The architect of Australia’s new environment laws says the Albanese government acted with “remarkable agility” to get them through.
Speaking on ABC Radio National, Monash University professor Graeme Samuel – who led the review of the country’s environment laws – said it has been “six years of a rollercoaster ride” since he began the review in October 2019.
Minister for the Environment and Water Murray Watt and Senator David Pocock in discussion in the Senate yesterday. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
He was disappointed after Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, who was then-environment minister, embraced the review, only to be “put into a straightjacket as to what she could do in response” to it, said Samuel, the former chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
“Thus, we saw nothing of any substance,” he said.
“We moved then into the election of the Albanese government, and Tanya Plibersek, with an enormous degree of commitment, tried so hard to bring about the implementation of the review, but that failed. It just didn’t work.
“Now we’ve had Minister Murray Watt, who has proceeded with remarkable agility to bring about the reforms that we saw approved by the Senate last evening.
“I was sitting in the Senate, and look, it was just extraordinary.”
Watt’s answers to questions about the legislation showed his “remarkable knowledge”, Samuel said.
The environment minister, in confirming the government struck a deal with the Greens yesterday to pass the reforms, said they “deliver faithfully on the recommendations of Professor Samuel’s report five long years ago”.
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