The government’s contentious environmental reforms will pass the Senate this week before parliament rises for the summer break as negotiations with the Greens and the Coalition continue, Environment Minister Murray Watt has said.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that the parliament will be passing these much needed reforms to our national environment laws, and it’ll happen this week. The only question now is whether it will happen with the support of the Coalition or the Greens,” Watt told the ABC this morning.
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“Both the Coalition and the Greens have got a really important choice to make about whether they want to be part of reforming these laws in a way that strengthens our environmental protections while also speeding up the approval processes for things like housing and renewables, or whether they want to sit on the sidelines and see the other one run past them. This is going to happen this week,” he said.
Labor needs the support of either the Coalition or the Greens to pass the bill through the Senate, and has offered both parties concessions on the bill. The Greens have been offered alterations to native forest logging and the approvals of coal and gas projects. The Coalition has been offered amendments to limit environment protection “stop work” orders and requirements on the federal EPA to provide more evidence to justify them.
“The Coalition want more changes made to support business. The Greens want more changes made to support the environment. And you will remember what I’ve always said through this process is that we need to have a balanced package that delivers wins for both the environment and for business. It’s not one or the other. We need to get both,” Watt said.
“We believe that the package that we introduced and have now passed through the House of Representatives does provide that balanced package. So in the end, I suspect that we’ll end up going with whichever of those two parties is more prepared to come closer to the package that we’ve already passed through the House of Reps.”
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