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<\/p>\nCome dance with me! That was Environment Minister Murray Watt\u2019s invitation to the opposition as he prepared to push through his reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. <\/p>\n
Yes, get up and dance! That was business\u2019s clear message to the Coalition. But it wouldn\u2019t, or couldn\u2019t agree with the government on mutually acceptable steps. The Greens could, and did. They won concessions on native forest logging and land clearing, and the exclusion of fossil fuel projects from the fast track approval process.<\/p>\n
Finally, after more than five years, the EPBC job was done.<\/p>\n
Watt always said he was open to dealing with either the Coalition or the Greens. The opposition is making all sorts of excuses, including that the legislation was rushed, but the bottom line is the Liberals failed an important test. It is the more galling because Ley, as environment minister, commissioned the independent review from Graeme Samuel that reported in 2020, on which this legislation is based. <\/p>\n
The argument that the detailed legislation should have been held over until next year may appear superficially attractive but is flawed. The issue has dragged on for too long and more delay would only have invited slippage. <\/p>\n
The government said the opposition was a shambles in its negotiations, including adding new demands as late as Wednesday. Among the Coalition negotiators Jonno Duniam, manager of opposition business in the Senate, seemed, according to Labor sources, the keenest to get a deal. <\/p>\n
A week ago Duniam had certainly been confident there would be a Coalition-government agreement. Duniam was brought into the discussions in the last couple of weeks to support Angie Bell, the shadow environment minister. A Tasmanian from the conservative wing of the Liberals, Duniam is home affairs spokesman, but was previously shadow environment minister. In the Morrison government, he was assistant minister for forestry and fisheries, working under then-agriculture minister, Nationals leader David Littleproud. He was popular in the Littleproud office. \u201cHe did the shit Littleproud didn\u2019t want to do,\u201d says one observer from the time. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Shadow Minister for Home Affairs Jonathon Duniam, Shadow Minister for Resources Susan McDonald, Shadow Minister for the Environment Angie Bell and Leader of the Opposition Sussan Ley at a press conference at Parliament House November 27, 2025.
\n Mick Tsikas\/AAP<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just business that would have preferred the deal to be with the Coalition. Western Australian Labor premier Roger Cook said on Thursday: <\/p>\n
there has been a missed opportunity here and that missed opportunity was to do an agreement with the Liberal Party to make sure the legislation perhaps had further reflected the concerns about industry.<\/p>\n
Samuel said after the decision that the Coalition had \u201cdealt themselves into irrelevancy, following five years of obfuscation, obstruction and contradiction\u201d. He said if business had problems with the legislation it should not complain to the government or the Greens, but to the opposition. <\/p>\n
The reform is a major win for a government whose critics on the left are calling for it to be more reformist (although it doesn\u2019t satisfy those who are hardline on fossil fuels). It should significantly speed up decisions for development projects as well as provide better environmental protection. It\u2019s an impressive achievement personally for Watt, a pragmatic Queenslander from the left, who is one of the government\u2019s best performing ministers. <\/p>\n
Watt set out his determination to secure the legislation this final sitting week of 2025, consulted widely, negotiated endlessly, and was relatively transparent. He worked closely with the prime minister, who came into the negotiations in the closing stages to ensure a deal could be landed that was acceptable to stakeholders and deliverable quickly through the Senate.<\/p>\n
While Watt could bask in his success, two colleagues, Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Climate and Energy Minister, Chris Bowen have ended the parliamentary year under substantial pressure. <\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen (left) and Treasurer Jim Chalmers (right) are seen at a press conference at the Ampol Lytton Refinery in Brisbane. 2025.
\n Darren England\/AAP<\/p>\n
As Chalmers prepares the budget update, released mid next month, this week\u2019s uptick in inflation, to 3.8% over the year to October, not only underscores that home buyers won\u2019t be getting any interest rate fall in the foreseeable future, but suggests the next rate move could possibly be up rather than down. <\/p>\n
Chalmers is struggling to contain government spending for the next budget. That will hit the public service \u2013 which has just been told to find savings \u2013 but also likely other areas. Spending in general is running too high, and the early days of the term are when hard decisions need to be taken. Adding to Chalmers\u2019 difficulties are calls for the mid-year update to extend relief on power bills, given the high energy costs. Chalmers says a decision has yet to be made. <\/p>\n
In coming months Bowen will feel the political heat as much as Chalmers. The opposition targeted him in parliament, after the Australian government\u2019s compromise deal with Turkey over next year\u2019s United Nations climate conference (COP) which will see Bowen (as a consolation prize) in charge of negotiations. <\/p>\n
The opposition is dubbing him the \u201cpart time\u201d energy minister; Bowen insists the COP role can be readily fitted with his ministerial job. He was anxious to point out that most recent COP negotiators had had full ministerial positions as well. Within the government, there is a wait-and-see attitude on how the dual role will go for Bowen, who has his critics in Labor. Although the overload is seriously questionable \u2013 given the troubles in the energy transition and the political problem of power prices \u2013 the government can argue it is only for a year. <\/p>\n
As the parliament wound down, a ceremony was held for the unveiling of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull\u2019s official portrait, with guests including former Liberal ministers Julie Bishop, George Brandis and Christopher Pyne. Unsurprisingly, Turnbull had some acerbic comments about the opposition\u2019s performance on the environment bill, telling reporters, \u201cthe Coalition could have played an active role, but they chose not to. [\u2026] what few supporters they have left in the business community will just be horrified\u201d. Ley dashed in for the obligatory handshake with the man in whose ministry she served, and then resigned from over a travel claim issue. <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/file-20251127-56-l18ym4.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull shakes hands with Opposition leader Sussan Ley during the unveiling of his official portrait at an event at Parliament House.
\n Lukas Coch\/AAP<\/p>\n
It was (of course) Barnaby Joyce who put on the show of the day, with his announcement to the parliament of his formal departure from the Nationals. Seeking relevance, the maverick is considered to be on his way to One Nation, although he is taking the slow train, and will for the moment be an independent. <\/p>\n
Joyce, the smell of power in his nostrils, is likely to run as a One Nation candidate for the Senate. There, he said, they\u2019d \u201chave to come to me on each piece of legislation and say \u2018what are your views?\u2018 I\u2019ve done the Senate before \u2013 eight years, seven months and a day. I know that I know the job.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Come dance with me! That was Environment Minister Murray Watt\u2019s invitation to the opposition as he prepared to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-312792","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\/312792","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=312792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}