The Albanese government’s second attempt at rewriting federal environmental protection laws is in jeopardy after the Coalition joined the Greens in criticising the proposed changes, leaving Labor without an obvious partner to get it through the Senate.
The opposition leader, Sussan Ley, claimed the nature laws were a “red light” for jobs and a “handbrake” for investment, warning the Coalition would need far more convincing before agreeing to support the plan.
Ley’s sharp criticisms mark a significant shift for the opposition, which had appeared open to a deal after a series of “positive” meetings in recent weeks between the environment minister, Murray Watt, and his Liberal counterpart, Angie Bell.
Labor was hopeful the Coalition would be more likely to endorse the plan under Ley, who as environment minister in the Morrison government commissioned the Samuel review that inspired the changes.
The Greens separately accused Watt of drafting pro-business laws that were worse for the environment than the existing ones, signalling it was unlikely to support the legislation without major concessions.
The separate attacks were a blow to Watt’s hopes of passing the laws before Christmas and raised the prospect that another planned overhaul the Environment Protection Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act could collapse for the second time in 12 months.
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The previous iteration, dubbed “nature positive” and overseen by Tanya Plibersek, was shelved by Anthony Albanese to quell a pre-election backlash in Western Australia.
The Coalition, the Greens and business and environment groups received extracts of the legislation on Wednesday, providing confirmation of how Labor intended to deal with contentious elements, such as climate impact.
The legislation would require proponents of heavy polluting projects to disclose their emissions, and how they intend to mitigate them, as part of the assessment process.
But it would not force decision-makers to consider the climate impacts, meaning projects such as Woodside’s North-West Shelf extension could still be approved under the new regime.
Omitting a “climate trigger”, however, has not been enough to win over Ley, who claimed “anything around climate policy” never belonged in federal environment law.
Ley claimed the laws could risk approvals for critical minerals projects backed under the deal Anthony Albanese signed with Donald Trump this week in Washington.
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The opposition’s leaders public comments echoed the private concerns of industry lobbyists about the implications of a proposed new definition for “unacceptable impacts” on the environment, which, if met, would result in a project being immediately refused.
“What is clear is that these laws are a gift to our overseas competitors,” Ley said.
“They’re a red-light to jobs, and they’re a handbrake to investment and development, the sort of investment and development this country has always needed and always relied on.”
Earlier on Thursday, the Nationals’ deputy leader, Kevin Hogan, said the proposed emissions reporting rules was just “one of the issues we have”.
“So we think this will just make it harder for industry to employ people. We think this will make it harder for industry to produce economic income for this country, and we see that all the time. So we have reservations about this,” he told Sky News.
More details soon …