{"id":307934,"date":"2025-11-25T15:13:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T15:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/307934\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T15:13:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T15:13:14","slug":"labors-attempts-to-woo-greens-and-coalition-on-nature-laws-revealed-amid-criticism-of-coin-toss-australian-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/307934\/","title":{"rendered":"Labor\u2019s attempts to woo Greens and Coalition on nature laws revealed amid criticism of \u2018coin toss\u2019 | Australian politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

The fate of Labor\u2019s nature laws hangs in the balance after new concessions to the Coalition<\/a> and the Greens failed to immediately persuade either party to support them.<\/p>\n

But Labor is continuing talks with both sides and could be prepared to give more ground, as it desperately tries to land a deal to overhaul the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act before parliament rises for the year on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

The intensifying negotiations came as the government\u2019s own advisory body on threatened species \u2013 the threatened species scientific committee (TSSC) \u2013 warned the legislation had not got the balance right to meet the goal of no new extinctions.<\/p>\n

In a submission to a Senate inquiry examining the bills, the committee warned the bills appeared to increase the minister\u2019s discretion to decide when environmental protections would be upheld and this \u201ccould undermine\u201d efforts to protect wildlife and avoid extinctions.<\/p>\n

The environment minister, Murray Watt, presented separate amendments to the Coalition and the Greens on Tuesday morning as he continued to pursue potential deals with both.<\/p>\n

The Climate Council chief executive, Amanda McKenzie, criticised the government for treating the long-awaited reforms \u201clike a coin toss\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo they really care about protecting Australians and our environment from climate change, or is it all just politics?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Under his offer to the Greens, Watt had offered several changes to address the party\u2019s concern that coal and gas projects could be fast-tracked under the revamped EPBC Act.<\/p>\n

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In one concession, the government was prepared to limit a new \u201cstreamline assessment\u201d process to restrict fossil fuel projects.<\/p>\n

Labor was also prepared to reverse a controversial decision to hand the so-called \u201cwater trigger\u201d back to the states, and ensure the commonwealth minister retained the ability to approve projects even under agreements that devolve decision-making powers to the states.<\/p>\n

As revealed on Saturday, coal and gas projects would also be excluded from a special \u201cnational interest\u201d exemption if the Greens agreed to support the legislation.<\/p>\n

After discussing the concessions at a party-room meeting on Tuesday morning, Guardian Australia understands the Greens were still not satisfied with the laws.<\/p>\n

The list of written amendments did not include the government\u2019s offer to subject native forest logging to national environmental standards within three years, as negotiations continued on that provision.<\/p>\n

The Greens environment spokesperson, Sarah Hanson-Young, said the three-year timeframe was \u201cthree years too long\u201d.<\/p>\n

Watt \u2013 who held further talks with Hanson-Young on Tuesday \u2013 is open to a shorter timeframe but wouldn\u2019t speculate on how fast the government was prepared to move.<\/p>\n

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, spoke with Watt on Tuesday morning and is expected to become more actively involved in the final stages of negotiations.<\/p>\n

Watt presented a separate set of concessions to the Coalition on Tuesday morning, which included imposing a 14-day time limit on \u201cstop-work orders\u201d and clarification that the maximum fines for breaches of nature laws \u2013 which are set at $1.6m for individuals and $825m<\/a> for businesses \u2013 would only apply in the \u201cmost serious and egregious cases\u201d.<\/p>\n

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The latest offer did not include changes to \u201cunacceptable impact\u201d \u2013 a new definition that would, if met, result in an application being immediately refused.<\/p>\n

Clarifying that definition has been a key demand for the Coalition and industry groups, which claim it would set too low a bar to kibosh a project.<\/p>\n

Legal and scientific experts have the opposite view, fearing the provision would not properly protect the most at-risk species and ecosystems.<\/p>\n

Liberal sources confirmed the shadow environment minister, Angie Bell, told the Coalition\u2019s joint party-room meeting on Tuesday morning that failing to revise the definition was a \u201cdeal-breaker\u201d for the opposition.<\/p>\n

Guardian Australia understands Watt remains open to reworking the \u201cunacceptable impact\u201d definition as well as the proposed new \u201cnet gain\u201d test, which is supposed to force developers to make up for damage and deliver an overall benefit for the environment.<\/p>\n

The opposition leader, Sussan Ley, said the concessions offered on Tuesday morning were \u201ctotally insufficient\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ley said the fact that Watt was simultaneously negotiating with the Coalition and the Greens showed that his main motivation was a \u201cpolitical fix\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, we have an environment minister with two sets of amendments, one in each hand. They\u2019re radically different, these amendments,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s saying to the Coalition, make a deal with me. He\u2019s saying to the Greens, make a deal with me. What does that tell you? What that tells you is this is a minister in search of a political fix, not in search of the legislative reform we need to bring investment, to back-in communities and jobs and to build the energy future that this country deserves.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fate of Labor\u2019s nature laws hangs in the balance after new concessions to the Coalition and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-307934","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}