\n<\/p>\n
The Coalition wants to break reforms of the federal environment protection regime in two, prioritising measures to fast-track projects while likely further delaying protections for nature.<\/p>\n
The opposition leader, Sussan Ley, has made the \u201cconstructive\u201d offer to Anthony Albanese before the return of federal parliament on Monday, where the political fight over long-awaited legislation updating the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) is expected to dominate.<\/p>\n
The new nature laws are expected to be introduced this week but the government\u2019s hopes of passing them before Christmas appear slim, after the Coalition and the Greens ruled out supporting them without major concessions.<\/p>\n
The Coalition argues the laws are anti-business, while the Greens claim the opposite, accusing the environment minister, Murray Watt, of drafting changes that have \u201cbig business and the mining companies\u2019 fingerprints all over it\u201d.<\/p>\n
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After last week describing the draft laws as a \u201chandbrake\u201d on investment, Ley has told Albanese the Coalition was prepared to work with Labor to achieve \u201cmeaningful reform\u201d for business and the environment.<\/p>\n
But she wants the prime minister to agree to split the legislation in two, dealing first with \u201cpractical\u201d measures to speed-up assessment times for projects, while effectively putting the \u201cmore contentious environmental elements\u201d of the bill on the backburner.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government has itself acknowledged that streamlining environmental approvals is essential to lifting waning productivity and encouraging investment, including in the critical minerals sector,\u201d Ley and shadow environment minister, Angie Bell, wrote in a letter to Albanese, which was provided to Guardian Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, the draft reforms risk adding further complexity and uncertainty, creating a handbrake on investment without delivering commensurate environmental gains.\u201d<\/p>\n
The letter does not list the Coalition\u2019s specific concerns but Liberal sources confirmed they include the \u201cvague\u201d tests in the assessment process \u2013 including the proposed definition of \u201cunacceptable impacts\u201d on the environment \u2013 the threat to companies of $825m fines for breaches of nature laws, and emissions reporting requirements.<\/p>\n
Albanese will not be in Canberra to respond to Ley\u2019s offer, as the prime minister is missing parliament this sitting week to attend regional leaders\u2019 summits in Malaysia and South Korea.<\/p>\n
But the government is highly unlikely to accept Ley\u2019s offer, in part because Watt designed the laws as one package to avoid one of the major criticisms of Tanya Plibersek\u2019s failed attempts to revamp the EPBC Act in the previous term.<\/p>\n
Plibersek\u2019s decision to pursue the reform in stages \u2013 starting with a federal environment protection agency (EPA) \u2013 was criticised for delaying the actual task of fixing the nature laws.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Watt announced the model for his EPA, confirming that the minister would retain decision-making powers on projects.<\/p>\n
The retention of ministerial decision-making powers satisfies a key demand from the Coalition and industry and is not opposed by the Greens.<\/p>\n
But it was criticised by the Australian Conservation Foundation, which wanted an independent agency that made decisions at arm\u2019s length from government.<\/p>\n
The nature laws brawl will coincide with the Coalition\u2019s ongoing internal fight over net zero, which is set to intensify when backbench MPs meet to debate a position on Friday.<\/p>\n
The Nationals are conducting their own internal review of the climate target, which is co-led by vocal net zero campaigner Matt Canavan.<\/p>\n
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Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/span><\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n <\/span>SA algal bloom shows new criteria for climate disasters needed, Hanson-Young says \u2013 video<\/span><\/p>\n In an interview on ABC\u2019s Insiders, Canavan would not confirm whether the review \u2013 which is widely expected to result in the party abandoning net zero \u2013 was complete but said he would provide an update to his Nationals colleagues.<\/p>\n Barnaby Joyce is not expected to attend the briefing after his spectacular public break-up with the party he once led.<\/p>\n Amid ongoing speculation that he is planning to defect to One Nation, Joyce said on Sunday he was still a Nationals MP but would not attend any party room meetings this coming fortnight.<\/p>\n \u201cI remain in the Nationals but will not be participating in any partyroom as it is not fair on the confidentiality of other members and senators,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAdditionally they [the Nationals] remain with net zero as a policy which I can not be part of as it is merely a windfall gain for the super affluent few at the expense of others for no climate effect at all.\u201d<\/p>\n On Monday, the Senate is also scheduled to debate legislation to fully establish a \u201ccustodian\u201d to oversee the triple-zero system.<\/p>\n First recommended in the aftermath of the major Optus outage in 2023, the government rushed to introduce the legislation after the telco\u2019s catastrophic outage in September, which was linked to three deaths.<\/p>\n The Greens communications spokesperson, Sarah Hanson-Young, said her party would move amendments increasing fines for telcos and adding the prospect of criminal penalties.<\/p>\n The shadow communications spokesperson, Melissa McIntosh, said the opposition would re-introduce amendments in the senate to double the maximum fine for triple-zero outages to $20m after the same proposal failed in the Labor-controlled lower house.<\/p>\n A government spokesperson told Guardian Australia: \u201cOur priority is strengthening the triple-zero system which is what this bill will do.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe will work constructively with the crossbench on the two bills currently before the Parliament to ensure telcos are held to account.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Coalition wants to break reforms of the federal environment protection regime in two, prioritising measures to fast-track projects while likely further delaying protections for nature. The opposition leader, Sussan Ley, has made the \u201cconstructive\u201d offer to Anthony Albanese before the return of federal parliament on Monday, where the political fight over long-awaited legislation updating<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[2059,142,3018,1772,872,2171,2447,4098,4565,1321,124,2309],"class_list":{"0":"post-30716","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-australian","9":"tag-bill","10":"tag-break","11":"tag-coalition","12":"tag-environment","13":"tag-fight","14":"tag-heads","15":"tag-laws","16":"tag-nature","17":"tag-parliament","18":"tag-politics","19":"tag-pushes"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}