Albanese Government strikes 11th hour deal with the Greens to pass environment laws

Climate advocates have had a mixed response to the Albanese Government deal with the Greens to pass its new environment laws through the Senate. In classic centrist style, the Government has placated an environmentalist here and a miner there. Only time and detail will tell just what these laws ultimately mean for the environment.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called a press conference this morning to announce the reforms will pass parliament later today – the final day of the parliamentary year.

“This is a landmark day for the environment in this country,” Albanese told journalists in Canberra.

“It’s a great win for the environment and a great one for business.”

The new laws will replace those first drafted 25 years ago under John Howard and come more than five years after Professor Graeme Samuel handed down his independent review, in which the laws “were widely acknowledged as not being fit for purpose”.

Following a flurry of last-minute meetings yesterday, Minister for the Environment and Water, Murray Watt, said the laws, “deliver on the promise that I gave on taking on this role to ensure that these laws would be balanced and that they would deliver real gains for both the environment and for business”.

Minister Watt said the reforms include the establishment of a National Environment Protection Agency to ensure better compliance and stronger enforcement of the new laws and a “streamlined assessment pathway” for business “to speed up decision making and lift productivity by giving business faster yeses and faster nos.”

However, climate advocates say the new “streamlined” approach will “cut out local communities, Traditional owners and the public from having a say in decisions on coal and gas, renewables and minerals projects”.

They also believe Labor’s refusal to include a “climate trigger” – a mechanism that could block coal and gas projects that would worsen carbon emissions – will create “sweeping new corruption risks by giving the Minister unprecedented power to decide how and when the law is actually applied”.

Labor did agree, however, to remove the ability for coal and gas projects to use fast-tracked approvals.

The Prime Minister also pointed out the laws “will require proponents of large emitting projects to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and their emission reduction plan”.

In a statement, the Greens said the Albanese Government“pointedly refused to support a climate trigger, despite majority public support and strong evidence in Inquiry, preventing the Environment Minister from considering climate damage when approving projects”.

Australian Greens Leader Senator Larissa Waters said, “Their (Labor’s) straight up refusal to add climate to these laws shows Labor puts coal and gas corporate profits ahead of the millions of people who want to protect the climate.”

The Greens did, however, win the fight for an expanded “water trigger” to be included which will now see unconventional gas projects also assessed for their impacts on critical water resources.

The Prime Minister said negotiations with the Coalition fell apart when their final letters signalled “there are other things to come”.

“Parliament stops today. You can’t, the day before Parliament say, ‘Oh, well, we’ve got some other things, but we can’t tell you what they are yet’. It made it impossible.”

However, Shadow Minister for the Environment Angie Bell rejected the claim and told reporters, “Last night, 9:30 at night, we were still talking to the government around our amendments and adjustments that we feel were needed for this bill”.

Opposition leader Susan Ley pointed out the deal “wasn’t necessary to conclude today or this year.”

“What is absolutely clear is that this is going to put energy prices up and provide further pressure on electricity bills for struggling households and families, for the simple reason that the Greens have got what they want.

“The Greens Party has always been at war with gas. They’ve always been at war with the resources projects that make our country strong.”

Anthony Albanese met with Greens’ Senators Larissa Water and Sarah Hanson-Young yesterday to thrash out the remaining details.

“I must say that the Greens showed maturity in that they, a range of the things that they wanted they didn’t get.”

“Labor started this process with a bill that was clearly written to get a deal with the Coalition,” said the Greens Environment spokesperson, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young. “It was full of carve outs and loopholes that would have allowed big corporations to trash our environment.”

The Greens have celebrated “ending decades-long exemptions for forestry destruction in 18 months” with Minister Watt confirming Labor would be “removing exemptions from the Act for high-risk land clearing and regional forestry agreements”.

“We have ended an outrageous legal carveout for logging that’s resulted in devastation for forests and threatened species habitats across the country,” said Greens Forests spokesperson, Senator Nick McKim.

“We’re very clear that the prospects of forestry workers are improved today compared with what they were yesterday, because Regional Forest Agreements stay,” said the Prime Minister.

The Coalition cried rubbish. “It’s going to kill off certain industries in this country,” said Tasmanian Liberal Senator, Jonathon Duniam.

Conservation groups believe far more can be done and have urged the Government to fix its “backward steps” and include provisions that are better at “protecting water catchments, groundwater, forests and wildlife habitat” and ensure “all polluting activities are subject to stringent assessments of full climate impacts”.

“Australia has committed to halt extinction by 2030 and restore the integrity, connectivity and resilience,” they said in a joint statement.

“The Albanese Government and the Australian parliament must act on this commitment with laws that safeguard Australia’s natural heritage and the wellbeing of future generations.”