\n<\/p>\n
Years of debate about environmental law reform have come down to a tense standoff in the final sitting week of federal parliament for the year, with Labor claiming it can do a deal that will pass the Senate by Thursday.<\/p>\n
The government is still pushing to pass its major changes, despite not yet having reached an agreement with either the Greens or the Coalition.<\/p>\n
The Greens appear to be inching closer to a deal on updating the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, with the Coalition still refusing to back the changes. But the Minerals Council has joined other peak business groups in urging the Liberals and Nationals to back the changes, with environment minister, Murray Watt, pledging to make a deal with whoever will come to the table first.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe will pass these reforms this week with whichever of the Coalition and the Greens is willing to work with us to deliver that balanced package,\u201d Watt said on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Greens and Labor sources said they expected the two parties could come to an agreement later in the week, ahead of parliament rising on Thursday afternoon, but the Greens environment spokesperson, Sarah Hanson-Young, wanted more limits on fossil fuel developments before signing up.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also want to make sure we\u2019re not seeing coal and gas fossil fuel projects accelerated,\u201d she told the ABC\u2019s Insiders.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s crazy in 2025, you\u2019re talking about a new set of environment laws and it doesn\u2019t even consider the climate pollution that a coal or gas mine makes?\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the 1,500 pages of environmental law reform still being examined by a Senate committee, due to report in March 2026, the government says it wants to ram the bill through parliament by year\u2019s end because it would improve approvals and build times for major parts of its agenda including housing construction, critical minerals sites and green energy projects.<\/p>\n
But the Greens and Coalition say they are not convinced of the bill\u2019s urgency. Despite not ruling out a deal later in the week, Greens sources said they didn\u2019t see the need for rushing, noting the ongoing Senate inquiry, and their concerns that the bill could help fast-track approval of coal and gas projects.<\/p>\n
Labor, in turn, is pressuring the Greens. Watt held a press conference on Sunday in the Brisbane electorate of Ryan, the last Greens-held seat in the country after the party lost three seats at the May election.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw at the last federal election that the Greens party paid a very big political price for being seen by the Australian people to be blocking progress on important things like housing and environmental law reform,\u201d Watt said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a real opportunity for the Greens this week to demonstrate that they have heard the message from the Australian people, that they\u2019re not going to keep blocking progress, that they\u2019re not going to make the perfect the enemy of the good.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Liberal party\u2019s finance spokesperson, James Paterson, said on Sunday: \u201cwhere it stands today, we certainly couldn\u2019t support the proposed legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n
He claimed the laws were \u201cdeficient\u201d and that the opposition would stick to its earlier demands, daring the government to \u201cdo a deal with the Greens and they will wear the consequences of that.\u201d<\/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 Watt has offered concessions to both Greens and Coalition demands.<\/p>\n To the Coalition, Watt has conceded amendments to tighten rules around the National Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s powers, while for the Greens, Labor has offered limits on the \u201cnational interest\u201d test being used to approve fossil fuel projects.<\/p>\n On Sunday, Watt extended another olive branch to the Greens, offering to force native forestry projects to comply with national environmental standards within three years. But Hanson-Young wanted more for their support, saying a three-year phase-in was not fast enough.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s 2025 and it\u2019s time we ended native forest logging,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Corporate groups like the Business Council of Australia have urged the Coalition to back the EPBC changes. The Minerals Council CEO, Tania Constable, added her voice on Sunday, calling for a \u201csensible compromise by both sides\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThis will allow our industry to deliver investment, jobs and regional benefits faster,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Years of debate about environmental law reform have come down to a tense standoff in the final sitting week of federal parliament for the year, with Labor claiming it can do a deal that will pass the Senate by Thursday. The government is still pushing to pass its major changes, despite not yet having reached<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34846,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[2059,2190,522,1601,864,4098,16795,4565,913,14887,124,365],"class_list":{"0":"post-34845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-australian","9":"tag-concessions","10":"tag-demand","11":"tag-greens","12":"tag-labor","13":"tag-laws","14":"tag-longawaited","15":"tag-nature","16":"tag-pass","17":"tag-pledges","18":"tag-politics","19":"tag-week"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34845","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=34845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}