{"id":92578,"date":"2025-10-23T05:32:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T05:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/92578\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T05:32:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T05:32:07","slug":"labors-environment-law-revamp-in-jeopardy-as-coalition-dubs-it-handbrake-on-investment-australian-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/92578\/","title":{"rendered":"Labor\u2019s environment law revamp in jeopardy as Coalition dubs it \u2018handbrake\u2019 on investment | Australian politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Albanese government\u2019s second attempt at rewriting federal environmental protection laws<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

The opposition leader, Sussan Ley<\/a>, claimed the nature laws were a \u201cred light\u201d for jobs and a \u201chandbrake\u201d for investment, warning the Coalition would need far more convincing before agreeing to support the plan.<\/p>\n

Ley\u2019s sharp criticisms mark a significant shift for the opposition, which had appeared open to a deal after a series of \u201cpositive\u201d meetings in recent weeks between the environment minister, Murray Watt, and his Liberal counterpart, Angie Bell.<\/p>\n

Labor was hopeful the Coalition<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

The Greens separately accused Watt of drafting pro-business laws<\/a> that were worse for the environment than the existing ones, signalling it was unlikely to support the legislation without major concessions.<\/p>\n

The separate attacks were a blow to Watt\u2019s hopes of passing the laws before Christmas and raised the prospect that another planned overhaul the Environment Protection Biodiversity Conservation<\/a> (EPBC) Act could collapse for the second time in 12 months.<\/p>\n

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The previous iteration, dubbed \u201cnature positive\u201d and overseen by Tanya Plibersek, was shelved by Anthony Albanese<\/a> to quell a pre-election backlash in Western Australia.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

But it would not force decision-makers to consider the climate impacts, meaning projects such as Woodside\u2019s North-West Shelf extension could still be approved under the new regime.<\/p>\n

Omitting a \u201cclimate trigger\u201d, however, has not been enough to win over Ley, who claimed \u201canything around climate policy\u201d never belonged in federal environment law.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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The opposition\u2019s leaders public comments echoed the private concerns of industry lobbyists about the implications of a proposed new definition for \u201cunacceptable impacts\u201d on the environment, which, if met, would result in a project being immediately refused.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is clear is that these laws are a gift to our overseas competitors,\u201d Ley said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re a red-light to jobs, and they\u2019re a handbrake to investment and development, the sort of investment and development this country has always needed and always relied on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier on Thursday, the Nationals\u2019 deputy leader, Kevin Hogan, said the proposed emissions reporting rules was just \u201cone of the issues we have\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo 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,\u201d he told Sky News.<\/p>\n

More details soon \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Albanese government\u2019s second attempt at rewriting federal environmental protection laws is in jeopardy after the Coalition joined…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-92578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}