I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven am. Environmental law reform has been sitting in the two hard basket for years under successive government's assistem stayed broken. Now at the end of the parliamentary year, Labour has passed the first major changes in a generation. The government chose to work with the Greens, agreeing to scrape logging exemptions, closed
colon gas loopholes and hand reinforcement powers to a new EPA. Meanwhile, the coalition fractured over the details, dealing themselves, added negotiations and add of relevance. Today Press Gallery veterrian Paul bon Jorno on how Labour landed a landmark deal and what it means for the future of environmental policy. It's Saturday, November twenty nine.
I've been working pretty hard to convince the government that we need to have more protections in this bill because as it is, it actually is a step backwards and rather than protecting our native forests protecting our climate, it's all about fast tracking projects.
Paul.
At the start of the week, Green's environment spokesperson Sarah Hansey Young was saying that Labour's new environment laws were actually a step backwards from what we already have. So what's changed since then.
What's changed since then is an enormous amount of twisting Rgi Bajie and negotiation, which was informed in a very big way by the realization from Alberonizi that it was now or never in the sense that labor couldn't afford another failure at trying to sort out a way forward with environmental reform, which was long adue, and there was a realization that all sides in this debate had pretty well fixed positions, but surely they could come to some
sort of accommodation, and the only way to get that accommodation was to have a deadline that had to be met.
It's been five years now since Professor Graham Samuel delivered his blueprint for reform of these laws to Susan Lee when she was the Environment Minister. It's how long this has been going on. What he found was that our environment laws are failing the environment, they're failing business, they're failing the community, and it's time we got this done. It's really a question about whether it's with the Coalition or the Greens and Paul.
So the government didn't deal with the Greens. What was it that the Greens got out of that deal.
Well, the Greens say that, and they put this at the top of their list of what they got out of it, and that was ending decades long exemptions for forestry destruction. Now the government wanted to phase out the unrestricted logging in native forests over three years now a more realistic timetable according to what was eighteen months, in other words, halving the time. And the Greens agreed that this was a hell of a lot better, so they
put that top of their list. Then removing the ability for coal and gas projects to use fast track approvals. There can still be new coalon gas projects, I mean this is part of the compromise. But under the old system, colon gas projects could be carved out they were so in the national interest that they didn't have to face the same scrutiny as other projects. Well, that fast track
has now gone. And then the powers to stop illegal land clearing, that is, giving this new independent EPA the ability to issue stop orders and to have heavy multimillion dollar fines if these orders are ignored, and very importantly saving the water Trigger. Now, the water trigger is a federal law that evaluates new gas or coal projects for
the impact they have on the water table. Well, that water trigger has been saved, and it's federal law, overriding anything states might agree to and ensuring that the federal minister can always step in in other words, to save the environment, giving the federal minister a specific role. So these are very significant concessions that the Greens won and explain why they copped some of the other things that they weren't so happy about.
And the government keeps saying that this is good for business and good for the environment. What are the changes that are meant to reassure business, especially around how quickly decisions can now be made around the environment.
Well, two things to say about that. The first thing is that business is disappointed that the coalition was unable
to push for more in its regard. However, business was able to get access to Albernisi naturally and it had what Alberanzi says was two key claims, and those claims went to a streamlining of the assessment pathway so that new projects, whether they be you know, mining as I was saying before, or other things including things like for example, housing developments wouldn't spend literally years being assessed at the state and federal level, So Alberanizi said, we've met that
concern from business. The other thing too was the overlap between the states and the federal government in assessing projects. That with the agreement of the states, new projects will only have to face one scrutiny, but the scrutinis will be in harmony. In other words, state and federal laws and regulations will be in harmony. And the other point too was what they call regional planning or no go zones.
It'll be pretty clear. For example, say someone wants a project to mine on the barrier if I mean, this is a silly example, but it just makes the point. Well, already the regulations will say sorry, don't even bother to put in an application, So that would save years to come up with the same rejection. So business did get
these what Alberanzi described as core concessions. They maybe wanted more, but the Greens insisted and the government agreed in the end that anyone who breaks these new environmental laws should suffer substantial fines, and those substantial finds are now in the law.
We know the Greens got very close to a deal with Dania Plitisek last term. They've now reached one with Murray Watt. So how different are the deals.
That's a very good question and I look pretty closely at it and there are what you'd say minor differences and tweaking the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency and the
role it would play under the Plibusec Greens agreement. Well, it put the wind up the miners, particularly in WA, and I would say the critical difference was timing that agreement was ahead of the West Australian state election and not all that far ahead of the looming federal election, and Albanesi, true to form, didn't want to scare the horses if he could avoid it. The other difference, I think was that Albanesi, with what was able to set
up a better way of approaching negotiations and consultation. And it's to be noted that what he actually set up a core group of advisors which encompassed business conservation groups, environment groups and state leaders and he beat a path to Western Australia in many ways what ran what he was doing past the West Australian Premier Cook on about
six occasions. So this was keeping as many people in the tent as possible, even against a tight deadline, to make sure that while people might have had quibbles, they might have had concerns, none of these concerns would be big enough to sink the whole project.
Coming up. While the Greens copped the deal, they say is still short of what the climate needs. Paul, the government had been talking to both the Coalition and the Greens to get the numbers to pass this through the Senate. Ultimately they went with the Greens in the end, but there was a point where things could have gone either way. How would you describe the coalition's negotiating position, what was going on inside the opposite during talks around this legislation.
They simply have no way of resolving conflicts in a way that accommodates more moderate positions, more accommodating positions, if
you like, than hard line positions. So it was clear that even though Susan Lee was the Environment Minister at the time that asked Graham Samuel to review what she saw clearly were broken laws, this time, to keep not only her leadership but to keep the coalition together, she had to cave all the time to the Nationals and to the hard line right wingers in the Liberal Party.
Susan Lee says, you have not done a good job negotiating. Sorry, that's the second time I've been asked that on air today, and both times I've laughed. I mean, I don't think anyone takes criticism from Susan Lee seriously about how she conducts or how people should conduct their affairs.
Murray, what out of stration earlier in the week, pointed out that he didn't know who he was dealing with half the time. Shambles is probably too kind a word to use.
You know, each time I have a meeting with each of these people, they say they've got their final list of demands and meet with someone else and they've got other demands. So but you know, we worked through that and as I say, we've engaged in good faith with both the coalition and the Greens.
Now, Anthony Alberanizi even said after the deal with the Greens came through that they were still trying to negotiate with the opposition. As late as Wednesday, Albernizi said he put out an invitation to meet with Lee and she
didn't take it up. Now, she denies that she got any any such invitation but the point was, I think that there was a lot of nervousness on all sides here, and the government maintains that it wanted to keep negotiating if it could with the opposition in case the deal with the Greens fell over.
Okay, So the government decided to go with the Greens, and the Greens actually managed to forget some winds on forestry and on ensuring that the Environment Minister can always step in on decisions. But it's much less than they wanted and what they were asking for. So why do you think the Green said yes, Paul.
I think the realization was there, and this is part of the genius of Albanese was that before this term of parliament was up, there would be reforms, much needed reforms to the EPBC Act, and that this was their best chance to influence the Act in a way that would be more satisfactory to the environment and to their constituency, which, by the way, the Greens constituency isn't only if you like Green voters, but it's teal voters and it's a substantial number of new labor MPs from the left.
And so in the wake of all this, and on Thursday, the Climate change Minster. Chris Bowen revealed that Australia is projected to badly miss his twenty thirty five admissions targets. So how has the government defended that sage news.
Yeah, well the government itself announced it, which it actually has to come clean under legislation, and it was Bowen's own department that made this assessment.
The emissions projection show that additional work will be needed to get to the twenty thirty five target. The twenty thirty five target is ambitious and achievable, but it is not yet being achieved.
So they'll come within a cat's whisker of making the target for twenty thirty and miss it by a country mile for twenty thirty five. The Coalition jumped on this and said, well, this just shows we've got targets that we're never going to reach and in trying to do so, we're just going to push up the price of energy.
Whereas what Bowen says is it shows that we need to try harder and to do more, and he counters the energy cost argument saying we do know that if we get the transition to renewables faster, even though the short term cost may be higher, the end result will be much more affordable and indeed dependable energy.
So whether it's harnessing free solo or encouraging more people to be part of the energy market with their batteries, bill stay lower for everyone and our gried becomes fairer, all while doing our bit for the planet.
That's an argument that's going to play out right up until the next election and beyond. There is no doubt and this is the view of the CSI or and others that these targets can be met technically. It's the political will and the ability to do the sorts of
things that will achieve them. And one little point I note that the Shadow treasure a Ted O'Brien was at the National Press Club this week and he was getting stuck into the government over spend and he was asked in an interview, will give us an example of the sort of spending cuts you'd bring in and he said, oh, tax concessions for electric vehicles would be wiped.
Let me give you one example of what I think is a really poor budget measure, and that is a fringe benefits tax carve out for electric vehicles under they planned today, which is costing them thirteen times more than what they had done.
So that gives you a bit of an inkling into the attitude of the coalition that any serious attempt to bring emissions down by using tax concessions and other incentives would be ditched. So any hope if there's a change of government of getting anywhere near the sort of targets that the science demands would literally go up in smoke.
Now, a lot of pundits ruled out this reform getting through by the end of the year, but Murray Watt has ultimately defied the odds and made it happen just at the end of the parliamentary sitting year. How big a win is this for the government?
Well, look, I've got to say it's a very big win for the government, but I also have to say it's a very big win for the environment. The fact that this message was able to drive the politics is
well heartening. Frankly, I think it shows that those critics of Albanesi for not being ambitious enough maybe will be given pause for thought that you don't have to be as flamboyant and as brilliant as a Gough Whitlam to achieve significant reform, because make no mistake Daniel, this is the most significant environment reform we've seen in more than thirty years.
Paul, always a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you for your time.
Thank you, Daniel. Bie.
Seven AM as a daily show from Solstice Media. It's made by Addik Basto, Ariel Richards, Chris Dgate, Ruby Jones, Sarah McPhee, Travis Evans, Zultanfacho and me Daniel James. Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Bordio. Thanks for listening, Have a great weekend.