powers of a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) changed to ensure the environment minister of the day maintains full final authority over development assessments.
The long-awaited, recently introduced environmental protection bill seeks to establish a national environmental protection agency and require development projects to report their carbon emissions.
However, the legislation specifically rules out a climate trigger that would prevent projects from going ahead.
The suite of legislation is more than 1400 pages and includes provisions for a federal environment minister to approve projects on the grounds of the national interest, even if they don’t tick off all environmental guidelines.
It also allows for no-go zones where projects can be denied before applications are progressed.
Environment Minister Murray Watt said the proposed reforms must be passed now after recent years of failed attempts.
The government insists that when the bill is passed, it will yield several demonstrable benefits for nature and establish a new ministerial authority to set national environmental standards.
Those standards were the centrepiece of the review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 undertaken by Professor Graeme Samuel.
Senator Watt said stakeholders broadly supported the proposed standard.
It emerged over the weekend that Senator Murray has offered concessions to the Greens on native forest logging and on removing fossil fuel projects from fast-tracked approvals under a new “national interest” mechanism in the proposed new laws.
But the Minister said on Monday that he was not prepared to go further and add a climate trigger to legislation.
“You will have seen over the weekend that we said that we are prepared to remove fossil fuel projects from the national interest approval mechanism that is included in the bill,” he told ABC radio.
“So I guess that’s a bit of a nod towards the concerns around climate change and fossil fuels. But no, we won’t be including climate considerations.”
Greens leader Larissa Waters said on Friday that the federal government needs to “pick a side” with whom it wants to strike a deal to get the legislation through.
She said choosing the Greens’ proposed amendments will make sure the new laws really do protect the environment.
Accepting the Coalition’s amendments, she said, is dealing with big fossil fuel developers who have little regard for the environment.
The Greens, who have the sole balance of power in the Senate, want the legislation to include an end to native forest logging and no fast-tracking of coal and gas projects.
But they also want the new laws to consider climate impacts when approving developments, which the current legislation specifically rules out.
“They need to pick a side, and if they want to have reforms that will actually protect nature, then they know to come and talk with the Greens,” Senator Waters said.
“If the government can’t even come at those things, it’s pretty clear they’re not environmental laws – they’re laws for business.”
Senator Waters described the legislation as it currently stands before the Senate as a “huge backward step” for the environment.
